Extreme Events Institute

As result of globalisation, cities such as Cairo, Berlin or Bilbao in Spain become hubs of global circulation of goods, people, money, capital and commodities. In order to support this accelerated circulation, cities tend to experience a reconfiguration and re-scaling of their localterritorial organisations and environments, in other words, a reterritorialisation of their economies and urban spaces. In theoretical terms, reterritorialisation is "intrinsically" connected to cities where globalisation unfolds. However, due to the global scope of the process, frameworks for its exploration have been essentially theoretical. In this regard, one problem has been to find empirical data for supporting or contradicting the theoretical description, and hence provide more accurate information on how cities are being reconfigured by globalisation, specially in mobility and infrastructural terms and their linkages with environmental changes. Thus, this study provides empirical data, which support the fact that reterritorialisation imply the construction of key transport and communication infrastructures for urban-regional integration, such as underground, highways, ports, airports and railways. Likewise, these infrastructures enable the re-scaling of urban economies and spaces such as industrial services and urbanregional areas respectively. On this basis, the case study of Bilbao is explored as a unit of analysis which reveals, while confirming several theoretical elements, that in spite of supranational agencies or international capital do not play a significant role in urban development for global integration, infrastructure for transport and communications can play a crucial role to achieve it and provide a solid base for re-scaling of urban spaces and economy.

Actualmente, el mercado laboral de los investigadores nacionales con doctorado es muy reducido. Un 90% de ellos trabaja en la academia. Al considerar que se espera que en menos de una década Chile duplique la cantidad de doctores, muchos becarios tienen dudas sobre la capacidad del mercado del país para absorber, de forma repentina, el importante incremento de profesionales altamente calificados.
Uno de los datos más relevantes, que arrojó la encuesta, es que la mitad de los 178 participantes manifestó haber tenido la oportunidad de quedarse a trabajar en el país donde cursa su especialización.

A panel of Chilean and international researchers discussed the reasons behind the apparently well-performance of the Chilean society and their institutions in recent disasters (organized by the Chilean Society from University College London Union).

The growth of informal settlements is a major concern in many cities of the Global South. Therefore, one of urban planning’s biggest challenges is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the complex characteristics of informal growth and livelihoods in informal areas in order to develop integrated and sustainable solutions. In this regard, the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region is an extreme case. Almost half of the built-up area is estimated to be informal. Providing shelter for the growing urban population, informal areas have grown for decades as a consequence of the chronic lack of affordable housing. At the same time, informal areas in Greater Cairo demonstrate complex problems: e.g. loss of valuable agricultural land, illegal tenure, unsafe building conditions, poverty and a lack of public infrastructure and services. However, it is important to recognise that informal areas also provide valuable livelihoods for their residents as an essential basis for income generation, social networks and community life.

En sus principios el diseño, tal como lo conocemos hoy en día, se encontraba rodeado de un entorno de post-guerra, en donde los efectos de la revolución industrial, entre otras cosas, enfrenaba a las fábricas en una competencia de producción. En estos tiempos no existían institutos tecnológicos debidamente establecidos y masificados como en la actualidad, por lo que muchos de los avances, tal como sigue sucediendo en la actualidad, eran impulsados por la misma industria. La diferencia de ese entonces, es que éstos impulsos, que se manifestaban en avances tecnológicos, no se realizaban en centros especializados, sino que eran las mismas entidades la que desarrollaban conocimientos. Es cierto que para ésta época las universidades ya eran un cuento viejo, pero es precisamente en ésta etapa en el que el diseño comienza a institucionalizarse debido a la necesidad urgente de perfeccionar áreas que marcaban la diferencia en el mercado.

This essay aims to sketch out an overview of the recent urban risk approaches on Santiago de Chile. In this regards, this work seeks to explore first a) what hazard and vulnerability variables have been considered by researchers in order to approach risk assessments on Santiago de Chile? and secondly, b) according to results form the question above, what of those variables have been received more attention by researchers?

El presente trabajo tiene como propósito explicar la progresión y producción de la vulnerabilidad, el riesgo y los desastres como construcciones sociales a través de la exploración de diferentes factores socio-económicos y políticos involucrados, a diferentes escalas, en el caso de una erupción volcánica registrada el año 2008 en la localidad de Chaitén, emplazada al sur de Chile. Se reconocen las diferentes fuerzas y procesos socio-económicos y políticos que determinan situaciones de riesgo y desastres.

The fourth EUGEO Congress took place in Rome, Italy, 5-7 September 2013, at the University of Rome La Sapienza and at the Società Geografica Italiana, where thousands of geographers and researchers from all different fields of study attended and participated in more than 500 presentations.

Los grandes cataclismos capturan nuestras fantasías y temores al dejar en evidencia lo vulnerables que somos. Pero hay cientos de pequeñas amenazas cotidianas con las que nos hemos acostumbrado a vivir, que provocan más muertos y más daño que las mega-tragedias naturales explotadas por el cine y la TV. En esta interesante columna, Vicente Sandoval, candidato a doctor en Planificación del Desarrollo, muestra además, que en la raíz de los desastres -grandes y cotidianos- no hay sólo fuerzas naturales incontrolables frente a las cuales somos impotentes, sino políticas públicas que se hacen o se dejan de hacer, que asisten a los ciudadanos o los dejan desprotegidos. Así lo muestra la ciudad de Chaité, evacuada por la erupción de un volcán; y los muertos por problemas cardiovasculares en Temuco.

Chile es un país que históricamente ha sufrido de amenazas naturales, como son las erupciones volcánicas, terremotos, deslizamientos de tierra, inundaciones y sequías, entre muchas otras, las cuales de alguna u otra forma han desencadenado los llamados desastres “naturales”.

This essay emerges as personal outcome from the reflections and insights during the DAAD Alumni Summer School 2013 “Coping with Disasters and Climate Extremes” held in Cologne and Bonn, Germany. Both the combination of international experts during the summer school and the progress of my own PhD’s dissertation encouraged me to develop this essay.
In practical terms, this essay aims to analyse different discourses on scale in order to use them as lens to interpret the social production and reproduction of risk within and through different geographical scales.
In order to tackle this issue, this essay explores general implications involved in the aftermath of two disasters in Chile: the Chaitén volcano eruption in 2008 and the Maule earthquake in February 2010. In this regards, this essay questions: what possible linkages emerge between the discourse on the social production of risk and the question of scale?

This paper discusses single-scale studies on disaster risk and vulnerability – i.e. urban risk and physical vulnerability – by formulating the progression of vulnerability proposed in the Pressure and Release Model (PAR) as a multi-scalar phenomenon. Disaster and vulnerability studies are often conceived within single-scale units, self-enclosed and delimited into specific spatial foci – urban studies, regional studies – hence, studies tend to neglect the geographical complexity of socio-economic and political processes involved in the production of vulnerability and risk at multiple scales. Attempts for integrating multi-scalar factors and processes – such as the effects of policies or institutional forms – into risk and vulnerability studies are rare, possibly due to the aforementioned complexities. Nevertheless, the implication of macro-processes – e.g. economic models or political regimes – on the causation of disasters is hardly questioned. So, this paper employs recent findings on studies of scale in order to better understand vulnerability as a process produced throughout varied scales. The case of Chaiten, a remote Volcano eruption’s disaster in southern Chile in 2008, is devised in order to illustrate how specific multi-scalar processes, such as institutional forms for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Disaster Risk Management (DRM), are unfolded from major to minor geographical scales. The actions and inactions of national, regional and local officials, as related to DRR and DRM during 2008 and 2013, have largely contributed to the current situation of Chaiten. The unforeseen effects of policies that are unjustly distributed and the population’s uneven exposure to hazards have split the city in two. In summary, this paper seeks to discuss that although hazards, vulnerability and risk are often evident at minor geographical scales – e.g. physical vulnerability, hazard mapping – the causation of disaster and risk production should no be longer considered as single-scale phenomenon, but rather as multi-scalar.