The disorderly growth of the city has meant that there are fewer and fewer impervious points, which, in turn, has caused the flood points to grow in two years.
In 2019, Luis Valdivia Ornelas, research professor at the Department of Geography and Territorial Reorganization at the University of Guadalajara (UdeG), pointed out that there were 350 points susceptible to flooding, which at that time had already grown in a year. However, this Thursday he reported that the points add up to 500.
“The combination of storms of strong hourly intensity (more than 15 mm/h), with high values of impermeable surfaces, and severely transformed hydrographic systems (confined, segmented or missing channels), as well as artificial networks (collectors and scuppers) with capacities under-driving, or operating poorly, have caused the frequency of floods to skyrocket and increase the danger in the last decade”, he explained.
“The city grows and more impervious surfaces, riverbeds disappear and sewer and drainage networks are 40-50 years old and deficient. The strategy must be changed in order to recover the water cycle. Having larger and deeper collectors is not going to help, we have to recover the hydraulic conditions of the riverbeds, there must be control of the urbanizations in the upper parts of the micro-basins”, he pointed out.
In addition, Valdivia pointed out that in the last three years there have been, on average, 70 annual floods, for which several actions are necessary: Recover and restore the hydraulic conditions of the channels, which includes the regulation of runoff by controlling runoff in the upper part of the micro-basins; the regulation of runoff through a detention tank and the implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems.
The latter, he said, as an attitude of projection as it cannot solve the problem in the short or medium term.
Canal de Las Pintas at risk of flooding homes
Although in Santa Anita the floods have already been present in previous years, the researcher stressed that it will be accentuated by urbanizationsince 60% of it is built and “the problem is going to be from the canals that go from Santa Anita to San Agustín, in an area called La Laguna, which is problematic, since it is a low area with a high population density. and even the Canal de Las Pintas”, said the researcher.
This channel, in turn, does not have the characteristics to dislodge storm water, so its edges can easily be broken and the houses are on its banks until it flows into the Las Pintas neighborhood.
The Tesistan area on the road to San Cristóbal is another of the points where the flooding problems that were not there are already beginning to manifest.
In addition to the Tonalá area and towards Zapotlanejo, where there is more and more growth.
GC
