Gated Villages and Natural Hazards in Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Abstract: Santiago’s urbanization process has directly impacted the environmental balance of natural and urban spaces, mainly increasing built impervious surfaces, such as homes roof, roads, parking lots, etc., that have greatly changed the circulation of rain water in the city. In the Macul basin, a representative Andean piedmont basin, these impacts have been caused by the installation of gated condominiums where live mostly people of high socioeconomic level, increasing runoff that eventually reaches lower areas of the basin, where mainly live people of lower socioeconomic level, increasing their exposure to flooding and logging and creating a lack of environmental justice and demanding compensation measurements.