Abstract

GARCIA BENITEZ, Marcelino; ADAME MARTINEZ, Salvador  and  ALVARADO GRANADOS, Alejandro. Urbanization and impact of tropical cyclones in Progreso de Castro city, Yucatán. Nova scientia [online]. 2017, vol.9, n.19, pp.819-849. ISSN 2007-0705.  https://doi.org/10.21640/ns.v9i19.1133.

In Mexico, coastal cities are more vulnerable due to exposure to tropical cyclones, partly because of local environmental conditions that have an impact on the development of urbanization. But the lack of space for the city has caused the increase in the pressure of the natural ecosystems, which influences the deterioration and instability of the subsoil and contamination of the mangrove area.

The city of Progreso de Castro is the largest urban center and population center on the Yucatan coast, its proximity to the city of Mérida implies an urban and socioeconomic relationship of great importance in the state system of cities. Among its infrastructure there is a high port that is used by the cargo and tourist boats that arrive to this region, as well as a mangrove area between the city and the continental zone that serves to shelter the boats in alert case of approaching a cyclonic phenomenon in the region.

Tropical cyclones have a latent presence in the city, although they do not show a trajectory in the city center annually. They are the effects of their spiral structure, intensity and speed of movement that affect the probability of causing damage of disaster to the inhabitants and their infrastructure, cyclonic phenomena are expected to become more intense due to the effects of climate change in the future. The objective of this paper is to study the vulnerability due to exposure to geographic scale of electoral sections and the relation of the trajectories of the tropical cyclones to four ranges from 1880 to 2015 in the interior of the city of Progreso of Castro.

The results are related to the construction of the urban vulnerability index by exposure to tropical cyclones applied by means of five indicators, in which the degree of intra-urban vulnerability generated by the exposure in the city of Progreso de Castro is described of electoral sections grouped into four zones, for their interpretation with the periods of growth of the urban structure and the crossing of tropical cyclone trajectories.

Keywords : urbanization; urban vulnerability; tropical cyclones; electoral sections; city of Progreso de Castro, Yucatan.

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