INTRODUCTION

Quilmes is a city of 580,000 inhabitants within Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA). Buenos Aires is the capital city of Argentina, located in the northeastern coast of the country, and one of the largest cities in the world, with a total population of around 15,600,000 people.

Rivers and its associate communities are at the frontline of climate impacts. Extreme weather conditions, rising sea levels, droughts and river floods are immense challenges to urban resilience worldwide, especially in the vulnerable settlements of the Global South, of which Quilmes is a paradigmatic case. The city suffers repeating floods in three ways, often combined. Floods due to the sudestada (water level surge from the Rio de la Plata estuary) cover the lower parts of the city, by or close to the waterfront. Heavy rains affect severely the vulnerable population along the arroyos (the two rivers crisscrossing the city) and the lower areas with insufficient drainage and affected by the blockage of the coastal highway. The worst case is the combination of both, with flooding coming from high grounds and from the Rio de la Plata itself, making impossible the urban drainage. Besides floods, lack of public space and basic infrastructures (sewage and trash accumulation) are important factors in the inequality of the city. At the same time, very powerful real estate development agents are expecting to develop the waterfront without social and ecological considerations, with the risk of privatizing the coastline with high end, segregated communities.

The Plan aims to help construct an innovative vision for the city combining urban development with ecological and social dynamics, most especially related to water. The various layers that compose the city of Quilmes are analyzed and mapped in order to understand the current state of the city and its evolution throughout the past century, and to diagnose its potentials and its shortcomings.

While currently there is a clear conflict between water and citizens, a new approach can transform this relation in a positive and unique one. Instead of a polluted sewer, constantly threatening of floods, the water courses have the potential of becoming a new socioecological structure attending the hydraulic and environmental needs of the city.

The riparian ecosystem of La Plata River needs to be recovered and integrated in the city through both a natural park and an urban park in the floodplain. The unique sudestada floods are seen as an opportunity rather than a threat. Water becomes the structural system for public space and the city. Through the naturalization of the water courses and the opening of a new river, natural drain continuity is guaranteed and new room for water storage and runoff is given.

The objective of this Plan is to expose a complete vision of the current situation of Quilmes and to define a strategic vision for the present and future development of the city in which water has a main role in the reformulation of the city and its urban ecologies. The city of Quilmes serves as a case study for many cities confronting similar challenges all over Argentina as well as in other Latin American countries. The Plan is approached from a holistic perspective, through the collaboration of academic researchers and professionals with local teams and municipal organizations and authorities.