Abstract

SAYAGO, José M; COLLANTES, Mirian M; NEDER, Liliana del V  and  BUSNELLI, José. Climate change and environmental hazard at the Metropolitan Area of Tucumán. Rev. Asoc. Geol. Argent. [online]. 2010, vol.66, n.4, pp.544-554. ISSN 0004-4822.

The present paper discusses the type and intensity of environmental hazards affecting the urban conglomerate of Greater San Miguel de Tucumán in the presence of future climatic changes. The steps required for making regional predictions as regards their impact on superficial geodynamics are described on the basis of the poor reliability of global models and on the marked spatial variability influencing natural or anthropized landscape. The significance of paleoclimatic reconstructions is stressed as an expression of the prevalent regional environmental conditions in the past, free of anthropogenic influence. The data is analyzed at three levels of temporal resolution (the last decades, the last millennium, and the Holocene period). The first level discusses inter-annual variability and" El Niño-La Niña" Southern Oscillation effects on the generation of morphodynamic processes negatively affecting the metropolitan area of Tucumán. The millenarian climatic variability analysis stresses the environmental changes influencing regional agro-pottery cultures and the extreme humid-arid climatic conditions during the Holocene period associated to paleoedaphic development and loess deposition. Consequently, two potential scenarios for climatic change are described, characterized by definitely more humid conditions or by marked aridity. The metropolitan area was divided into seven geo-morphological units. Matrices were elaborated so as to perform qualitative assessment of the potential intensity of each environmental hazard on every extreme scenario for climatic change and under different conditions of soil-use (urban, suburban, and rural). In brief, this proposal constitutes a preliminary approximation to the characterization of the future effects of climatic change with the purpose of contributing to the development of early alert, prevention, and/or mitigation programs.

Keywords : Climatic change; Dry and wet scenario; Geoenvironmental hazard; Early alert; Mitigation.

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