Scenario Development and Participatory Processes as a Tool for Integrating Urban and Environmental Planning: The Case of the Lower Paraná Delta, Argentina

The effects of climate change have become increasingly visible in many coastal cities, where extreme hydrological events seem to occur more frequently causing severe flooding and other negative impacts over the territory and its communities. Although scientific evidence gives rise to predictions on the impacts of climate change, the level of uncertainty as to what these impacts are remains high, exhibiting a greater risk in areas where the planning process is fragmented and not coherent. This paper presents a reflection on the participatory processes used to address the potential of scenario development as a tool for integrating urban and environmental dimensions. Using this representative case study as an example, some methodological concerns about stakeholder participation and planning through scenarios were presented and tested as well. This is a study of the Lower Paraná Delta in Argentina, which is a complex estuarine delta and located near the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, the country’s largest urban area, with more than 13 million inhabitants. There, lack of coordination and the disjointed management of urban and environmental issues turn participatory processes into an opportunity to build awareness and to set networks of communication up between different categories of active stakeholders. These stakeholders play a key role towards improving a set of informed common development goals to help face the climate change risk incurred within the area's metropolitan development.