Improve Flood Resilience in the Delta City of Guayaquil Implementing novel tools for Urban Development and Flood Management

Short general project overview

The delta city of Guayaquil is with its more than 3 million inhabitants economically the most important city of Ecuador. The city is situated only a couple of meters above sea level, and is bordered by rivers and estuaries. Therefore, the water management issues in Guayaquil are very similar to those of the Dutch (coastal) cities.
Early 2016, a Dutch DRR-Team visited Guayaquil and identified it as a major opportunity for involvement of the Dutch water sector due to its vulnerable location in the river delta. The Mayor of Guayaquil expressed his interest to cooperate with the Netherlands, to coordinate activities in relation with disaster risk management. The Direction of Risk Management of the municipality will co-finance the proposal.
A Road Map and financing strategy will be developed, to tackle urban flooding problems in Guayaquil, based on a structured planning and design process sustained by a flood model and quantitative framework to prioritize measures. The aim is to also build capacity for a ‘Dutch’ integrated approach piloted and build ground for future replication and upscaling within the city as well as for other delta cities in Latin America.
The CRIDA framework will be applied, which originates from IWRM and Adaptive Delta Management, and has been developed by Rijkswaterstaat, Deltares and the US Army Corps of Engineers. It presents a structured decision support method. Furthermore, the approach includes the application of the Delft3D model.

Initial activities and results of the project

The activities are organized following the steps of the CRIDA approach (similar to adaptive delta management), that within its approach include urban design aspects and opportunities of using green infrastructure. During different activities stakeholder engagement will take place. A process of ‘urban water dialogues’ will be held during the whole project, to assure active participation of local stakeholders which are not accustomed yet to think and ‘design’ together with municipal authorities. These dialogues will consist of a series of local workshops with both local stakeholders and (mainly municipal) representatives from the different sectors.

The main outcome of the project is an investment plan with sustainable measures to resolve the flood problems of the Febres Cordero neighbourhood in an integrated way, meaning based on active local participation, economically attractive, strongly linked with urban design/development and environmentally sustainable.
The results from each phase are:

1. Work plan including the identified critical thresholds, a common future vision, and the design of a water resources system and economic evaluation model.
2. A vulnerability assessment based on a stress test of the system by applying newly developed urban flood (water system) and economic evaluation models.
3. Detailed flood risk maps of the neighbourhood, and a 2D urban flood risk model integrated with the broader systems models, based on Delft3D Flexible Mesh.
4. Adaptation pathways defined, with proposed designs of urban integration, based on potential adaptation measures, including natural water infrastructure, identified with the main stakeholders, an evaluation of the effectiveness of each measure and a cost-benefit analysis.
5. An investment plan to resolve the flood issues in the Febres Cordero neighbourhood, which is technically and economically robust, environmentally sustainable, and supported by the main stakeholders.
6. Memo on opportunities for upscaling to other neighbourhoods, and towards other coastal cities in Latin America identified.