Adaptive pathways and coupled infrastructure: seven centuries of adaptation to water risk and the production of vulnerability in Mexico City

Abstract

. 2018. Adaptive pathways and coupled infrastructure: seven centuries of adaptation to water risk and the production of vulnerability in Mexico City. Ecology and Society 23 (1) ABSTRACT. Infrastructure development is central to the processes that abate and produce vulnerabilities in cities. Urban actors, especially those with power and authority, perceive and interpret vulnerability and decide when and how to adapt. When city managers use infrastructure to reduce urban risk in the complex, interconnected city system, new fragilities are introduced because of inherent system feedbacks. We trace the interactions between system dynamics and decision-making processes over 700 years of Mexico City's adaptations to water risks, focusing on the decision cycles of public infrastructure providers (in this case, government authorities). We bring together two lenses in examining this history: robustness-vulnerability trade-offs to explain the evolution of systemic risk dynamics mediated by feedback control, and adaptation pathways to focus on the evolution of decision cycles that motivate significant infrastructure investments. Drawing from historical accounts, archeological evidence, and original research on water, engineering, and cultural history, we examine adaptation pathways of humans settlement, water supply, and flood risk. Mexico City's history reveals insights that expand the theory of coupled infrastructure and lessons salient to contemporary urban risk management: (1) adapting by spatially externalizing risks can backfire: as cities expand, such risks become endogenous; (2) over time, adaptation pathways initiated to address specific risks may begin to intersect, creating complex trade-offs in risk management; and (3) city authorities are agents of risk production: even in the face of new exogenous risks (climate change), acknowledging and managing risks produced endogenously may prove more adaptive. History demonstrates that the very best solutions today may present critical challenges for tomorrow, and that collectively people have far more agency in and influence over the complex systems we live in than is often acknowledged.

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

“…Given the presence of these recurrent patterns, Figures 2 and 3 (as well as Figure 4) are presented in a quasi-cyclical nature. This representation expands upon the adaptation pathways perspective implemented by Tellman et al (2018). However, in contrast the idea that adaptation pathways primarily consist of socially driven decision cycles that have distinctive start and end points, we view these systems as a continuum of SETS interactions that can have recurring patterns, but not necessarily a distinctive beginning and end point.…”

“…Other existing literature on SETS primarily focus on definitions and conceptual framing (Grabowski et al, ; Grimm et al, ; Hale et al, ; Krumme, ; McPhearson et al, ; Ramaswami et al, ) or discuss the three components independently. Similar to analysis by Tellman et al (), we expand on existing SETS literature by directly applying the SETS lens to infrastructure development and management, particularly in relation to identifying maladaptive lock‐in processes and establishing approaches to help infrastructure adapt to the effects of extreme events. Our manuscript supports many of the findings of Tellman et al (): human decision‐making dynamics and environmental context shape the evolution of coupled infrastructure systems, each adaptation decision exists in the context of (and is shaped by) previous decisions, and attempts to increase robustness to specific threats in the present often result in increased vulnerability to unforeseen risks and unintended consequences.…”

“…First, our manuscript more explicitly emphasizes and explores the interactions and shifting influence among SETS in the development of vulnerability and lock-in over time (see sections 2.2 and 3). In contrast, Tellman et al (2018) place their emphasis much more on the implications of governance decisions (i.e., social systems) over time-albeit with acknowledgement of the broader ecological and infrastructural context in which these decisions are made. Second, due to our more explicit examination of the shifting influence and interactions among SETS, our analysis not only allows for the identification of lock-in but also highlights specific intervention points for possibly breaking said lock-in.…”

Interdependencies and Risk to People and Critical Food, Energy, and Water Systems: 2013 Flood, Boulder, Colorado, USA

“…• shielding populations and SES from extreme events and cascading effects, by enhancing communities and actors' capacity to mitigate risk and adapt to change and uncertainty; • creating risk mitigation and adaptation trade-offs that can decrease long-term vulnerability of people and places (Grimm et al, 2013;Pincetl et al, 2016;Romero-Lankao & Gnatz, 2013;Tellman et al, 2018); and • determining risk mitigation and adaptation tipping points among system or actor-network after which they move to another regime. We build on SES theories and our own prior research (Romero-Lankao et al, 2018;, to suggest that besides actions, risk is shaped by five multiscale and interdependent (SETEG) factors: sociodemographics, economy, technoinfrastructures, environment, and governance.…”

Biophysical, infrastructural and social heterogeneities explain spatial distribution of waterborne gastrointestinal disease burden in Mexico City

“…Yet it has been recognized as one of the cores of the city's wealth (Romero Lankao 2010a), with only few areas with poor residents. Moreover, since pre-Columbian times, elaborate infrastructure and engineering investments have been made in the city center as the main means of reducing the risk of large scale floods (Ezcurra et al 1999, Tellman et al 2018. However, the aging of Table 2.…”