Argentina is exposed to several natural hazards such as flooding, seismic activity, volcanic activity, water scarcity, extreme heat, wildfire, and extreme precipitation events. Distribution to physical and social exposure varies significantly throughout the country depending on the region and sources of social vulnerability. Volcanic and landslide related hazards are most prevalent in Western Argentina near the Andes mountain chain and near the south. Seismic risk is highest in the central-western provinces. Risk for extreme heat is highest in the north while water scarcity and risk of drought is concentrated in the center. Riverine flooding of concern in most of the county and coastal flooding is concentrated in the country's southern coast. The Government of Argentina identified flooding, heat waves, and extreme precipitation events as hazards of highest concern due to the overlap of exposure, risk, and vulnerability. Climate change is projected to exacerbate both, the intensity and frequency of these events.
This section provides a summary of key natural hazards and their associated socioeconomic impacts in a given country. And it allows quick evaluation of most vulnerable areas through the spatial comparison of natural hazard data with development data, thereby identifying exposed livelihoods and natural systems.
The charts provide overview of the most frequent natural disaster in a given country and understand the impacts of those disasters on human populations.
Metadata
Climate change is now recognized to have a significant impact on disaster management efforts and pose a significant threat to the efforts to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable populations. The demands of disaster risk management are such that concise, clear, and reliable information is crucial. The information presented here offers insight into the frequency, impact and occurrence of natural hazards. Source (PDF)
Understanding natural hazard occurrence as well as historical climate conditions, in relation to development contexts, is critical to understanding a country’s historical vulnerability. This tool allows the visualization of different natural hazards or historical climate conditions with socio-economic and development datasets. Select the Development Context and either a Natural Hazard or Climate Condition and overlay horizontally by sliding the toggle left or right to gain a broader sense of historically vulnerable areas.
Data presented under Historical Climate Conditions are reanalysis products derived from ERA5-Land data. ERA5-Land is a global land-surface dataset at 9 km resolution, consistent with atmospheric data from the ERA5 reanalysis from 1950 onward. Climate reanalyses combine past observations with models to generate consistent time series of multiple climate variables. They provide a comprehensive description of the observed climate as it has evolved during recent decades, on 3D grids at sub-daily intervals.
This data has been collected, aggregated and processed by the Climate Resilience Cluster of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) initiative.
- Riverine flooding is concentrated in in most of the county and coastal flooding is of concern along the countries southern coast. In addition, there is an increased risk of flooding from extreme rainfall events, which have been increasing in recent years.
- Heat waves are expected to impact northern Argentina the most, however, some areas in the south west have already experienced increased number of days with extreme heat. Urban areas are uniquely exposed to heat waves due to the heat island effect, which can amplify temperatures. The agricultural sector is also likely to be affected.
- Water scarcity is expected to be most pronounced in provinces around Mendoza, and those around Buenos Aires (Thinkhazard). Water scarcity could also happen along coastlines as salinity levels affect agricultural production (3rd National communication, 2015)
- Argentina has already been affected by flooding. In the Buenos Aires region, experienced rains greater than 1,000mm in 2013 which produced $1.3 billion in damages and several fatalities (IDB, 2015).
- Risks associated with heat waves has increased between 1960 and 2010 according to government estimates, particularly in the Northern areas of the countries (3rd National communication, 2015).
- The central, north, and south-western regions of the country have experienced an increase between 57-198mm increased precipitation during extreme weather events between 1960 and 2010 (3rd National communication, 2015).
- Argentina experienced a drought in 2008/9 that resulted in an estimated 40% reduction in grain production. The country experienced another heat wave in 2010 with strong impacts on production. (3rd National communication, 2015).
- While Argentina has improved its natural disaster response with improved outcomes over the past ten years, there is room to improve effectiveness through a national risk management strategy (IDB, 2015).
- Argentina has identified the widening of monitoring networks and strengthening of early alert systems as well as climate services as areas of research to improve disaster risk management (NDC, 2016).
- Creating an aware citizenry through communication strategies and education programs to improve disaster preparedness and response.
- Improving inter-agency collaboration to reduce vulnerability and address complex hazards such as increased risk of vector-borne diseases as they occur.
- The Government of Argentina is a signatory to the Sendai protocol and is working to develop an integrated disaster risk management plan.