Call for Entries Urbano No. 56 November 2027

2026-10-27

Inequalities Among Territories in the Face of the Climate Emergency: Planning, Resilience, and Justice in the Context of Socio-Natural Disasters in Latin America and the Global South

Guest Editor: Ñuble Center for Studies, Director Dr. José Sandoval Díaz

Disasters that are often attributed to nature are rarely “exclusively natural.” In Latin American research on disaster risk, vulnerability is understood as a state of susceptibility to harm, shaped by social, economic, political, and environmental processes, while risk refers to the potential losses and damages resulting from the interaction between hazards, exposure, and vulnerability (Rinaldi and Bergamini, 2020). Extreme events can trigger disasters when they affect populations and assets that are exposed and in a state of vulnerability. These conditions are shaped by structural processes that limit the capacity of individuals, communities, and institutions to act, without completely determining their ability to influence the processes that generate and perpetuate risk (Sandoval-Díaz, 2020). In this context, as long as development models do not incorporate sustainability, the reduction of inequalities, and the strengthening of conditions that enable the exercise of individual, collective, and institutional agency, economic and non-economic losses could continue to rise, with particularly severe consequences for countries with fewer resources.

From the perspective of urban studies, the question of these processes is also a question of how cities are planned, regulated, and inhabited. Climate-resilient development in urban contexts encompasses both the capacities of individuals, communities, and systems to respond to and adapt to climate impacts and the possibilities for transforming urban development trajectories, taking an integrated approach to their physical, functional, and socioeconomic dimensions, as well as the psychosocial processes involved in how people inhabit, cope with, and transform exposed territories. However, the coordination between urban planning and risk management continues to face limitations, particularly when land-use regulation instruments do not adequately incorporate criteria for risk prevention and reduction. In certain circumstances, planning may even encourage residential densification in areas exposed to hazards, contributing to the formation of urban-forest interfaces as veritable “no-man’s lands,” characterized by gaps or ambiguities in their regulation and management (Jaque-Castillo et al., 2025).

One of the territorial manifestations of these constraints is urban sprawl, which is associated with socioeconomic inequalities, deficiencies in land-use regulation, and limited access to formal housing. When it occurs without adequate planning, this expansion can exacerbate territorial fragmentation, infrastructure deficits, and socio-environmental vulnerability (Ríos Valencia, 2025). Expansion into hazardous areas increases the risk associated with landslides, floods, wildfires, and earthquakes, both due to increased exposure to these hazards and the social vulnerability of the communities living there (Watson et al., 2022). Overcrowding, unsafe housing, and a lack of infrastructure and services can exacerbate these risk conditions.

Governance constitutes another central dimension of these processes. An analysis of 17 national reports from the Habitat III preparatory process showed that the principles of risk governance and resilience are scarcely articulated in the region’s urban development discourse, with commitments limited to vertical coordination among public actors (Sandoval and Sarmiento, 2018, 2020). Comparative studies in the region show that informal norms and networks can either facilitate or hinder governance processes, depending on the relationships they establish with formal institutions and the conditions of the local context (Alcántara-Ayala, Velásquez-Espinoza, and de Jesús, 2025). Furthermore, land tenure regularization, even when it formalizes the legal status of land, does not in and of itself reverse conditions of risk or prevent the reproduction of physical and social vulnerabilities (Córdova, Montenegro, and Cevallos, 2024).

Inequalities permeate these processes, shaping not only exposure and vulnerability but also capacities for agency and the possibilities for individual and collective adaptation. From a climate justice perspective, it is necessary to consider how power relations and intersectional inequalities influence the distribution of the risks and benefits of adaptation (Amorim-Maia et al., 2022; Haque, 2026). Although adaptation interventions aim to reduce vulnerabilities, they can also preserve existing power relations or create new conditions of vulnerability (Henrique and Tschakert, 2021; Eriksen et al., 2021). In this context, it is important to distinguish between incremental adaptation—which aims to make adjustments within existing systems—and transformative adaptation, which involves modifying the systems’ fundamental attributes and can address the structural conditions that produce and reproduce risk (Pelling et al., 2015; IPCC, 2022). In both forms, the exercise of individual and collective agency is shaped by inequalities in power, resources, and participation (Barnes et al., 2020), as well as by psychosocial processes linked to the experiences, subjectivities, and affective relationships involved in adaptation (Nightingale, 2022). At the same time, agency can manifest itself in practices that reproduce, negotiate, or transform the social and institutional relationships that shape vulnerability.

These inequalities and adaptive capacities take on specific territorial manifestations, including those found in mid-sized cities and their urban-rural interdependencies, where conditions of vulnerability, institutional resources, and community ties shape different possibilities for responding to disasters. Comparative evidence suggests that the factors associated with resilience differ between urban and rural contexts, which calls into question the application of one-size-fits-all approaches (Cutter et al., 2016). In this regard, understanding resilience requires considering both social and community capacities and the territorial and institutional conditions that enable or constrain their exercise, including the distribution of critical infrastructure and facilities (González González et al., 2020). From this perspective, this special issue seeks to bring together contributions that critically examine the relationships between inequality, territorial planning, risk governance, resilience, and adaptation in the face of socio-natural disasters in Latin America and the Global South.

Guiding Questions

  • How are threats distributed geographically, and how do inequalities in exposure and vulnerability manifest across metropolitan areas, mid-sized cities, small towns, and urban-rural areas in Latin America and the Global South?
  • What role do—and what role should—spatial planning instruments and urban regulations play in risk reduction and climate adaptation?
  • How do urban form, patterns of growth and densification, and the design of public space influence cities’ exposure and vulnerability?
  • How do multilevel governance, decentralization, and intersectoral coordination function in local risk management?
  • How do inequalities related to gender, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, and rurality interplay in shaping differentiated vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities in the face of climate and socio-natural threats?
  • What role do local knowledge, territorial memories, and individual and collective capacities for agency play in risk management and climate adaptation, and how do they interact with technical knowledge and public policies?
  • What comparative insights between Latin America and other regions of the Global South allow us to conceive of resilience without transplanting conceptual frameworks that are alien to local contexts?
  • How can architecture, urban planning, and regional planning be integrated into prevention, response, and reconstruction strategies that do not perpetuate preexisting inequalities?
  • Under what conditions do climate adaptation strategies reduce, perpetuate, or exacerbate inequalities in the distribution of risks, resources, and benefits, and to what extent do they contribute to transforming the social, institutional, and territorial relationships that create vulnerability?

Thematic Areas

  1. Socio-natural risk and land-use planning: urban planning instruments, regulations, and legal frameworks for risk reduction
  2. Urban form, growth, and exposure: expansion, densification, and occupation of high-risk areas in the built environment.
  3. Wildfires and the urban-forest interface: fuels, prevention, urban edge design, and social and territorial conditions of exposure and vulnerability.
  4. Floods, Droughts, and Heat Waves: Altered Hydrological Cycles, Urban Heat Islands, Thermal Comfort in Neighborhoods, and Inequalities in Exposure, Impacts, and Adaptation Capacities.
  5. Public space, critical infrastructure, and urban resilience: redundancy of subsystems, green spaces, and refuge areas, considering their territorial distribution, unequal accessibility, and functionality in the face of disasters.
  6. Climate justice, socio-spatial inequalities, and adaptation: power relations, intersectional vulnerabilities, unequal distribution of risks and resources, and the social and institutional conditions for incremental and transformative adaptation.
  7. Risk governance, participation, and institutional capacities: multilevel governance, decentralization, intersectoral coordination, community participation, and relationships between formal institutions, local actors, and informal networks.
  8. Community resilience, agency, and psychosocial processes: capacities for individual and collective action, social capital, territorial memories, local knowledge, risk perception, and community ties, taking into account the social and institutional conditions that enable or constrain preparedness, response, recovery, and adaptation in the face of disasters.

Types of Contributions Expected

We welcome empirical research based on fieldwork or data analysis that includes theoretical and conceptual reflections offering context-specific analytical frameworks; case studies documenting local or comparative experiences; and accounts of interventions or public policy initiatives that describe processes, outcomes, and lessons learned. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary contributions are welcome, as are comparative studies between countries in Latin America and other regions of the Global South that allow for the comparison of analogous processes.

Call for Submissions

We invite researchers, urbanism and planning professionals, community organizations, and local technical teams to submit their work for this special issue of Urbano, scheduled for publication in November 2027. We are interested in proposals that avoid presenting disasters as exclusively “natural” phenomena and that contribute to a critical understanding of the climate emergency as an issue of territorial justice in Latin America and the Global South.

Deadline for submission of articles: April 30, 2027
Publication date of the special issue: November 2027
Contact: revistaurbano@ubiobio.cl
Submit contributions to: https://revistas.ubiobio.cl/index.php/RU/es/about/submissions

 

Alcántara-Ayala, I., Velásquez-Espinoza, G. y de Jesús, A. M. (2025). From Mandates to Mechanisms: Institutional Vulnerability, Decentralized Governance, and the Challenges of Local Disaster Risk Reduction Implementation. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 16(5), 709–723. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-025-00673-y

Amorim-Maia, A. T., Anguelovski, I., Chu, E. y Connolly, J. (2022, enero 1). Intersectional climate justice: A conceptual pathway for bridging adaptation planning, transformative action, and social equity. Urban Climate. Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101053

Barnes, M. L., Wang, P., Cinner, J. E., Graham, N. A. J., Guerrero, A. M., Jasny, L., Lau, J., Sutcliffe, S. R., & Zamborain-Mason, J. (2020). Social determinants of adaptive and transformative responses to climate change. Nature Climate Change, 10, 823–828. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0871-4

Córdova, M., Montenegro, A. E. E. y Cevallos, J. J. M. (2024). Informal Settlements, Regularization, and Disaster Risk in the Periurban of the Metropolitan District of Quito - Colinas del Norte. Cuadernos de Geografia: Revista Colombiana de Geografia, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.15446/rcdg.v33n1.100275

Cutter, S. L., Ash, K. D. y Emrich, C. T. (2016). Urban–Rural Differences in Disaster Resilience. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(6), 1236–1252. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2016.1194740

Eriksen, S., Schipper, E. L. F., Scoville-Simonds, M., Vincent, K., Adam, H. N., Brooks, N., Harding, B., Khatri, D., Lenaerts, L., Liverman, D., Mills-Novoa, M., Mosberg, M., Movik, S., Muok, B., Nightingale, A., Ojha, H., Sygna, L., Taylor, M., Vogel, C., & West, J. J. (2021). Adaptation interventions and their effect on vulnerability in developing countries: Help, hindrance or irrelevance? World Development, 141, 105383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105383

González González, L. E., Baeriswyl Rada, S. y Zazo Moratalla, A. Z. (2020). Urban flood resilience in Chile: San Fernando and Los Ángeles experiences. Revista de Urbanismo, (43), 131–150. https://doi.org/10.5354/0717-5051.2020.57868

Haque, A. N. (2026). The gendered trap: climate policy, inequality, and adaptation lock-ins in Global South Cities. Environmental Research: Climate, 5(3). https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-5295/ae688b

Henrique,  Karen Paiva y Tschakert,  Petra. (2021). Pathways to urban transformation: From dispossession to climate justice. Progress in Human Geography, 45(5), 1169–1191. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520962856

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Jaque-Castillo, E., Ojeda-Leal, C. y Muñoz-Berríos, C. (2025). La interfaz urbano-forestal como tierra de nadie en la construcción del riesgo de incendio forestal en ciudades costeras chilenas. Urbano, 28(52), 52–63. https://doi.org/10.22320/07183607.2025.28.52.04

Nightingale, A. J., Gonda, N., & Eriksen, S. H. (2022). Affective adaptation = effective transformation? Shifting the politics of climate change adaptation and transformation from the status quo. WIREs Climate Change, 13(1), e740. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.740 

Rinaldi, A. y Bergamini, K. (2020). Inclusion of learning about management of natural disasters risk in territorial planning instruments (2005-2015). Revista de Geografía Norte Grande, (75), 103–130. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-34022020000100103

Pelling, M., O’Brien, K., & Matyas, D. (2015). Adaptation and transformation. Climatic Change, 133(1), 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1303-0

Ríos Valencia, K. (2025). Expansión urbana informal y sostenibilidad en América Latina: una revisión de literatura reciente. Urbe. Arquitectura, Ciudad y Territorio, (13), 47–66. https://doi.org/10.29393/ur20-3euri10003

Sandoval-Díaz, J. (2020). Vulnerabilidad-resiliencia ante el proceso de riesgo-desastre: Un análisis desde la ecología política. Polis, 19(56), 214–239. https://doi.org/10.32735/S0718-6568/2020-N56-1527

Sandoval, V. y Sarmiento, J. P. (2020). A neglected issue: informal settlements, urban development, and disaster risk reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean. Disaster Prevention and Management, 29(5), 731–745. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-04-2020-0115

Sandoval, V. y Sarmiento, J. P. (2018). Una mirada desde la gobernanza del riesgo y la resiliencia urbana en América Latina y el Caribe: Los asentamientos informales en la Nueva Agenda Urbana. Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos sobre Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres REDER, 2. Recuperado de http://revistareder.com/

Watson, C. S., Elliott, J. R., Ebmeier, S. K., Vásquez, M. A., Zapata, C., Bonilla-Bedoya, S., … Sevilla, E. (2022). Enhancing disaster risk resilience using greenspace in urbanising Quito, Ecuador. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 22(5), 1699–1721. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-1699-2022