Ravaged by floods - Peruvian Amazon - The city of Belen - The Amazonian Venice

Abstract

Through the last few years, the rapidly growing population in the Amazon has stressed inadequate infrastructures that generate problems when floods strike. Each year, river floods assault the region in the summer season, destroying and damaging houses between December and April. As a vulnerable area, Belen needs to be aided by focusing on long-term results, providing community resilience, creating strategies for disaster response, and adapting the river space. Defenses need to be implemented along the river, and the city needs to retreat to avoid constant disasters. These changes can also improve livelihoods since existing conditions are bad and worsen with flooding. This report analyzes different case study projects from South Korea, Singapore and California to gather diverse solutions to this common problem. It considers how these strategies would be applied in the city of Belen and recommend several interventions for flood protection. The use of gabions, agriculture, and additional space for the potential river solutions can be applied in this study area. These can benefit the community by reducing contamination that would be slowed down with flora cleaning systems, mitigating pollution. These strategies can be gathered into a cohesive urban design that implements social spaces, green areas and agriculture, to provide a healthier and risk-free area or the community.