ABSTRACT
The metropolitan region of Buenos Aires, which is the political, financial and cultural centre of Argentina, is located on the Argentine coast of the Plata river and is home to nearly a third of the country’s population. The total number of people living along the Plata river coast, including the Buenos Aires region, is almost 14 million. A considerable portion of this coastal area is low-lying land, between 2.8 and 5m above mean sea level, and is often subject to recurrent storm surge floods, which are common to this region due to the unique features of the Plata river estuary. Such storm surge floods, locally known as sudestadas, are expected to become more frequent as the mean sea level rises due to global climate change. The very low-lying areas will, in fact, probably be permanently flooded by the end of this century. These areas are, however, largely uninhabited due to their frequent exposure to storm surges and, as a result, the social impact of future permanent flooding is expected to be small. Climate change vulnerability in this coastal zone would therefore be mostly conditioned by its future exposure to extreme storm surges, especially in the densely populated areas of metropolitan Buenos Aires, where this phenomenon is presently not as common.
