New Water Policy and Practice Issue 4, Number 1, Fall 2017 | Page 35

Sustainable Drainage in Challenging Environments
bajo tierra y reducir la formación de charcos entre los hogares y en
la calle, sus sitios de apareamiento se reducen, así proporcionando
una forma para que se reduzca su impacto en la salud debido al zica,
dengue o chikunguña. Debido a la falta de gobernanza, titulación de
tierras y otras formas de planeación, los residentes de asentamientos
informales y favelas tienen que estar activamente involucrados en
mejorar la calidad de su entorno. Los campos de refugiados, por otro
lado, están formalmente establecidos por el ACNUR con WASH es-
tablecido, por ello hay potencial para influenciar las políticas, para
fomentar la instalación de drenaje al mismo tiempo que el WASH
para que el WASH mejore, lo cual es un posible primer paso para el
reconocimiento del drenaje como un derecho humano.
Palabras clave: drenaje sustentable, barrios bajos, favela, asenta-
mientos informales, campos de refugiados, aguas grises.
1. Introduction
T
he world is facing the perfect storm in terms of challenges to society and the
environment. Increasing populations are crowding into cities challenging
infrastructure and services; industrialisation, urbanisation and vehicular
traffic are adversely affecting environmental quality and driving climate change.
Strong governance, policy and planning are undoubtedly needed to face these
challenges, but to support these, strong physical strategies are also needed which
are flexible and have multiple benefits.
Resolution 64/292, 2010 of the United Nations General Assembly explicitly
recognises as a human right, access to water and sanitation, and that clean, safe
drinking water and sanitation underlie the ability to achieve all human rights. The
Resolution particularly focuses its attention on developing countries, asking States
to financially support capacity-building and technology transfer to enable the pro-
vision of supplies of safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water as well as
sanitation for all. Nowhere in these aims do the words “flood” or “drainage” occur,
implying that drainage of settlements and resilience to flooding is not necessarily
a human right. In Albuquerque, 2012, the Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica
is quoted as equating the flooding of dwellings in Villa Flore