Agric Hum Values (2008) 25:555–566

DOI 10.1007/s10460-008-9140-2

Livelihood change, farming, and managing flood risk

in the Lerma Valley, Mexico
Hallie Eakin Æ Kirsten Appendini

Accepted: 9 February 2008 / Published online: 17 April 2008

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract In face of rising flood losses globally, the Introduction

approach of ‘‘living with floods,’’ rather than relying on
structural measures for flood control and prevention, is The frequency of flood disasters around the world is rising
acquiring greater resonance in diverse socioeconomic (Douben 2006). Hypotheses for this phenomenon are
contexts. In the Lerma Valley in the state of Mexico, rapid numerous: increased climatic variability, the expansion of
industrialization, population growth, and the declining human settlement in flood plains, and land cover and land use
value of agricultural products are driving livelihood and changes together are believed to be increasing human expo-
land use change, exposing increasing numbers of people to sure and sensitivity to flood impacts (Kundzewicz and
flooding. However, data collected in two case studies of Kaczmarek 2000). The persistence of loss in face of increased
farm communities affected by flooding in 2003 illustrate knowledge about the dynamics, drivers, and outcomes of
that the concept of flood as agricultural ‘‘hazard’’ has been hazards may well signal a significant lack of sustainability in
relatively recently constructed through public intervention social-environmental relations, as well as a need to reconsider
in river management and disaster compensation. While the underlying principles of flood management.
farming still represents subsistence value to rural house- In Mexico’s Lerma River valley—one of the most densely
holds, increasingly rural communities are relying on non- populated regions in Mexico—rural land and urban settlement
farm income and alternative livelihood strategies. In this patterns are rapidly evolving, institutions are in flux, and
context, defining flooding in rural areas as a private hazard consequently perceptions of flood loss are also changing. To
for which individuals are entitled to public protection may date, Mexico’s approach to flooding on the Lerma has been
be counterproductive. A different approach, in which almost exclusively structural, relying on a series of dams, river
farmers’ long acceptance of periodic flooding is combined straightening, and dredging and dike construction. Now that
with valuing agricultural land for ecoservices, may enable the valley’s population of 2.3 million is rapidly encroaching
a more sustainable future for the region’s population. on what remains of the valley’s undeveloped floodplain, the
incidence of flood damages is rising.
Keywords Vulnerability
Flood
Livelihoods
This article will illustrate how these processes are not only
Agriculture
Mexico altering the impacts of flooding but also are changing the way
farmers value the use of their land, thus transforming their
perceptions of risk and the subjective meaning of flooding in
rural areas. We draw from the rich history of hazards
research to explore how evolving livelihood strategies and
H. Eakin (&)
Department of Geography, University of California, the consequent shift in the role of agriculture in the Upper
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, USA Lerma Valley may provide insights into the meaning of flood
e-mail: eakin@geog.ucsb.edu losses to rural populations, and thus new opportunities for
flood management. Hazards—or events with the potential to
K. Appendini
Centro de Estudios Económicos, Colegio de México, Mexico, create harm—are very real phenomenon of the natural and
DF 10740, Mexico built environment. Nevertheless, the meaning of harm and

123
556 H. Eakin, K. Appendini

loss has a significant subjective component and thus varies in part a deeply engrained technocratic epistemology that
among individuals and from place to place (Hewitt 1997). continues to characterize water management globally yet that
Understanding this subjective experience is not only neces- has been contested in hazard theory and water management
sary to ensure that policy effectively addresses the needs of since the mid-twentieth century (Hewitt 1983; White 1986;
vulnerable populations, but also, as we argue here, is nec- Parker 2000). River valleys offer distinct advantages for
essary to enable more effective and flexible policy solutions economic development: fertile soils, flat plains, and water for
to evolving risk.1 transportation and development. Nevertheless, as population
Building on the tradition of political ecology in hazard density and the value of economic activities increases in these
research, we illustrate the implications of livelihood change, high-risk areas, policy-makers are often confronted with a
agricultural policy reforms, and urbanization for the expe- relatively narrow range of choices in addressing the problem
rience of flooding in two rural communities in central of flooding (Douben 2006).
Mexico. The current policy framework in the region presents On the one hand, water managers often face the immediate
an un-nuanced view of flooding as a rural hazard producing politics of the so-called ‘‘levee effect’’ (Smith 2004, p. 198),
losses in need of compensation. This relatively narrow per- in which specific economic interests demand flood protection
spective misses the policy opportunities that might emerge from the government, which in turn leads to wider-scale flood
from a more subtle understanding of the changing relation- plain development and a consequent increase in political
ship of farmers to flood risk. Acting on such opportunities is pressure for continued public investment in levee construc-
not only critical in the context of the current high frequency tion—often at considerable expense. On the other hand, in
of flooding in the Lerma River valley, but also important in light of the continued high cost of flooding internationally,
light of the possibility of increased rainfall intensity with the non-structural approaches designed to combat the levee
global warming (Magaña et al. 2005). effect (such as mandatory flood insurance and land use
In the next section, we describe insights into flood zoning) does not seem to have had greater success in pro-
vulnerability and management that have emerged from moting social resilience or sustainable development.
political ecology and hazards literatures. We follow this Although it can be argued that its impact on the more
discussion with an introduction to the concept of ‘‘living pragmatic aspects of flood management has not been sub-
with floods’’—a relatively new approach to flooding that is stantial, an alternative perspective on hazards and social
beginning to be adopted in Europe and other regions vulnerability has been advocated for several decades. In his
characterized by chronic flood problems. We then move on classic volume Interpretations of Calamity (1983), Hewitt
to discuss flood-risk policy and farmers’ responses in the identified the dominant technocratic and reductionist
Lerma Valley in the state of Mexico, illustrating how the approach to hazard management as a socio-cultural con-
public policy effectively creates a flood hazard from struction, resulting in the mischaracterization of disasters
flooding that was previously a well-known and accepted as ‘‘Acts of God’’ rather than the result of historical,
dimension of the hydrology of the Lerma Valley. In doing political-economic, and cultural processes interacting with
so, current efforts by the public sector to control flooding the dynamics of nature. In their contributions to Hewitt’s
paradoxically may both increase the probability that volume, authors such as Watts, Waddel, and Copans
material losses will occur and also raise expectations for emphasized the neglect of the state, power struggles over
protection in the public. By neglecting to consider how land, historical patterns of development, and inequities in
farmers perceive flood events and how they have lived with resource allocation in the creation of vulnerability to haz-
flood risk for decades, the government neglects a poten- ards such as drought, frosts, and floods.
tially more sustainable development pathway that would Blaikie et al. (1994) furthered this work to theorize a
build on farmers’ long experience with flood risk. political ecology approach to disaster and vulnerability, in
which both environmental processes and political-economic
conditions interact to generate unsafe conditions and, ulti-
Understanding vulnerability to flooding mately, the social context of disasters. Research in this vein
has illustrated how vulnerability to floods is associated with
The preference for structural measures for flood control in historical processes of land use change, the politics of
both industrialized contexts and emerging economies reflects resource allocation and political disenfranchisement, and
socioeconomic marginalization (e.g., Mustafa 1998; Pelling
1
We use a common definition of risk as the probability of a hazard 1999; Few 2003).
occurring and creating loss. Risk is thus a function of both the While such analyses illustrate the importance of history,
biophysical hazard (e.g., probability of a flood event) and the
policy, and power in flood causes and outcomes, Mustafa
expected consequences of the event (e.g., its material, social,
ecological and economic impacts). See discussion in Smith (2004) argues that political ecology interpretations of hazard
and Tobin and Montz (1997). causes and outcomes could benefit by a renewed emphasis

123
Livelihood change, farming, and managing flood risk 557

on risk perception, as a means to ‘‘understand local-level choice. In essence, the threshold of risk tolerance defines
subjectivities regarding resource management and vulner- the boundaries of public intervention and responsibility
ability’’ (Mustafa 2002, p. 103). Risk perception and the toward individual citizens and the public good.
motivations of individual behavior in face of risk was a In this article we argue that what is ‘‘an acceptable flood’’
central theme of hazards research by Gilbert White and needs to be evaluated in the context of the changing social
others as early as the 1950s (see White 1986 for a review), and economic conditions of the region exposed and, more
but has not been a feature of political ecology research. specifically, in relation to local attitudes and perceptions of
Others have also drawn from behavioral perspectives on the threat of flooding. Although there is ample evidence in
hazards to argue that it is necessary to understand the social Mexico that hazard vulnerability is tied to the country’s
and cultural nature of individuals’ perceptions and expe- history of land distribution and inequality in resource access
rience of their environment in order to determine what (e.g., Liverman 1990), a closer look at households’ changing
fundamentally matters to them, and thus what is truly livelihoods and engagement with their resource base in the
‘‘dangerous’’ (Dessai et al. 2004). If such perceptions are Lerma Valley provides grounds for a different interpretation.
not accounted for in vulnerability assessments, there is a We present an analysis of flooding in two rural communities
risk that all externally measured losses (e.g., damages to to illustrate that perception of risk can change as the threat of
crops, property, health or livelihood) will be interpreted as flooding to livelihood stability diminishes, thus opening new
manifestations of social inequity and marginality, and the avenues for policy. In the next section we describe a new
individuals who experience such loss as ‘‘victims’’ lacking approach to flood-risk management that builds on opportu-
agency (Ellemore 2005). nities afforded by land use and existing ecosystems. This
Pragmatically, understanding how populations interact approach—often called ‘‘living with floods’’ or ‘‘making
with a landscape and what their expectations are from their space for water’’—could become a viable option in central
environment can provide greater flexibility for policy makers Mexico.
aiming to achieve broader social and ecological objectives
(e.g., see Brouwer et al. 2006; Rashed Chowdhury 2003).
Here the concepts of accepted and acceptable risk are par- Agriculture and ‘‘living with floods’’
ticularly useful in linking perspectives on the motivations of
individual behavior and the political, economic, and cultural Internationally, the growing acknowledgement that flood
structural processes that shape vulnerability (Tobin and management must change has led to the exploration of a
Montz 1997: 295–97). Hazard policy is designed to manage new approach: ‘‘living with floods’’ (Brouwer et al. 2006;
and reduce risks posed by hazards to society on the basis of an Johnson et al. 2007; Klijn et al. 2004). Living with floods
assumption of what forms of risks are acceptable and what posits the idea that flooding may well be inevitable and that
are not. For example, the observation that populations settle both structural and non-structural measures aiming to
on floodplains even when cognizant of a high probability of control the physical hazards often result in increasing
property loss from flooding is sometimes viewed as a losses by inhibiting the function of ecological buffers and
reflection of the degree of risk that is tolerable or ‘‘accept- altering the dynamics of hydrological regimes. Infrastruc-
able’’ to them. The basis for such a conclusion is that their ture designed to reduce hydrological variability in the
behavior is a manifestation of their conscious evaluation of short-term often tends to increase disturbances of greater
the tradeoffs between flood risk and the benefits of accessible magnitude in the long-term (Brouwer et al. 2006; Huang
housing or land (e.g., a ‘‘revealed preference’’). Yet political 2005). The intention of ‘‘living with floods’’ is to achieve a
ecology would suggest an alternative hypothesis: their more resilient relationship between society and flood risk
behavior may well be simply a reflection of a lack of choice by valuing equally the ecological, social, and economic
and a history of disempowerment rather than conscious components of a system exposed to flooding (Johnson et al.
acceptance of their risk exposure. In other words, the popu- 2007). Implementing this approach can involve reconsti-
lation accepts the risks that they live with, but the risk would tuting wetlands and marshes, engineering for flexible
not be acceptable if they really had a choice in the matter. embankments and flood barriers to allow seasonal flooding,
Given the impossibility of reducing risks completely, and creating reservoirs to absorb excess water.
policy makers design their interventions to address risks The approach implies a profound transformation of land
that exceed a threshold of tolerance. In balancing the need use. The Netherlands, for example, is experimenting with
for efficient investments and social equity in hazard policy using new social, ecological, and economic criteria to help
(see discussion in Johnson et al. 2007), policy-makers must identify land that would be flooded more frequently than
distinguish between risks that are potentially acceptable for other areas in order to achieve greater overall hydro-eco-
different social groups, and risks that are accepted because logical stability in flood-prone regions. Nevertheless, the
the populations’ lack of entitlements leaves no other Dutch government faces a significant challenge in

123
558 H. Eakin, K. Appendini

balancing economic and ecological costs and benefits, and experience, risk tolerance, and preferences for environ-
in orienting economic activities and land uses to a new mental amenities such as wetlands (Rashed Chowdhury
regime of higher exposure to flood waters (Klijn et al. 2003). This threshold is likely to be significantly less
2004). In the UK, similar efforts have also run into prob- flexible once land use is predominantly urban and flood
lems in equitably balancing economic, social, and losses threaten the built environment and infrastructure. In
environmental interests and costs (Johnson et al. 2007). the Lerma Valley, the current process of urbanization of
Economic goals tend to be prioritized over ecological and both agricultural land and rural livelihoods will have sig-
social objectives, undermining the transformative intention nificant implications for flood management in the future.
of ‘‘living with floods.’’ There is increasing recognition that In the sections that follow, we describe how floods as
new forms of water governance are needed that privilege hazards have been, in essence, created through recent public
the participation of diverse stakeholder groups in the interventions in the rural sector that assume a low level of
implementation of policy (Pahl-Wostl 2006). tolerance for flooding and that have not accounted for the
In regions where investments in flood control are not yet changing values and meanings of agricultural production to
significant, and where policies for environmental protec- farm households. We use two case studies of the agricultural
tion are under development, there may be more communities (ejidos)2 of Emilio Portes Gil (EPG) and San
opportunities to implement a ‘‘living with floods’’ Bartolo de Llano (SBL) in the state of Mexico to illustrate the
approach. Van Ogtrop et al. (2005), for example, argue that disconnect between local experiences and perception of risk
in rural Mozambique, the population’s prior experience and the public interventions in flood management (see
with flood hazards might make such an approach viable Table 1 for summary statistics). A flood occurred in these
under specific conditions: the public’s active engagement communities in September of 2003, affecting 373 ha and
with the process of risk management, the availability of a 506 ha of maize in each community, respectively. Drawing
reliable and accessible early warning service, the imple- from interviews and survey data collected in between 2003
mentation of innovations in residential architecture, and the and 2005, we present farmers’ perceptions of flood risk in the
creation of safe havens from floodwaters to minimize los- context of rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions in
ses associated with increased exposure to flooding. In most which the value of maize, the primary crop in the area, has
cases, such an approach implies a need for a deeper declined, rural land is undergoing fragmented urbanization,
understanding of what flood losses mean to particular and increasingly the livelihood activities of farm households
populations through participatory planning (Johnson et al. take place outside the space of rural residence. Simulta-
2007). It also requires greater attention to how disaster neously and paradoxically, after years of inattention, rural
policy can build on the wealth of experience and capacity flood events are now being defined by the public sector as
for learning within local communities (Pahl-Wostl 2006). ‘‘agricultural hazards.’’
In Mexico rural communities have historically manipu- Mustafa coins the term ‘‘hazardscape’’ to reflect the idea
lated flood events in a variety of settings to improve that the experience of hazard is a hybrid concept, incorpo-
agricultural potential, provide habitat for useful flora and rating both the very real experience of material losses and
fauna, and expand cultivable land. These benefits are what deprivation as well as the context in which those losses are
have made river valleys such as the Lerma in central western experienced, interpreted, and reproduced through risk man-
Mexico one of the more agriculturally productive regions in agement (Mustafa 2005). In a similar vein, we argue that
the country. The meaning of flooding to farmers has changed whether the public sector intervenes to compensate farmers
over time as the material value of agriculture and infra- for losses where compensation is not expected, or moves to
structure in the Lerma Valley has also changed. During the protect land from flooding that was previously farmed with
colonial period, draining wetlands was a priority for ranchers the expectation of flooding, the outcome is similar: The state
and hacienda owners eager to participate in the growing collaborates in both the material and imaginary creation of
colonial economy. As the value of agriculture has declined in
central Mexico, protecting harvests from flooding may not 2
The Agrarian Reform constituted a period of land distribution
necessarily be a priority for rural landowners. following the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1917. It had its peak in
Today one of the more important drivers of the observed the 1930s but continued until 1992. Over this period 51.4% of the
national territory was distributed to smallholder farmers in agrarian
increases in flood losses worldwide is the conversion of
communities called ejidos and comunidades agrarias. Most of the
agricultural land into urban use and the encroachment of land now farmed in ejidos is done on an individual basis. A reform to
dense human settlement onto drained marshes, floodplains, the constitution in 1992 was followed by a land regulation program
and coastal lowlands (Montz 2000). The threshold that ‘‘PROCEDE’’ that registered both individual ejido titles as well as
land that had been fragmented and informally assigned to others in the
distinguishes a flood as resource from a hazard maybe
decades following the original land distribution program. This titling
somewhat flexible in an agricultural context, dependent not process led to the formalization of plot fragmentation and also the
only on the value of land use but also individual official recognition of landholders in the ejidos.

123
Livelihood change, farming, and managing flood risk 559

Table 1 Characteristics of
Household characteristics Emilio Portes Gil San Bartolo del Llano
Emilio Portes Gil and San
Bartolo del Llano Average age of household heada 48 years 52 years
Illiteracy, percent of adult population (2005) 14 15
a Average household size (2005) 4.7 5.1
Interviews by the authors,
2003. All other data is from the Households with television, percent (2005) 92 83
national survey, Conteo de Average education level, years (2005) 7.5 6.1
Población y Vivienda 2005, Female headed households, percent (2005) 24 19
INEGI (2006), Aguascalientes

‘‘hazard’’ and in doing so encourages new expectations of structured interviews was to explore the range of households’
state intervention and patronage. Perhaps more worrying is perceptions of loss in relation to changing livelihood strat-
the precedent that such a policy sets: unless there are counter egies and the influence of public policy in the communities.
measures in place, the riparian land now protected from Farmers were asked to describe what they perceived as a
flooding will easily convert into urban land use, driven by flood, to discuss the frequency of flooding in the community,
declining investment in land for agricultural production. and to describe the impact of the 2003 flood on their property,
With lives, material property, and infrastructure at stake, crops, consumption, livestock, and livelihoods. They were
flooding then becomes an urgent political and social concern. also requested to explain their own response to their losses as
In this context, ‘‘living with floods’’ is rarely an option. well as their observation of the response of the local, muni-
cipal, and state governments. The additional key-informant
interviews with local leadership and public officials captured
Methods policy and sectoral perspectives on the cause and solution to
the problem of flooding.
The two case studies presented below involved the collection
of qualitative data from semi-structured interviews con-
ducted in July and August of 2004 with rural residents The Lerma River Valley
affected by floods, as well as from in-depth interviews with
public officials at the municipal, state, and federal level In the state of Mexico, the Upper Lerma watershed
associated with civil protection, agricultural policy, and incorporates 5,548,540 km2 (Fig. 1). Prior to the expansion
water management. The household-level interviews were the of colonial settlement in the region in the early 1500s, the
result of a random sample of 20 households in Emilio Portes Lerma River consisted of a series of connected lagoons and
Gil and 28 households in San Bartolo de Llano drawn from a wetlands that covered much of what is now the river’s
list of 104 and 426 households, respectively, who reported valley. At the start of its trajectory the river crosses one of
flood effects to the state Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Mexico’s most densely populated regions, the metropolitan
Development (SEDAGRO) in 2003.3 The goal of these semi- area of Toluca, with negative implications for the quality
and quantity of water downstream (del Mazo González
3
As case studies, the household interviews were not intended to et al. 2001). Within the state of Mexico, the Lerma is fed
produce findings generalizable to the broader population of flood by ten primary tributaries, including the Jaltepec River in
affected households in the Lerma Valley. Nevertheless, the similarity the municipio4 of San Felipe del Progreso, and the Sila
of characteristics of the interviewed households to the available River in the municipio of Ixtlahuaca, the two municipios
statistics on households flooded in 2003 in the region suggests that at
least in terms of age, landholding, and livelihood, the households selected for case study analysis.
interviewed for this study are not unrepresentative. The average age
of the 48 households interviewed in the two communities was
consistent with the average age of all beneficiaries of FAPRACC in Agrarian change in the Lerma Valley
the two villages (49–52 years) and representative in terms of
landholding size (averaging 2 ha in EPG and 1 ha in San Bartolo).
Although beneficiaries to the program FAPRACC are recorded only Agriculture has long been a feature of the Lerma Valley’s
in terms of beneficiary age and total land area, an independent economy. The wetlands that constituted much of the upper
evaluation of FAPRACC in 2003 conducted by the National Lerma watershed were largely drained in the late nine-
Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) found that only 34%
heads of households affected by flooding in the state of Mexico teenth century to promote large-scale grain production on
claimed that agricultural activities were their only economic activity; commercial haciendas and to minimize flooding in the
for the majority agricultural activities represented one of two or three rapidly expanding urban areas of Mexico City and Toluca
income sources. For all FAPRACC recipients that year in the country, (Aguilar Santelises et al. 1997). Following the Agrarian
agriculture constituted only 16% of household income. These
statistics largely support the qualitative livelihood data reported by
4
the farmers interviewed in the case studies. An administrative unit similar to a US county.

123
560 H. Eakin, K. Appendini

Fig. 1 Map of the Lerma

Valley, State of Mexico

Reform of the 1930s (see footnote 2), the property of the the valley’s rural municipios—including Ixtlahuaca and
large commercial haciendas in the valley was distributed to San Felipe—the population deriving its livelihood from
smallholder farm communities (ejidos). agriculture is now half of what it was in the early 1990s
In the late 1950s, an inter-basin water transfer agree- (INEGI 2001).
ment between Mexico City and the state of Mexico led to a As a result of these changes, land can no longer be
proliferation of deep wells in the Lerma Valley and a new claimed exclusively as an agricultural resource, but rather
program of groundwater extraction and export, leading has been revalued as an asset for building residences. For
almost immediately to groundwater decline and subsidence this reason, housing is more likely to appear now in areas
(Esteller and Dı́az-Delgado 2002). The municipio of Itx- that were originally intended for agricultural production.
lahuaca has been one of the most negatively affected by the Any land remaining in agriculture is now less likely to
groundwater extraction. From the late sixties on, the Lerma generate sufficient yields to feed a family, let alone pro-
Valley was targeted as a region to supply the burgeoning duce an agricultural surplus for commercial sale.
population of Mexico City with cheap corn. With the help Nevertheless, even such fragmented land ownership
of public investment in irrigation infrastructure, support for translates into entitlements to new public transfer pay-
credit, and public subsidies for maize and purchased inputs, ments, such as the direct per-hectare payment from the
ejidatarios in the area became leading producers of maize PROCAMPO6 program and, in the case studied here,
as a cash crop. Both Ixtlahuaca and San Felipe del Progreso support for recuperating production after flood losses.
became centers of maize production.
Since the late 1980s, the situation has radically changed
for farmers in the region. State price guarantees for agri- Flood policy in the state of Mexico
cultural products were withdrawn in the early 1990s, and
with the growing volume of imports of maize under the The combination of high population density and the
North American Free Trade Agreement, the market for hydrology of the valley creates a circumstance in which
domestic maize produced by ejidatarios has all but disap- flooding is a frequent, if not chronic, issue for the state of
peared. Without incentives to grow a marketable surplus,
6
maize has again become a subsistence crop.5 In many of PROCAMPO is a program that was instituted in late 1993, prior to
the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
PROCAMPO was initially designed to provide farmers economic
5
The national domestic maize supply, including Mexico City, has support while they transitioned out of a maize-based mode of
shifted towards high yielding regions such as Sinaloa and imports production into more competitive crops. It has become the primary
from the US. public source of economic support for rural households with land.

123
Livelihood change, farming, and managing flood risk 561

Mexico. Data on flood incidence collected by the state reinforces demand for existing technocratic approaches to
office of Civil Protection show a significant increase in the flood control.
number of flood events reported since 1994 when reporting
began, rising from around 20 in 1994 and 1995 to over 40
at the end of the 10-year period. While these figures mean The flood of 2003
little in hydrological timescales, they can be significant in
the time-horizon of public policy and can be sufficient to In September of 2003 the Lerma and its tributaries flooded
inspire public action. after heavy rains, affecting 17 municipios and over 18,000
When a new state governor assumed office in 1999, people (Secretaria de Agua and Comisión del Agua del Es-
flood protection was declared one of the state’s primary tado de México 2004). On September 25, the governor
goals in water management (del Mazo González et al. declared a state of emergency in order to request support
2001). Nationally, the profile of hydrometerological haz- from federal government through FONDEN and parallel
ards (drought, floods, and hurricanes) had been raised by support for damages to the agricultural sector through FA-
the devastation wrecked by Hurricane Pauline in Oaxaca PRACC. The communities of Emilio Portes Gil and San
and Guerrero in 1997 and torrential rainfall and flooding in Bartolo del Llano were among the affected communities. As
Chiapas in 1998, and in Puebla, Tabasco, and Veracruz in the case studies below illustrate, the farmers’ vulnerability to
1999. Although the flooding in 1998 in the state of Mexico flooding is not necessarily a product of a long history of
was not as extensive as in other states that year, it was one socioeconomic marginalization or failures in entitlements.
of the more damaging events to have occurred in the state’s Instead, the farmers are caught up in a policy process that has
recent history. Interviews with officials active in the gov- exogenously defined them as victims, and—in the case of
ernment in 1999 revealed that the new attention to flood San Bartolo—creates vulnerability through the public
risk in development policy was in part a function of investment in flood control infrastructure.
political pressure from the industrial sector that had expe-
rienced heavy property damage as a result of the Emilio Portes Gil
unprecedented flooding in 1998 (see Fig. 1 for the flooded
area in 1998). In essence, by 1999 flooding in the state of The ejido of Emilio Portes Gil (population of 3,076) is the
Mexico was being defined as an ‘‘unacceptable’’ risk, one of the larger urban settlements in the municipio of San
meriting greater action on the part of the public sector. Felipe de Progreso. According to the municipal development
In May of 2003 the federal government approved the new plan for San Felipe, Emilio Portes Gil is one of the com-
support program for farmers affected by climatic contin- munities most exposed to flooding from the Lerma’s
gencies (FAPRACC). In previous years, losses in agriculture tributary, the Jaltepec River, with some 170 households at
were addressed through the Interior Secretary through the risk (Presidencia Municipal de San Felipe del Progreso
National Fund for Natural Disasters (FONDEN). FAPRACC 2004). As illustrated in Table 2, the flooding that occurred in
created a separate fund for addressing agricultural-sector 2003 primarily affected the maize harvests and agricultural
impacts, leaving infrastructure-related and urban disasters to investments of farmers in Emilio Portes Gil and, in a few
FONDEN. By separating agricultural losses from more cases, family residences (Table 2). Most households resor-
general infrastructural loss, FAPRACC aims to encourage ted to extraordinary maize purchases at a price of $2.5 kilo/
individual farmers to adapt to climatic risk. In cases of week for several months of 2003 (in a few cases for the whole
unusual and anomalous events, farmers will be given support year), unless the household had reserves from the prior year’s
to re-establish their production. In cases of chronic or repe- harvest. For several households, contaminated flood waters
ated loss, FAPRACC supports projects designed to change were perceived to have affected the health of their families.
cropping patterns and land use to diminish the probability of Nevertheless, flooding has always been a feature of the
future impacts (SAGARPA 2003). local landscape and the history of the community illustrates
In theory, by encouraging adaptation to risk, FAPRACC that flooding was an understood and expected process,
is promoting the idea that some climatic variability is not managed through norms of communal land use. When the
only acceptable but also should be expected. In other community was founded in the mid-1930s, two-thirds of
words, the concept of ‘‘living with floods’’ is potentially the ejido’s land (645 ha) were allocated for communal
entirely compatible with FAPRACC’s overt intentions. pasture (Colı́n López and Guadarrama Romero 2001). This
Paradoxically, as is illustrated in the cases described below, land was primarily along the Jaltepec and Lerma Rivers
in the context of increased state and national attention to where seasonal flooding was frequent.
flooding as a threat to production and to the local economy, The communal use of the riparian lands changed in the
the emergence of FAPRACC in 2003 not only served to 1950s. As the population grew in the village, conflict
reinforce existing channels of political patronage but also erupted over land scarcity and the need to accommodate

123
562 H. Eakin, K. Appendini

Table 2 Impacts of the 2003

Impact Emilio Portes Gil San Bartolo de Llano
flood among interviewed
N = 20 N = 28
households
Percent of households (frequency)
* This number reflects only
those households who reported Average age of household head 48 years 52 years
purchasing maize in 2003 who Partial crop loss 55% (11) 60% (17)
normally do not purchase Total crop loss 40% (8) 39% (11)
maize. Other households
Property damage 15% (3) 11% (3)
increased their normal maize
purchases in 2003, beyond what Health impacts 25% (5) 18% (5)
their normal volumes. Source: Extraordinary maize purchases 40% (8) 77% (10)*
interviews by the author with Average production cost/ha $5662 pesos $2800 pesos
flood victims, 2003

the needs of the community’s younger generation (Colı́n 2003 were thus not necessarily a significant loss to the
López and Guadarrama Romero 2001). In 1957 a presi- stability of the households’ food supplies.
dential decree resolved the conflict, ordering the pasture Perceptions of flooding have also changed with the
land to be distributed to the landless households for culti- growing presence of ‘‘profesionistas’’ in the village—sal-
vation. Despite the flood-prone nature of the distributed aried professionals who have chosen to reside in the rural
land, it became a new area for crop production in the community while working in nearby urban areas (Appen-
1960s. dini and de Luca 2006). For these households, the flood
With this new land distribution, flooding shifted from losses in 2003 did not represent much of an economic
being part of the local hydrology, affecting communal impact because, as teacher who had lost his harvest to flood
lands, to a private concern—and an ‘‘accepted risk’’—for explained, ‘‘we have extra income.’’ They said few profe-
those households whose need for land superseded their sionistas like them were interested in farming, given the
concern over periodic flooding. The families with land low prices for maize and the frequent problems in yields:
along the Jaltepec River matter-of-factly reported that their ‘‘No one wants to throw away their money in agriculture
losses were ‘‘every year’’ and that ‘‘it is always going to anymore.’’ While many continued to plant in order to keep
flood.’’ As one woman said, ‘‘we can’t do anything about the land in production, their expectations of their harvests
the floods. God sends the water, and anyway the river is were relatively low.
always going to rise.’’ Another farmer commented that ‘‘I Initially—in the early 1960s—the households most
have 15 years with my land here, always I am losing [to exposed to flooding might have been considered to be dis-
floods]… I’ve had a good harvest only once!’’ advantaged members of the community. They were the last
With the new distribution of land, the importance of to receive land, and the land they received was inherently
livestock in the community declined, and income was risky. Initially, their ‘‘acceptance’’ of flood risk by settling
increasingly complemented by the growth of the cottage along the river may well have been an indication of their lack
industry of household cleaning implements and through of alternatives. Yet this interpretation of vulnerability may
employment in the construction industry (Appendini and no longer hold. Today their income diversification means
de Luca 2006). A survey conducted in 2003 by the Colegio that flooding does not necessarily threaten their livelihood
de Mexico7 found that 60% of the male household mem- stability, although it may represent a rising health concern for
bers and 69% of women were working outside the those living near the rivers’ waters.
community (Appendini and de Luca 2006). As a result, the Although the flood victims in Emilio Portes Gil had
time women had to dedicate to making tortillas diminishes been registered to receive the benefits of the FAPRACC
and, as one woman interviewed put it, ‘‘agriculture program, only a few of the interviewed households were
becomes a weekend activity.’’ The flooded maize fields in clear about what benefits they had received and from what
agency. The farmers expressed ambivalence about the
government’s interventions in flood compensation and
7
This article draws primarily from the household-level data collected control, declaring that the flooding was chronic phenome-
in the two communities. To enhance the historical and contextual
non and there was little possibility that any intervention
understanding of the relationship between flooding and livelihood
change, supplementary data is also drawn from this prior work, would successfully address it.
including a survey of 114 households in Emilio Portes Gil carried out
in 2003. The survey was applied to a sample of households in EPG as San Bartolo del Llano
part of a larger project, La transformación de la ruralidad mexicana:
modos de vida y respuestas locales y regionales, coordinated by
Kirsten Appendini, El Colegio de México, with funding from San Bartolo is the third largest community in the municipio
Conacyt. (See Appendini and De Luca 2006). of Ixtlahuaca, with a population of 9,827 in 1,811

123
Livelihood change, farming, and managing flood risk 563

households. One of the primary concerns of the municipio decision of the state government in 1999 to straighten and
is the expansion of its urban area into former agricultural dredge the segment of the Sila River as part of its new
lands, resulting in ‘‘highly dispersed’’ urban settlements agenda for flood control, and in the process raised the
and ‘‘irregular occupation of agricultural land’’ (Gobierno height of the river’s embankments. This public works
Municipal de Ixtlahuaca 2003: 22, authors’ translation). project effectively ended the seasonal flooding of the
Although no official records were available to confirm the farmers’ fields.
pace of land conversion, authorities in San Bartolo agreed With the security offered by the new embankments,
that there was an active informal land market and most of farmers in San Bartolo expanded the area they planted in
the transactions were taking place at the village boundaries, summer rainfed maize to the edge of the river. While
in the lands closest to the urban area of Ixtlahuaca where annual floods were now more unlikely, any flooding that
flooding of both the Lerma River and its tributary, the Sila did occur would now directly affect something of value:
River, is frequent. maize. The embankments also increased the velocity of the
In September of 2003 the walls of the Santa Catarina river’s flow, channeling water with greater force to the
reservoir upstream from San Bartolo were breached after intersection with the Lerma River. As a result, households
several weeks of heavy rain. The fields of San Bartolo were were now faced the possibility of more infrequent but more
flooded when the reservoir’s discharge exceeded the powerful events and, with the higher embankments and
capacity of the Sila River. According to the official records, natural subsidence of the soils, less possibilities for natural
426 households reported agricultural damages averaging drainage. This was exactly what occurred in 2003, when
1.19 ha per household. Interviews with flood-affected the flood waters from the Sila River stagnated in the sur-
households revealed that most of them—60%—suffered rounding fields for the better part of a month. Flooding had
partial crop loss (amounting to 48.8% of their normal been transformed into an unacceptable risk.
expected production in the affected fields) (Table 2). As in Ironically, the changes to the river prevented farmers
EPG, the losses also represented a loss of investment and, from easy access to the river’s waters for irrigation, which
for a few households, property damage. Nevertheless, the they had come to depend on as the water table declined.
event of 2003 was significant not simply because of the Prior to the straightening of the river, some farmers had
unusually heavy rainfall and the failure of the Santa Cat- practiced diverting the Sila River onto their fields through
arina dam. Its impact was exacerbated by changes in land temporary make-shift dams. Local leaders in the commu-
use that ironically were the result of the government’s nity revealed that the farmers were now planning to
efforts in flood protection. petition the agriculture ministry for funds to provide a
Historically, as in EPG, flooding was part of the com- sluice and pump in order to extract the Sila’s waters during
munity’s annual production cycle and norms of land use. the dry season onto their fields as needed. In other words,
Flooding was, essentially, an accepted part of the farmers’ the efforts of the state to protect Ixtlahuaca’s industry and
interaction with the wetland ecosystem. The low banks of urban areas from flooding had translated into both into a
the Sila River tended to overflow towards the end of the new agricultural opportunity and also, ironically, exacer-
rainy season, creating a seasonal wetland in the ejido. bated hazards—flooding and drought—for San Bartolo
Interviews with elderly residents of the community residents.
revealed that farmers worked around this annual phenom-
enon, using the residual moisture the flooding left in the
soils to plant winter wheat when the waters retreated. The Opportunities for ‘‘living with floods’’ in the Lerma
local diet had even accommodated this production pattern: Valley
the women made their tortillas from an unusual combina-
tion of wheat and corn, taking advantage of the winter crop Farmers in both communities have a long history of living
for subsistence. with the dynamic nature of the Lerma River and its tribu-
Two interventions in the local hydrology changed the taries. This history does not provide evidence of significant
farmers’ relationship with the Sila River, setting a new path flood vulnerability but, on the contrary, evidence of adap-
of development that led to the recent creation of floods as tation to hydrological variability in a region characterized
agricultural ‘‘hazards.’’ First, in 1966 the community by wetlands and lagoons. When asked to explain the fre-
agreed to the perforation of wells in its lands as part of the quency of flooding in the area, many farmers responded
export of water to Mexico City. The farmers noted an that the river was seeking its natural path that had been
immediate change in the humidity of their soils, and within denied through decades (if not centuries) of development.
three years they had abandoned the practice of planting The older farmers in San Bartolo del Llano remembered
winter wheat because of lack of moisture. The second watering their maize plants with clay pots from the Sila’s
significant intervention in the local hydrology was the waters, and the annual flooding of the lowlands near the

123
564 H. Eakin, K. Appendini

river was part of their understanding of the local ecology. likely to be far more negotiable than in relation to resi-
In Emilio Portes Gil, archives from the original land allo- dential and industrial uses. This is not to say that flooding
cation to the ejidatarios documented how the farmers does not represent a material loss to households. Domes-
planned to distribute their farming and livestock activities tically produced maize is still preferred for consumption
according to the most appropriate use of land, taking into purposes despite dramatic livelihood changes in villages,
account its topography and climate. and rural Mexicans continue to invest important financial
In Emilio Portes Gil, a declining market for maize resources in farming. It appears, however, that agriculture
accompanied by livelihood diversification had changed the is increasingly not central to livelihood security.
relationship of farmers to their land and their perceptions of In this context, riparian agricultural land has value not
flood risk. The experience of farmers in the 2003 flood so much in a protected, non-flooded state but rather as
illustrates that the material impacts of the flood were not part of a flexible social and ecological system in which
necessarily significant to the overall livelihood security of water occasionally leaves the rivers’ banks and converts
the affected residents. In San Bartolo, floods as hazards had fields into temporary or seasonal wetlands. In an area
only emerged following the government’s implementation where farmers now more frequently suffer from a lack of
of flood control measures in 1999. Prior to that year, soil moisture, salinization, and erosion, enhancing the
farmers had little expectation of achieving viable summer organic matter and humidity of soils through periodic
harvests in the flood plain of the Sila River and instead had flooding may well provide a local ecological service.
adapted their production cycle to the river’s seasonal Creating ‘‘space for flooding’’ thus can also represent an
variability. opportunity for continued agricultural productivity to the
Rather than encouraging engagement with flooding as benefit of local food security—although farmers would
an inherent property of the social and ecological geography have to accept the occasional crop loss or, as San Bar-
of the Lerma Valley, current public policy presents floods tolo’s farmers had done in the past, work around the
as private hazards to be partially compensated individually seasonality of river flows. Perhaps more important, peri-
through FAPRACC and also as an ‘‘unacceptable risk’’ and odic flooding could prevent the conversion of farmland
thus a public responsibility. The policy does not recognize into dispersed residential properties, for which flood risk
farmers’ historic and continued engagement with and becomes a serious threat to material goods, livelihoods,
acceptance of flood risk, or the ecological value of wet- and welfare.
lands and periodic flooding. In essence, the intervention of It is apparent from the cases presented here that until
the state government in flood control and its program to relatively recently, these ecological and social values were
compensate farmers for their losses has created floods as intrinsic to the relationship farmers had with the seasonal
hazards in these communities. variability of the Sila and Jaltepec Rivers. The challenge
It is undeniable that there is a need for the state to devote for policy is to design a risk-management strategy that
resources and attention to flood risk. The Lerma Valley is builds on this relationship rather than recasts it in terms of
literally sinking as the water table declines—in some pla- threat, loss, and compensation. The state of Mexico is now
ces by more than 1 m/yr (Esteller and Dı́az-Delgado 2002). in a position to incorporate such values into a policy that
The rate of subsidence in a region once characterized by frames flooding as part of the social ecology of the Lerma
extended wetlands and lagoons implies serious problems Valley region. It is the accumulation of impacts across the
for water management and flood control, particularly in valley and the political and economic pressures associated
relation to rapid and largely unregulated urbanization. The with impacts in urban zones (but now potentially in rural
encroachment of urban settlement in former lagoons and areas as well) that pose a significant social problem. Rather
river causeways has reduced the flexibility of water man- than defining hazards as individual crises, the state has an
agement in the valley, leaving engineers with little opportunity to work with farmers to select areas in which
alternative but to follow flooding with dredging, embank- flooding will provide an ecological service, managed by
ments, bridges and sluices. Yet the valley is also in a period landowners. Risk maps and land use zoning now exist as
of transition, and outside the major urban areas land use is part of municipal planning documents, and with the
still largely agricultural. Interviews with local authorities development of the state Flood Atlas, the frequency and
as well as field observation suggests that the trend of location of flooding can be monitored and better predicted.
conversion of agricultural land into rural housing plots is With the active participation of local residents, areas sus-
quite real, fueled by declining agricultural prices and rising ceptible to flooding can be reclassified into more flexible
remittances. categories reflecting appropriate land use and the liveli-
Compared to urban land use, agriculture is relatively hood and ecological value of the land to local residents.
flexible in face of flooding. The threshold that differentiates Farmers would not be compensated for any agricultural
accepted from acceptable risk to farm communities is losses from flooding, but would be able to claim support for

123
Livelihood change, farming, and managing flood risk 565

their annual contribution to sustainable water and land References

management.
The concept of ecological services is not without chal- Aguilar Santelises, A., G. Arevalo Galarza, and A. Torres Estrada.
1997. Atlas ecológico de la cuenca hidrográfica del Rı´o Lerma.
lenges, as other geographers have recognized (Liverman Toluca: Gobierno del Estado de México.
2004). Experimental programs providing payments to rural Appendini, K., and M. De Luca. 2006. Estrategias rurales en el nuevo
households for maintaining land cover in forest and for contexto agrı´cola mexicano. Document serie: Género y Manejo
watershed conservation have already been initiated in some de Recursos Naturales, Género y Trabajo. Rome: FAO.
Blaikie, P., T. Cannon, I. Davis, and B. Wisner. 1994. At risk: Natural
regions of Mexico (Contreras Marmolejo 2008). While the hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters. London:
lessons from those programs should be fully investigated, Routledge.
particularly in relation to participation, equity, and fairness Brouwer, R., R. van Ek, R. Boeters, and J. Bouma. 2006. Living with
in the distribution of benefits (Liverman 2004), there may floods: An integrated assessment of land use changes and
floodplain restoration as alternative flood protection measures in
well be opportunities for extending these programs to the Netherlands. CSERGE Working Paper No. EMC-2001–06.
floodplain management. University of East Anglia, UK: Norwich.
In the Lerma Valley for such a program to work, not Colı́n López, A.R., and X. Guadarrama Romero. 2001. Las
only would there be a need for far greater participation in transformaciones en la organización campesina del trabajo.
Thesis. Facultad de Ciencias Polı́ticas y Administración Pública.
flood management and land use planning, but the state and Teoluca, México: Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México.
federal authorities would need to commit to improving Contreras Marmolejo, F.J. 2008. El pago por servicios ambientales:
quality of the Lerma River water—now one of the most una reconcialiación con la naturaleza. Me´xico Forestal 76.
contaminated rivers in Mexico—to control for the health http://www.mexicoforestal.gob.mx/editorial.php?id=5. Accessed
12 Feb 2008.
impacts of occasional flooding. Explicitly valuing riparian del Mazo González, L.A., I.A. Martı́nez Baca, D.G. Figueroa
areas for ecological services also runs the risk of further Rodrı́guez, and I.J. Suárez López. 2001. Programa hidráulico
embedding the patronizing relationship between farmers integral del estado de Me´xico, consejo consultivo del agua del
and the government in Mexico, if farmers perceive the estado de Me´xico. http://www.edomex.gob.mx/comisionagua/
doc/pdf/publicaciones/proghidra/proghid.pdf. Accessed 12 Feb
support as a welfare or production subsidy rather than a 2008.
payment for a valued service. Dessai, S., W.N. Adger, M. Hulme, J. Turnpenny, J. Köhler, and R.
These caveats aside, it is evident that more explicit Warren. 2004. Defining and experiencing dangerous climate
attention to the subjective dimensions of risk and the dif- change. Climatic Change 64: 11–25.
Douben, K.J. 2006. Characteristics of river floods and flooding: A
ferent meanings of loss may provide new opportunities for global overview, 1985–2003. Irrigation and Drainage 55: S9–
improved flood management. Perceptions and meaning S21.
associated with floods—ultimately, the ‘‘acceptability’’ of Ellemore, H. 2005. Reconsidering emergency management and indig-
flooding—are intimately tied to the livelihood activities of enous communities in Australia. Environmental Hazards 6: 1–7.
Esteller, M.V., and C. Dı́az-Delgado. 2002. Environmental effects of
the exposed population. The combination of agricultural aquifer overexploitation: A case study in the highlands of
policy and market change, livelihood diversification, and Mexico. Environmental Management 29: 266–278.
public interventions in the region’s hydrology substantially Few, R. 2003. Flooding, vulnerability and coping strategies: Local
altered the relationship of farmers to their land. Never- responses to a global threat. Progress in Development Studies 3:
43–58.
theless, the two case studies illustrate that the households Gobierno Municipal de Ixtlahuaca. 2003. Plan municipal de desarr-
have substantially adapted to these political-economic ollo urbano de Ixtlahuaca. Toluca: Secretarı́a de Desarrollo
stressors in their livelihood strategies. By ignoring these Urbano.
changes, the government’s infrastructural interventions in Hewitt, K. (ed.). 1983. Interpretations of calamity. Winchester: Allen
and Unwin, Inc.
the area assume a low tolerance for loss in rural areas, and Hewitt, K. 1997. Regions of risk: A geographical introduction to
thus set a new precedent of floods as rural disasters, rather disasters. Harlow: Longman.
than opportunities for improved social-ecological Huang, G. 2005. Living with flood: A sustainable approach for
sustainability. prevention, adaptation, and control. Water International 30: 2–4.
INEGI. 2001. XII Censo general de población y vivienda, 2000.
Acknowledgments Funding for this research was provided by a Sı´ntesis de resultados. Instituto Nacional de Estadı́stica, Geog-
National Science Foundation International Research Fellowship rafı́a e Informática: Aguascalientes.
(Grant 0401939) to H. Eakin. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions INEGI. 2006. Conteo de población y vivienda, 2005. Instituto Nacional
or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the de Estadı́stica, Geografı́a e Informática: Aguascalientes.
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Sci- Johnson, C., E. Penning-Rowsell, and D. Parker. 2007. Natural and
ence Foundation (NSF). The authors are appreciative of the support of imposed injustices: The challenges in implementing ‘‘fair’’ flood
X. Guadarrama and E. Domı́nguez in the collection of data as well as risk management policy in England. The Geographical Journal
the contributions provided to this research by the public officials and 173: 374–390.
rural residents interviewed. The map in this article was prepared by A. Klijn, F., M. van Buuren, and S.A.M. van Rooij. 2004. Flood-risk
Lerner. The article was significantly improved with the helpful sug- management strategies for an uncertain future: Living with
gestions of three anonymous reviewers. Rhine River floods in The Netherlands? Ambio 33: 141–148.

123
566 H. Eakin, K. Appendini

Kundzewicz, Z.W., and Z. Kaczmarek. 2000. Coping with hydrolog- inundaciones 10: 10 años previeniendo inundaciones. Naucalpan
ical extremes. Water International 25: 66–75. de Juárez: Gobierno del Estado de México.
Liverman, D. 1990. Drought impacts in Mexico: Climate, agriculture, Smith, K. 2004. Environmental hazards: Assessing risk and reducing
technology and land tenure in Sonora and Puebla. Annals of the disaster. London: Routledge.
Association of American Geographers 80: 49–72. Tobin, G., and B.E. Montz. 1997. Natural hazards. New York:
Liverman, D. 2004. Who governs, at what scale and at what price? Guildford Press.
Geography, environmental governance, and the commodification van Ogtrop, F.F., A.Y. Hoekstra, and F. van der Meulen. 2005. Flood
of nature. Annals of the Association of American Geographers management in the Lower Incomati River Basin, Mozambique:
94: 734–738. Two alternatives. Journal of the American Water Resources
Magaña, V., J.M. Méndez, R. Morales, and C. Millán. 2005. Association June: 607–613.
Consecuencias presentes y futuras de la variabilidad y el cambio White, G. 1986. Human adjustment to floods. In Geography,
climático en México. In Camibo climático: una visión desde resources, environment, ed. R. Kates and I. Burton, 11–25.
Me´xico, ed. J. Martı́nez, and A.F. Bremauntz, 203–213. México, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
DF: Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales and
Instituto Nacional de Ecologı́a. Author Biographies
Montz, B.E. 2000. The generation of flood hazards and disasters by
urban development of floodplains. In Floods, ed. D.J. Parker,
116–132. London: Routledge. Hallie Eakin received her doctorate in Geography and Regional
Mustafa, D. 1998. Structural causes of vulnerability to flood hazard in Development from the University of Arizona in 2002. She is currently
Pakistan. Economic Geography 74: 94–105. an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Mustafa, D. 2002. Linking access and vulnerability: Perceptions of As a postdoctoral researcher at the Center of Atmospheric Sciences of
irrigation and flood management in Pakistan. The Professional the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, she
Geographer 54: 289–305. continued to work on issues related to economic globalization, agri-
Mustafa, D. 2005. The production of an urban hazardscape in Pakistan: cultural change, and rural vulnerability to climate in the context of
Modernity, vulnerability and the range of choice. Annals of the several comparative international projects involving case studies in
Association of American Geographers 95 (3): 566–586. Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, and Honduras. Her articles on this
Pahl-Wostl, C. 2006. The importance of social learning in restoring research have been published in World Development, the Journal of
the multifunctionality of rivers and floodplains. Ecology and Environment and Development, Climatic Change, Global Environ-
Society 11 (1): 10. mental Change and Physical Geography. Her book Weathering Risk
Parker, D.J. (ed.). 2000. Floods. London and New York: Routledge. in Rural Mexico, based on her research on agricultural adaptation to
Pelling, M. 1999. The political ecology of flood hazard in urban neoliberal reforms and climatic variability in central Mexico, was
Guyana. Geoforum 30: 249–261. released by the University of Arizona Press in 2006.
Presidencia Municipal de San Felipe del Progreso. 2004. Plan
municipal de desarrollo urbano de San Felipe del progreso Kirsten Appendini has a doctorate in Agricultural Economics from
estado de Me´xico. Toluca: Secretaria de Desarrollo Urbano the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She cur-
Estado De México. rently is a researcher and professor on the faculty of the Center for
Rashed Chowdhury, M. 2003. The impact of ‘‘Greater Dhaka Flood Economic Studies (Centro de Estudios Económicos) at the Colegio de
Protection Project (GDFPP)’’ on local living environment: The México in Mexico City. She has published widely on issues of
attitude of the floodplain residents. Natural Hazards 29: 309–324. agrarian change, rural poverty, food security, and food policy in
SAGARPA. 2003. Reglas de operación del programa del Fondo para Mexico. Her book on Mexican maize policy, De la milpa a los tor-
Atender a la Población Afectada por Contingencias Climatológ- tibonos: La restructración de la polı´tica alimentaria en Me´xico
icas (FAPRACC). Diario Oficial 27 May 2003. (Colmex 2001) is now on its second edition. She has also served as a
Secretaria de Agua, Obra Pública e Infraestructura para el Desarrollo consultant to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and several
and Comisión del Agua del Estado de México. 2004. Atlas de bilateral development agencies.

123