HR: 10:35h
AN: GC22A-02 [Abstracts]
TI: Climatic Action Plan Project for the state of Veracruz (Mexico)
AU: * Tejeda, A
EM: atejeda@uv.mx
AF: Applied Climatology Group at the Veracruzana University, Circuito Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran
s/n, Xalapa, Ver 91000, Mexico
AU: Ochoa, C
EM: caochoa@uv.mx
AB:
With financing of the British Government and support of the National Institute of Ecology, from April of 2006 to
March of 2008 an action plan which intends variability effects and climatic change for the state of Veracruz will be
made. This plan will be taken to the state government and will be spread out to manufacturers, industrialists and
population. Throughout the Gulf of Mexico, the state of Veracruz is a 745 km coast in length with a width that goes
from 156 km in the center to 47 km in the north. The state has large mountains, forests, plains, rivers, cascades,
lagoons and coasts. Veracruz is the 10th largest state in Mexico with a 72,420 km2 surface, it is located between
17°00' and 22°28' north latitude and between 93°95' and 98°38' west longitude.
Because of the orographic effect, the Sierra Madre Oriental causes the existence of many types of climate, from
dry to tropical forest, going through snow on the top of the Pico de Orizaba (5747m of altitude). The wind affects
the coasts by not allowing to fish during a hundred days a year (particularly in winter), and on summer tropical
waves and occasionally hurricanes affect rivers causing overflow and urban floods in fields. These phenomena
do not have a regular affectation; they are subject to climate variability effects. Veracruz is the third state with most
population in the country (7.1 million people in 2005), only surpassed by the state of Mexico and Mexico City.
Although it occupies 3.7% of the national territory, Veracruz has 6.9% of human population in the country, and is
the 6th state of PIB national contribution (240 thousands of millions pesos approximately). Of the possible effects
of the climatic change the following can be expected: , , : Most of the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, low and sandy,
less of a meter on the sea level, represent the most vulnerable territory of Veracruz. Towns will be affected, the
saline water will infiltrate until the phreatic mantles and the coast electrical power stations (Tuxpan and Laguna
Verde) will be affected directly if they're still operating within half century. The lagoons of Alvarado and Tamiahua
will be part of the sea. In heavy numbers, more than six hundred kilometers of beaches will be lost (and, of
course, good part of the tourist infrastructure including Costa Esmeralda and Veracruz Boca del Río), along
with more than two hundred kilometers of routes and around twenty kilometers of seaports. More than three
thousand urban hectares will become floodable as two hundred thousand fields and agriculture. Because of all
this, a study is proposed that considers a revision of the state's variability and climatic change in Veracruz; an
inventory of GEI emissions and its respective scenes; data bases with quality control and analysis of climatic
variability; regional climatic scenes (years 2025, 2050 and 2075), and scenes of vulnerability and adaptation
measures, mitigation in coast affectations and coastal infrastructure, water availability, biodiversity, agriculture,
human establishments and energy consumption by air conditioning of houses. Approaches of the study will be
discussed and advances during the first semester of the project will appear in this presentation.
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
SC: Global Climate Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly