8. Forum DKKV/CEDIM: Disaster Reduction in Climate Change 15./16.10.2007, Karlsruhe University Risk Habitat Megacity - Strategies for Sustainable Development in Megacities and Urban Agglomerations Dr. Dirk Heinrichs 1 , Dr. Henning Nuissl 2 , Dr. Volker Stelzer 3 1 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ, Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany, E-Mail: dirk.heinrichs@ufz.de, phone: +4903412352825 2 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ, Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany, E-Mail: henning.nuissl@ufz.de, phone: +493412352696 3 Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany, E- Mail: stelzer@itas.fzk.de, phone: +497247823474 4. Riscs from Megacities text 1.1 Subsection Megacities: Habitats of Opportunity and Risk In particular in the developing world, megacities provide extensive opportunities for employment and investment that are lacking elsewhere. The agglomeration of people also bears the potential for an efficient and sustainable management of resources due to low per capita costs for e.g. the provision of piped water or the collection and disposal of garbage (Satterthwaite 1999). Furthermore, the urban centres accommodate the social resources as well as the human and the financial capital to tackle global challenges: universities, consultancies, non-government organizations, firms and industries. Megacities, on the other hand, concentrate natural, environmental, social and economic risks. Victim and culprit at the same time, they not only face but also produce and reinforce these risks (Mitchell 1999). For example: interference with water catchments jeopardizes the water supply; urban sprawl proceeds at the expense of agricultural land, thus potentially endangering the food supply chain; mounting traffic contributes greatly to worsening air quality; intensive social and economic disparities produce poverty, social exclusion and crime which, in turn increase the vulnerability of the affected people to disasters such as earthquakes, tropical cyclones, floods, or hangslides (World Bank 2000; UN Habitat 2006). The multitude of risks concentrated in megacities does not only affect individuals but also megacities at large and even national economies and environmental conditions at a broader scale. Therefore, it is of global importance to prevent the emergence of new and increasingly serious risks in megacities. However, as they are also spaces of opportunity it is the megacity itselve that carry the promise and the potential to overcome this challenge (Hardoy et al. 1999). The emergence and amplification of risks in megacities proves particularly dynamic. Exogenous and endogenous risk factors and risk trends (such as earthquakes and social exclusion) frequently reinforce each other. Moreover, the co-existence and close interaction of different technical and socio-technical systems in Megacities leaves the latter more and more exposed to systemic risks. This can create risk dynamics which are hard to predict. Governance failures frequently aggravate this vicious cycle. The Risk Habitat Megacity as the focus of research Risk Habitat Megacity addresses the diverse problems and risks related to mega-urbanisation. The initiative has a particular focus on Latin America, the most urbanised region in the world. It brings together the expertise of about forty natural and social scientists and engineers from five German research centres of the Helmholtz-Association – German Aerospace Centre (DLR), Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), GeoResearchCentre Potsdam (GFZ), Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) – and four partner organizations in Latin America – Universidad de Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) of the United Nations.