Halcrow has been working in Argentina for more than 15 years having formed a solid team of more than 130 professionals and technicians. Halcrow’s first project in Argentina was in the 1950s. Between 2001-2005 we completed a comprehensive master plan to address the city’s drainage needs.
With more than 4.5 million inhabitants and an area of 28,500ha, Buenos Aires is the second largest metropolitan area in Latin America. The low lying city is located on the western shore of the River Plate estuary.
Halcrow drew on its expertise in master planning and hydraulic modelling to identify a set of solutions – structural and non-structural measures- that would mitigate the highly disruptive flooding that frequently affects up to a third of the city’s population.
We gathered data and constructed and verified hydraulic models of all the surface water catchment areas. This enabled us to assess the shortcomings in the current system and address hydraulic problems in the networks. The master plan identified suitable design criteria and risks and included a sector plan for the future management, operation and maintenance of the drainage network.
Since the plan was adopted, several areas of Buenos Aires have escaped flooding due to the successful co-ordination of non-structural changes