Recurrent risk and the disaster loop: A forensic approach to urban flooding

This publication examines how recurrent flooding in Guadalajara, Mexico, is not the result of isolated hydrometeorological events but the outcome of long-standing socio-spatial, institutional, and historical processes shaped by inequality, governance constraints, and unplanned urbanisation. Using a forensic, retrospective longitudinal approach, the study traces how successive phases of urban development on unsuitable land, socio-spatial segregation, and uneven infrastructure provision have consolidated and reproduced flood risk over time. 

It finds that predominantly reactive, engineering-focused institutional responses have reduced immediate impacts while reinforcing the structural conditions that sustain risk. To explain this dynamic, the authors introduce the concept of the disaster loop, a self-reinforcing cycle in which governance practices and development trajectories continually regenerate vulnerability. The study concludes that breaking this cycle requires integrated, corrective, and forward-looking territorial planning that addresses the systemic roots of risk, with broader relevance for rapidly urbanising contexts where inequality and fragmented governance drive chronic disaster patterns.