Reconquista river basin in the metropolitan planning of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Scope, problems and proposals

Abstract Reconquista River Basin is one of the three major basins in the metropolitan region of Buenos Aires (Argentina) seriously affected by flooding and pollution. As part of the metropolitan city, the Reconquista river basin was considered in the urban planning documents that were developed for the region during the second half of the Twentieth Century: the Plan Regulador de Buenos Aires, the Esquema Director Año 2000, Estudio del Sistema Metropolitano Bonaerense and Proyecto 90. Regardless of whether or not they were realized, the plans reveal ways of thinking and operating in the river basin as an area within the city, as a problem of metropolitan scope and as a proposal for territorial transformation in three stages: firstly floods and hydraulics, secondly environment and quality of life, and thirdly ecology and landscape, in which the relationships established between urbanization, urbanism and river basins changed.