Abstract

PERLO COHEN, Manuel  and  ZAMORA SAENZ, Itzkuauhtli. ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ABOUT THE POLLUTION AND REHABILITATION OF THE MAGDALENA RIVER IN MEXICO CITY. Rev. Int. Contam. Ambient [online]. 2017, vol.33, n.3, pp.377-391. ISSN 0188-4999.  https://doi.org/10.20937/rica.2017.33.03.02.

This research shows the main results of a survey (n = 270) in the Magdalena river micro basin located in the southwest of Mexico City. The survey identified the environmental perspectives that the population has through its perceptions, values and attitudes about pollution and river rehabilitation. The article establishes that the majority of the population feels affected for the river pollution and this fact is framed as a natural heritage loss of the city. However, less than the half survey participants share any kind of responsibility for the river degradation and have never done anything to contribute to its cleaning. In other tendencies, the population considers that the most important actions to rehabilitate the river are environmental education improvement and the growth of citizen participation mechanisms. Nevertheless, they are pretty skeptical about the effectiveness and truthfulness of the participative spaces created by the government, because citizens consider that these spaces are manipulated in order to legitimize decisions previously taken by the same authority. The socio-demographic variable that had more weight in several statistical correlations was the geographical location in the micro basin, indeed in the lower watershed are the citizens that feel more wronged by the pollution of the river. Young people place more value on environmental education as the instrument of change to recover the river as a public and environmental space of the city.

Keywords : urban rivers; environmental perspectives; river rehabilitation; citizen participation.