Draft, not yet released. In stewardship review. Not indexed until the first approved release.

Risks and capability

Four regional risk objects open the portfolio. Order carries no rank. Each is read across driver, exposure, vulnerability, capacity, cascade and consequence; loss metrics are added only where they can be modelled.

5 min read0 figures1 table15 notesNR-REGIONAL-SAM-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1South America’s risk travels through shared rivers, grids and gas
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
    1. 4.1 Risk objects
    2. 4.2 Capability ladder
  7. 5Basin drought across the Paraná corridor and the Amazon
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

4.1Risk objects

Each risk is read across the chain from hazard to consequence, with its status and evidence-quality level.

  1. ReportedEQL 4RSK-SAM-CLI-001

    River flood and storm season

    Driver
    extreme rainfall on saturated catchments
    Exposure
    river corridors and coastal cities
    Vulnerability
    flood defences not bound
    Capacity
    civil protection systems exist in law44; performance not bound
    Cascade
    CLI → INF, FIN, HLT
    Horizon
    annual

  2. InferredEQL 3RSK-SAM-WAT-002

    Low flow on shared rivers in a dry year

    Driver
    low rainfall and high demand
    Exposure
    navigation, hydropower, farming
    Vulnerability
    dependence on a few river corridors
    Capacity
    basin treaty bodies exist3940; performance not bound
    Cascade
    WAT → ENE, FOO
    Horizon
    1–5 years

  3. InferredEQL 3RSK-SAM-HLT-003

    Dengue epidemics under warm and wet conditions

    Driver
    heat, rainfall and vector range
    Exposure
    urban populations
    Vulnerability
    water storage and sanitation access
    Capacity
    health system capacity not bound18
    Cascade
    CLI → HLT
    Horizon
    seasonal

  4. Expert inputEQL 2RSK-SAM-ENE-004

    Hydropower shortfall and gas dependence in a dry year

    Driver
    drought, price spike or a link outage
    Exposure
    power, industry, heating
    Vulnerability
    reservoir levels and cross-border flows not bound
    Capacity
    binational plants and one converter2741
    Cascade
    WAT → ENE → FOO, FIN
    Horizon
    1–5 years

4.2Capability ladder

Existence is not readiness. Each of the fifteen capability functions is placed on the ladder by the strongest public evidence at the regional level, from a policy listing to performance in real events.

Table 4.1Capabilities on the ladder of evidence: listed, exists, demonstrated, tested
FunctionRungLevelStrongest public evidence at baseline
Prevention and mitigationEXISTSnational climate laws and pledges are in place19204244
Monitoring and observationEXISTSWMO regional reporting and satellite imagery are published1517
Early warningNOT BOUNDsource: national weather and flood-warning services · blocker: not retrieved
Preparedness and planningLISTEDcivil protection law in Argentina44; delivery not bound
Redundancy and reservesNOT BOUNDsource: reservoir and gas storage records · blocker: not retrieved
ResponseNOT BOUNDsource: after-action records for flood and drought events · blocker: not retrieved
Continuity of critical servicesLISTEDsanitation law in Brazil47; performance not bound
RecoveryNOT BOUNDsource: recovery agency and insurer records · blocker: not retrieved; a joint assessment exists for 202416
AdaptationLISTEDArgentine climate law sets adaptation duties44; delivery not bound
Social protectionNOT BOUNDsource: income-support and disaster-payment records · blocker: not reviewed
Finance and insuranceNOT BOUNDsource: insurer and reinsurer loss data · blocker: not retrieved
Institutional coordinationEXISTSbasin treaties and the binational plant treaty exist394041; performance not bound
Technical infrastructureNOT BOUNDsource: asset-condition registers · blocker: not published
WorkforceNOT BOUNDsource: health and emergency workforce registers · blocker: not retrieved
Research capacityEXISTSpeer-reviewed Amazon and compound-event research is published3738
A capability listed in policy is not a tested one; each rung is the strongest public evidence at baseline.

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 44UNVERIFIED, not opened: Government of Argentina (ed.), Ley 27.520, Presupuestos mínimos de adaptación y mitigación al cambio climático global; Ley 27.287 on the national civil protection system is listed with it. Boletín Oficial, Buenos Aires, 2019. Observation year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 39UNVERIFIED, not opened: Treaty of the River Plate Basin (Tratado da Bacia do Prata), signed by the basin states in 1969. Observation year 1969. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 40UNVERIFIED, not opened: Amazon Cooperation Treaty (Tratado de Cooperação Amazônica), signed by the Amazon basin states in 1978. Observation year 1978. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 18Pan American Health Organization (ed.), PAHO calls for collective action in response to record increase in dengue cases in the Americas (news release, 28 March 2024; data as of 26 March 2024). PAHO, Washington, DC. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 27UNVERIFIED, not opened: Hitachi Energy (ed.), Brazil-Argentina HVDC interconnection, Garabí converter station (2,200 MW back-to-back; 60 Hz and 50 Hz; first phase 2000, second phase 2002; flows mainly Brazil to Argentina per a World Bank case study); taken from search summaries. Hitachi Energy, Zurich. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 41UNVERIFIED, not opened: Treaty of Itaipú between Brazil and Paraguay on the hydroelectric use of the Paraná river, signed in 1973. Observation year 1973. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 19Climate Action Tracker (ed.), Brazil: targets (second NDC, 59% to 67% below 2005 by 2035, 850 to 1,050 Mt CO2e including land use, submitted 13 November 2024; page updated 30 June 2026). Climate Analytics and NewClimate Institute. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 20Subsecretaría de Ambiente, Presidencia de la Nación (ed.), Argentina presentó la tercera contribución determinada a nivel nacional (net emissions not above 375 Mt CO2e for 2030 and 2035, 3 November 2025). Government of Argentina, Buenos Aires. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 42UNVERIFIED, not opened: República Federativa do Brasil (ed.), Lei nº 12.187, de 29 de dezembro de 2009, institui a Política Nacional sobre Mudança do Clima. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, 2009. Observation year 2009. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 15World Meteorological Organization (ed.), State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2025 (series page, published 18 May 2026, updated 12 June 2026; key messages only, the full report was not opened). WMO, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 17NASA Earth Observatory (ed.), Bahía Blanca inundated (image of the day, 17 March 2025; about 400 mm in 8 hours on 7 March 2025, previous daily record 175 mm in 1930; page updated 31 January 2026). NASA, Washington, DC. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 47UNVERIFIED, not opened: República Federativa do Brasil (ed.), Lei nº 14.026, de 15 de julho de 2020, atualiza o marco legal do saneamento básico. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, 2020. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 16Inter-American Development Bank, with ECLAC and the World Bank Group (eds.), Damage and loss assessment of the April and May 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul (BRL 88.9 billion), as reported by Agência Brasil on 29 November 2024; the assessment itself was not opened. IDB, Washington, DC. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 37UNVERIFIED, not opened: J. Zscheischler, S. Westra, B. J. J. M. van den Hurk et al., “Future climate risk from compound events,” Nature Climate Change, vol. 8, pp. 469–477, 2018. Observation year 2018. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 38UNVERIFIED, not opened: B. M. Flores, A. Montoya, I. Staal et al., “Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system,” Nature, vol. 626, pp. 555–564, 2024. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 4: Risks and capability. In South America Regional Systems Risk and Resilience Report 2026: Baseline Edition, The State of South America’s Interdependent Systems. (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-REGIONAL-SAM-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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