Water Governance in the Context of IWRM: Chile - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 148

quality is the responsibility of the MMA (Environmental Law, Art 70 (u)), while
monitoring of water quantity is fragmented across the DGA and the Junta de
Vigilancia (Water Code, Art 122 & 146). Power imbalances across the different
ministries and institutions further complicate the fragmented water institutional
landscape (i.e. MMA is weak in comparison to MOP, which is less powerful than
Ministries for Mining and Energy).
Moreover, Map 6.3 in Chapter 6 shows the set of boundaries that separate the
basin in four different sections. The division of the resource in the basin along the
administrative boundaries of the juntas is echoed in the legislative framework
through the separation of subterranean and surface waters (Water Code, Art 2).
The Water Code (Art 186) does provide for multi-sector participation where two
or more parties own water rights in the same canal, reservoir or aquifer in the
Junta de Vigilancia. However, non-agricultural stakeholders do not take part in the
different Junta de Vigilancia in the Aconcagua, nor are there any such organisa-
tions for groundwater. In general, hydroelectric companies have been reluctant to
become Junta de Vigilancia members, leading to issues in how users co-habit
basins across the country.

8.3 Conclusions

In Chile, the informal approach to water management is driven through its con-
ception as an economic good. While water governance at the political level is
driven through a centralised approach, water management happens in the pri-
vate sphere and is driven by private interests. Despite the strong codified nature
of water governance through the Water Code, the weakness of enforcement and
capacity in the DGA means that provisions introduced to build some resilience
in the system (i.e. residual flows and sustainable use of aquifers) can effectively
be ignored at the basin level. The governance approach has also produced a
number of blind spots, including one on the ecological impacts of the market
driven approach. It is a common saying, that what you measure you manage.
While water rights are supposed to be recorded and administrated by the DGA,
quality issues and ecosystem impacts are not being consistently measured or
managed.
Another blind spot in the system are issues that will arise from increased
uncertainty and climate change impacts. Investments are being made now, which
do not incorporate any sense of uncertainty or climate impacts in the basin. It is
clear that the market commodity definition of water rights in Chile has impaired
a holistic view of water resource management that looks beyond the limited
definition of water as an economic input for agriculture, mining or energy pro-
duction. It is only during presidentially declared drought periods that water is
prioritised for human consumption, and the even then, the declarations of drought
periods also allow for the exploitation of underground water to which one does
not have constituted rights.