Water Governance in the Context of IWRM: Chile - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 159

remediation work was so extensive it required the structure and support of the
commune or cantonal authorities. In the aftermath of the 2000 event in Baltschieder,
the commune and canton collaborated to take over the clean-up operation, rebuilding
the streams and repairing the canalisation network. After the 1993 events, there was
a realisation that the damage costs were so high, that the communes did not have the
financial capacity to cover the bill. The canton therefore took responsibility for reme-
diation costs, later sourcing percentages of repayment from both federal and
commune authorities.
Despite these shifting demographic and political structures, traditional associations
for the water irrigation channels have tended to remain, yet in a weakened form.
As agriculture and the number of full time farmers decreases, 4 the number of members
of these common property resource regimes (CPRs) is in decline. While water is
linked to property rights in these regimes, many people who now own the relevant
property are no longer farmers, but perhaps holiday or second home owners, and
therefore no longer use the associated water rights or consider themselves responsible
for paying for the upkeep of irrigation infrastructure they no longer use. Where these
CPRs are dwindling, many of the activities are being transferred to the commune.
Likewise, similar institutions and associations for more relevant needs are being
discussed (domestic water, artificial snow) and additional financial support sought
through organisations such as Berghilfe.

9.2 Chile

There has been very little documentation of the potential impacts of climate change
in semi-arid watersheds in subtropical South America (Vicuña et al. 2011a ) , despite
most climate models projecting a strong future climate change signal on the
Western side of the Andes (Mata and Campos 2001 ; Souvignet and Heinrich 2011 ) .
Climate projections based on GCM's for central Chile 5 consistently demonstrate

4 Alpine farmers have traditionally played an important role in the upkeep of the 'alpine cultural
landscape', including the maintenance of traditional defences and infrastructure that play a role in
water management and associated protection mechanisms against avalanches, flooding and land-
slides. As more and more alpine farmers move in either a full time, or part time, capacity to other
economic sectors and financial resources are more constrained, infrastructure upkeep becomes more
of a challenge at the same time as hazard recurrence is increasing (Kantonszentrum für Landwirtschaft;
lack of upkeep on the irrigation system of Vispa, Saasvispa, Mattervispa meant that water was not as
well transported through the canal system, and instead flowed wildly off the slops intensifying dam-
age from the flooding event). In the Oberwallis for example 85% of farmers now are part-time, and
often work either in tourism or in the Lonza factory (Kantonszentrum für Landwirtschaft).
5 However, it should be recognised that 'because of the special physiographic characteristics of water-
sheds on the western slope of the Andes cordillera (steep, short river lengths, with a 3+ km elevation
gain from the Pacific Ocean in less than 200 km), the spatial scale of current GCM modelling grids
is inadequate to assess local effects on the hydrologic regime and downscaling approaches (statistical
or dynamical) introduce an additional layer of uncertainty' (Vicuna et al. ( 2011a, b , JWRM).