Governance in the Face of Uncertainty and Change - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 193

Box 10.4 (continued)

drought. Without the present regulating works, farmers see themselves as
losing water to the sea in winter time, which then cannot be used for irrigation
purposes in spring time. Currently, the aquifer is being used as an under-
ground reservoir, pumped during periods when river flows are too low to
supply rights allocation.
The major impediment to the implementation of the project is a disagree-
ment between agricultural stakeholders with the DOH and the DGA over
the availability of water rights for filling up the reservoir. The DGA is under
pressure to allow the plan for the dam to be approved, but posits that as there
are no more available rights in the Aconcagua Basin, irrigators themselves
must use their own rights to stock the dam. The DOH has 400 million m 3 of
eventual rights, yet as detailed earlier, these cannot be transformed into per-
manent rights through infrastructure, but the aim of the dam is to give security
to permanent water rights.

10.2.3.1 Associated Governance Mechanisms

Regime

The drought declaration in the Chilean case enables actors to cope in part by allow-
ing the exploitation of 'vulnerable' ground water sources. Additionally, the infor-
mality of the Chilean governance approach in 'normal' periods leads to a lack of
capacity and knowledge of the river when the 'external' DGA takes over at the most
critical moment. This leads to wasted time and conflict possibilities heightened
because of the government intervention. However, the intervention of the DGA is
still seen as a necessary last resort. In the Swiss case, while legal guidelines exist for
the management of increasing flooding issues (governmental policy guidance) there
is a void of guidance and rules on scarcity or stress.

Knowledge

The Aconcagua Project is defined by criteria adhering to steady state resource man-
agement, since there is no accounting for uncertainty, nor incorporating inter-annual
variability (i.e. ENSO), nor the integration of climate change related uncertainties
into the project scoping phase. There is a lack of alternative options proposed, and
ideological constraints persist, which limit the ability to experiment with alternative
solutions. The private adaptations at the canal and river level are reactive measures,