Operationalising Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 254

of scientific knowledge and understanding of factors that should be taken into
account in water resources planning, as the memory of the earlier flooding experi-
ences fade.
At the national and federal level, climate change is explicitly taken into account
by the federal administrative bodies for environmental and water issues (FOEN,
Water Office) as well as national collaborative platforms such as WA21, leading to
attempts to foster cross-sector collaboration (MOUs 3 ) to share learning and gener-
ate integrated solutions to future challenges in hydropower, watershed management
and water infrastructure management. Despite the generally high awareness that
climate change will lead to a multitude of heightened challenges, a means of finding
holistic inter-linked solutions to the challenges of climate change remains elusive at
federal and canton levels.

12.6.3 Networks

Within the Chilean case, the lack of unified management across the basin that limits
the potential for integration and coordination across the different sectors was
detailed in Chap. 5 . The DGA has presented its aim of transitioning towards more
unified basin management in order to mitigate the escalation of water resource
conflicts, by strengthening organisations at the basin level for increased integration
and participation of water stakeholders in watershed management. The uniqueness
of the Chilean legal and economic framework for water is deemed to be the major
impediment to a more integrated approach, but despite this, there have been attempts
at strengthening inter-sectoral and basin cooperation through different user organi-
sations, such as the Junta de Vigilancia (which is legally open to all water owners
within a basin, although usually only includes irrigators) and the Mesa del Agua to
better coordinate and generate information for enhanced decision making and dis-
pute resolution.
The IWRM basin institutions, the Mesa del Agua, were only piloted in three
basins in Chile, with limited effect and agency. But in the Aconcagua, a Mesa
Tecnica de Aconcagua had been set up to better coordinate the stakeholder groups
in favour of the Aconcagua Project. At present it includes the DOH, CODELCO and
the CRA ( Confederacion de Regantes de Aconcagua - Aconcagua Irrigators
Confederation). The Mesa Tecnica also maintains a dialogue with the DGA,
CONAMA, ESVAL, CNR and other state institutions, which are important for dis-
putes relating to the project, but are not regular members of the body.
The coordination of stakeholders with a common interest for the realisation of
the Aconcagua Project indicates that increased collaboration across the basin can be
realised around a specific project. A more challenging, yet potentially more

3 MOU between the different partners to create a new form of collaboration rather than another
federal department.