Assessing Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 265

Regime indicators Operationalisation Chile Switzerland

Responsibility Coordination : Designated

institutions need to have an
overview to tackle the larger
problems.

Transference of water management to private
sphere limits coordination and collaboration
on trickier, longer term issues; projects are
presented to MIDEPLAN only from their
ministry's core perspective; no priority setting
between sectors and uses; groundwater
framework weak compared to surface water.

Lack of cohesive and coordinated energy/water/
environment policy across different adminis-
trative bodies.

Rule Setting : Balance between
technical and political inputs
into water governance and
across levels.

Water Code rules on the management of water
rights, and its application is interpreted by the
courts in individual cases. The individual
water rights owners have the mandate to
manage, and intervention/enforcement from
public authorities has to be requested by a
rights holder. Centrally driven water policy,
determined by presidential priorities. Water
provision regulated and prices set by a
government regulator.

Designated levels of responsibility from federal
policy to cantonal legislation and ordnances
then to local directives ( Bewilligung,
Ordnung ) and private agreements, creating
linkages for enforcement and monitoring
across uses and jurisdictions. Regulations
differ per commune; canton legislation takes
time to be in step with federal legislation and
direction; private sector actors are responsible
for implementation of certain restoration/
re-naturalisation provisions.

Expediency : Affordable and
accessible access to
informed judgements on
water conflicts and issues
within a basin.

Associations or the courts are responsible for
resolving conflicts between users. Court
process is lengthy, expensive and gridlock in
conflict resolution prevents the legal
institutionalisation of certain user groups,
which erodes their ability to manage flows
within their section.

Few court cases concerning water resources;
administrative route provided for aggrieved
parties to denounce planned projects at the
relevant administrative level; participation in
planning aims to pre-empt conflicts, but in
TRC led to drawn out acrimonious
negotiations in pre-implementation phase.

Preparedness Pre-emptive provisioning :

Emergency provisions for
hydrological extremes.

Drought provision in Water Code provides for
institutional response for drought manage-
ment through a presidential decree according
to technical parameters of Resolution 39
(1984). Informal institutional responses intra
and inter JdV are invoked.

Policy frameworks for longer term flood
management complemented by canton and
local directives and management plans for
pro-active and reactive flood response. No
rules on scarcity management.

(continued)