Addressing the Challenge of Institutional Infrastructure in a Technically Focussed World - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 332

Chilean market model speak to the high degree of flexibility and autonomy it
provides to the water rights users to resolve management issues, yet this same
autonomy is seen by some experts as a major barrier to building collaborative solu-
tions to the complex water challenges that water rights holders now face in overex-
ploited and increasingly drought prone basins. An initial step for water managers
and decision makers in the Chilean case would be to maximise the institutional
assets they have to hand (e.g. Juntas de Vigilancia and Canalistas) in order to move
from the status quo of individual flexibility to cohesive flexibility. One policy focus
could be to incentivise user groups to formalise their user based organisations to
take on a more legitimate governance role (to develop practices and ideas for more
effective monitoring, enforcement, collaboration, conflict resolution) for coopera-
tion across the basin (but beyond dam building).
This could perhaps draw from lessons learnt in the transformation of the coastal
marine resources, where new scientific information on stock depletion was taken up
by pre-existing social networks of fishermen, informing their ideas and practices
and finally connecting to political leadership to generate a governance transforma-
tion once the window of opportunity manifested (Gelcich et al. 2010 ) . In the current
situation of the Aconcagua Basin, pre-existing networks exist across the basin
(despite the challenges for some sections to formalise their Junta de Vigilancia), that
could provide a critical intermediary between the user level and the regional minis-
terial bodies.
The current DGA have already expressed a critical focus on improving access to
accurate and up to date information on water rights and the status of hydrological
resources. Beyond this fundamental priority, serious considerations and dialogue
need to happen around the unsustainable mismatch between current rights alloca-
tion and hydrological projections for Chile. This may seem like an impossible task,
but an initial step could be for regional DGA and MMA hydro-climatic experts to
begin a dialogue with local Juntas and Canal Associations where latest monitoring,
observation and modelling studies are presented to rights holders. A more open
exchange on information from the regional operational arm of government could
help to build trust across the different sectors and levels during 'normal periods',
which might in turn allow for stakeholders to network more collaboratively for
extreme periods.
A worrying sign in the wrong direction, however, was the fact that the CNR had
directed resources away from training programmes on efficiency (which were sup-
posed to have been effective) in order to pay closer attention to improving transpar-
ency of the water rights. While in itself this is also an important policy focus,
reframing irrigation efficiency training in the context of future uncertainty and scar-
city, rather than just agricultural expansion and profit motivation would be a very
useful role for the CNR to play alongside the DGA's focus on monitoring and
information.
Currently, adaptation concepts in Chile tend to be technically and hard path ori-
ented (dams, canal repairs, groundwater wells, irrigation) infrastructural projects
with little attention being paid to either natural infrastructural assets (e.g. groundwater
recharge, floodplains, wetlands) for enhancing resilience of the SES (Smith and