Water governance in Chile: Availability, management and climate change Rodrigo Valdés-Pineda a,b , Roberto Pizarro b, ⇑ , Pablo García-Chevesich a,c , Juan B.Valdés a , Claudio Olivares d , Mauricio Vera b , Francisco Balocchi b , Felipe Pérez d , Carlos Vallejos b , Roberto Fuentes b , Alejandro Abarza b , Bridget Helwig b a University of Arizona, Hydrology and Water Resources Department, 1133 E James E. Rogers Way, Tucson,AZ,USA b University of Talca, Technological Center of Environmental Hydrology, Mailbox 747,Avenida Lircay s/n, Talca,Chile c Ministry of Agriculture, Instituto Forestal (INFOR), Sucre 2397, Nuñoa,Santiago,Chile d Ministry of Public Works, Dirección General de Aguas (DGA), División de Hidrología, Morandé 59,Piso 8,Santiago,Chile a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Available online xxxx Keywords: Water governance in Chile Water availability Water resources management Climate change and water resources s u m m a r y Chile has a unique geography that provides an extraordinary variety of climatic conditions and availabil- ity of water resources. The objective of this manuscript was to describe and analyze the spatial and tem- poral distribution patterns, as well as the management of water resources, along a country with a narrow distance from the Andes Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. This presents challenges to water governance from data collection and analysis perspectives,and for administration of the resource. The Water Resources Directorate (Dirección General de Aguas, DGA), is the federal government organization in cha of the water resources of the country. The DGA and other relevant public and private institutions are examined in terms of competition and conflict resolution across different scales and levels of interaction associated with water resources governance. Both monitoring stations (rainfall, streamflow,water qual- ity, groundwater,sediment and snowfall), and the Chilean management and legislation of water resources are also analyzed. Finally,the success (or lack) of the national administration to upgrade its monitoring stations and equalize water resources distribution throughouthe country is discussed including the influence of climate change on data collection, and decision making across different scales of water governance. Ó 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The status of water resources in Chile, both qualitatively and quantitatively,is information particularly important for the coun- try, not only because of the relevance of water for the survival of the population,but also because its entire economy relies on the use of this resource to ensure the sustainability ofits economy and productivity. This is a serious problem, since an intensive use of the resource requires hydrological efficiency to guarantee economic and environmental sustainability; thus,it is crucial to have appropriate public policies to ensure an efficient governance system, as well as information on the availability of water resources in the country,where precipitation shows significant variability. The national average water availability, is close to 54,000 m 3 hab 1 yr 1 (World Bank, 2011), positioning Chile in the 20th rank in terms of water resources availability (WWAP, 2003).However,most of Chile’s population is located in areas of arid and semiarid climates,where water availability is less than 1000 m 3 hab 1 yr 1 . Therefore,if such naturalvariability is com- bined with the possible effects of global warming, which could include the rising of the Zero Celsius Degree Isotherm (ZDI) within the Andes Mountain range (i.e. precipitation switching from snow to rain), the summer water availability could be reduced.This requires efficient public policies to ensure the sustainable use of water resources, in which water governance plays a fundamental role. The objective of this manuscript is to describe and analyze the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of water resources along the country,and how Chile deals with water governance and the management of water resources information, its collection, analysis,and final use. This paper is divided in 9 sections based on different sub-sec- tions. The territorial division of Chile in terms of administrative regions and basins, as well as topography and the types of climates are described in Section 2. An analysis of the water resources in http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.04.016 0022-1694/Ó 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +56 71200375. E-mail addresses:rvaldes@email.arizona.edu (R. Valdés-Pineda), rpizarro@ utalca.cl (R. Pizarro). Journal of Hydrology xxx (2014) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Hydrology j o u r n a l h om e pa ge : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / j h y d r o l Please cite this article in press as: Valdés-Pineda, R., et al. Water governance in Chile: Availability, management and climate change. J. Hydrol. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.04.016