Abstract
In the Global South, permanent access to safe water is not always a given reality. This problematic is especially accute in Latin America, and in Chile in particular, due to a neoliberal approach to water as a business to exploit a natural resource rather than a neccesity to its citizens. Private holding of water access more so than permanent draught cycles, in a historical perspective, has designed a path that, in a global context of Climate Change, has put thousands of lives at risk. Through GIS analysis, interviews and focus groups, as well as archival work that goes back to the 19th century, a pattern of misguided choices, in a multiscale level of government, have put together a public policy towards water in Chile that has not been sustainable nor planned for the long haul of state-wide decision making process. The learned behaviours and actions of people who inhabit the La Ligua basin can show us how resilience to drought -and water public policy- is constructed through time, and how that resilience -or resistance?- has impacted the territory that produced it. This output can, eventually, be taken into account in the betterment or new designs of public policy towards water in Chile.
Presenters
María Otero AuristondoLecturer and Researcher, Institute of Geography, Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Human Impacts and Responsibility
KEYWORDS
WATER SAFETY, WATER PUBLIC POLICY, CLIMATE CHANGE, RESILIENCE
