Taking advantage of water scarcity? Concentration of agricultural land and the politics behind water governance in Chile

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dc.contributor.authorPerez-Silva, Rodrigo
dc.contributor.authorCastillo, Mayari
dc.date.accessioned2025-01-20T20:07:42Z
dc.date.available2025-01-20T20:07:42Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstractChile is currently facing a major drought that has caused several problems, most of them concentrated in terms of the availability of water for both human consumption and irrigation for agriculture. Under such conditions, the main instrument the government has at hand to assign water for agricultural use is the Water Scarcity Decree (WSD), which, among other aspects, allows for the extraction of underground water. However, this practice requires an important investment from the agricultural producer, making it only affordable by relatively larger producers. Therefore, under the current climatic conditions and a generalized lack of water, larger agricultural producers are the ones who benefit the most from the establishment of a WSD and thus have the incentives to use their political power to pressure for its issuing. Whereas conventional wisdom suggest that this is indeed the case, there is no previous evidence trying to link the size of agricultural exploitations and the likelihood of the establishment of a WSD. In the paper we use the share of large exploitations at the municipality level, as a measure that can proxy for local political power, and the establishment, the number, and duration of WSD within any given year. Consistent with the hypothesis, our results show that areas dominated by larger producers/exploitations are more likely to be declared as water scarce, to have more decrees in a year, and to have them in place for longer periods of time, even after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and climatic conditions, such as precipitations and water flow.
dc.fuente.origenWOS
dc.identifier.doi10.3389/fenvs.2023.1143254
dc.identifier.eissn2296-665X
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1143254
dc.identifier.urihttps://repositorio.uc.cl/handle/11534/91836
dc.identifier.wosidWOS:001044974700001
dc.language.isoen
dc.revistaFrontiers in environmental science
dc.rightsacceso restringido
dc.subjectwater scarcity
dc.subjectclimate change
dc.subjectdrought
dc.subjectagriculture
dc.subjectpolitical power
dc.subjectChile
dc.subject.ods11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
dc.subject.ods15 Life on Land
dc.subject.ods14 Life Below Water
dc.subject.ods06 Clean Water and Sanitation
dc.subject.ods13 Climate Action
dc.subject.odspa11 Ciudades y comunidades sostenibles
dc.subject.odspa15 Vida de ecosistemas terrestres
dc.subject.odspa14 Vida submarina
dc.subject.odspa06 Agua limpia y saneamiento
dc.subject.odspa13 Acción por el clima
dc.titleTaking advantage of water scarcity? Concentration of agricultural land and the politics behind water governance in Chile
dc.typeartículo
dc.volumen11
sipa.indexWOS
sipa.trazabilidadWOS;2025-01-12
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