Infrastructure to face the water crisis? State politics in the Petorca and La Ligua riversa

Abstract

Over a decade, Petorca’s Province has suffered by water scarcity. To understand current it’s necessary to question the diagnosis of a state absence over the territory. Consequently, we analyze public water policies from a human rights approach. According to this, the present article summarizes Chilean national and provincial policies in water matters from 1999 to 2018. As result, it’s observed a conceptual reduction from water scarcity to drought, meanwhile different policies coalesce to situate hydraulic infrastructure as the main response to the crisis. This sustain unchanged the level of water extraction and protects the juridical certainty of the current exploitation rights regime, hoarded by the agriculture industry. At last, rural population is maintained in vulnerability through meager water supply, offered by cistern trucks, risking their health conditions and the continuity of their traditions and way of life.