44% of water scarcity in Chile is due to poor water management (La Tercera)
The National Water Balance, a document from the National Water Directorate (DGA) that this year will have its final version after 32 years, will establish how much water is available in the country. In an advance delivered at the beginning of the year, it has already established that the country has a water deficit that ranges between 10% and 37%.
To alleviate this deficit, the document “Transición Hídrica: el futuro del agua en Chile” proposes to establish a strategy with emphasis on four axes: water management and institutionality; conservation and protection of water ecosystems; efficiency and strategic use of water resources; and migration and incorporation of new water sources.
The implementation of these four measures would be key to achieving water security: “44% of the causes of water problems are related to poor management of the resource, 17% is due to the increase in demand for water, 14% to water pollution, 12% to the decrease in water supply , 6% to environmental damage of water ecosystems and 5% to the increase in the frequency of natural disasters” (Ulrike Broschek, leader of Escenarios Hídricos 2030 and Deputy Manager of Sustainability of Fundación Chile)
For more information please visit: El 44% de la escasez hídrica en Chile es por mal manejo del agua y El 60% de escasez de agua en Chile es causada por una mala gestión del recurso, aumento de demanda y el sobreotorgamiento de derechos
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I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of La Frontera. I hold a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Trento (Italy) and completed postdoctoral training at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. I have more than 20 years of experience in water resources research and have previously served as an Associate Researcher at the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR)2 and as a member of the Earth Sciences Assessment Group of the Chilean National Research and Development Agency (ANID).
My research lies at the interface of hydrology, data science, and environmental sciences, with a particular focus on the use of gridded datasets and open-source tools to investigate droughts, extreme events, and water-related impacts of global change.
I work across spatial and temporal scales to improve the understanding of catchment-scale hydrological processes and to translate this knowledge into operational modelling, forecasting, and early-warning systems that support robust environmental decision-making.
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