Political ecology of drought in Chile's Petorca province

Abstract

"Megadrought" in central Chile is undermining the country's established regime of marketized water governance. Since 2010, a series of dry years has seen rainfall deficits of 20-40%, expected to worsen as the climate continues to change. The socio-ecological relationships that will emerge from deepening drought, however, are contested and yet to be determined. The province of Petorca has become an emblem for the ravages of drought and of Chile's water markets: consolidation of water rights among avocado agribusinesses has left campesinos and domestic users alike reliant on water trucks.

The purported neutrality of markets served to mask the classed project of neoliberalization of Chile's water system when it was implemented in the 1980s. In the late 20th century, perceived scarcity served to justify a global turn to "market-conservation" water regimes. Now, though marketization has already occurred, scarcity again justifies technocratic fixes: Petorca's Quinta Región is planning a desalinization plant to stem acute shortages. Yet amid worsening scarcity, powerful social movements have grown in the region aiming to democratize water governance, fighting for water as both human right and common good. Drought is contrarily mobilized by state authorities, by water-intensive private industry, and by social movements as they each work to implement overlapping hydrosocial imaginaries in Petorca. This research draws from interviews with water users, state authorities, and social movement actors to characterize the political ecology of drought in the cradle of water's neoliberalization.