Towards an Holistic Environmental Flow Regime in Chile: Providing for Ecosystem Health and Indigenous Rights

Abstract

© The Author(s), 2020. A widespread response to the pressures placed on the ecological condition of rivers is the design and implementation of environmental flowregimes in domestic regulatory frameworks for water. Environmental interests in water are not confined to hydrological functioning but include relationships between water resources and human cultural and economic livelihoods, including those of Indigenous communities. Since the mid-1980s there has been some provision for environmental flows in Chilean law. However, the legal and policy requirements are limited in scope and have been poorly implemented by regulatory institutions. In this article we critically examine the treatment of environmental flows in Chilean legal and policy frameworks. We argue that there is an urgent need for a comprehensive minimum flow regime in Chile to protect the environmental qualities of rivers, which must also reflect and provide for Indigenous water rights and interests. The developing constitutional crisis in Chile, the most significant political crisis since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-90), highlights the need to revisit the sensitive and unresolved issues of water governance and equity.