CONFLICTS OVER THE USE OF WATER IN AN ARID REGION: CASE OF TACNA, PERU

Abstract

In the Tacna region in southern Peru and northern Chile, located at the head of the Atacama Desert, the availability of water to meet the demands for population and agricultural use is increasingly scarce. Based on a systematic documentary review on events in the study area, we establish that we not only face problems of aridity and climate change, in recent years there have been social problems, conflicts of use, the law of Water Resources is violated, without giving priority of use according to what it stipulates. In this work, we seek to characterize the conflicts over the use of water in this region, located at the head of the Atacama Desert, according to the actors involved. In the high Andean zone, the conflict occurs between government entities in charge of the transfer of water to the coast and the community members; in addition to international conflicts. The Maure River forms the Titicaca, Desaguadero, Lake Poopó and Salar de Coipasa (TDPS) system that includes Peru and Bolivia and is administered under the Binational Autonomous Authority of the Water System of Lake Titicaca, Río Desaguadero, Lake Poopó, Salar de Coipasa, referred to as ALT. Underground water with imbalance problems, in the coastal zone allows meeting population demands and irrigation, legal provisions were issued on closures, and later a supreme decree was issued, contradictory to the closures for the formalization of users, this has generated greater conflict between water administrators, formalized users and those who wanted to formalize.