Analysis of the Role of Institutions in Water Conflicts Final Report
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Analysis of the Role of Institutions in Water Conflicts Final Report Rojas, A., Reyes, B., Magzul, L., Morales, H. L., Borquez, R. and Schwartz, E July, 2008 IACC Project, Unit 1 B 1 Contributors: Alejandro Rojas , PhD, University of British Columbia, Canada. Investigator responsible for Unit 1 B of the Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change Project (IACC); co-investigator in the IACC Project. Bernardo Reyes , MSc, Political Ecology Institute of Chile (IEP), Chile. Coordinator of Unit 1 B in Chile; co-investigator in the IACC Project. Lorenzo Magzul , MSc., PhD student, University of British Columbia, Canada. Research Fellow in the IACC Project. Conducted fieldwork in southern Alberta, Canada, for the Oldman River Dam case study. Hector L. Morales , PhD; University of La Serena, Chile. Team member of Unit 1 B; Co- Investigator in the IACC Project. Roxana Borquez, BSc. Engineer in Renewable Natural Resources. University of Chile. Researcher with the Ecological Economics Unit at IEP.Conducted fieldwork in the Huasco Valley, Chile, for the Pascua Lama case study. Enrique Schwartz, BSc. Environmental Chemistry, University Técnica Federico Santa Maria. Researcher with the Ecological Economics Unit at IEP. Also, a researcher for the IACC project and conducted fieldwork in the Elqui Valley, Chile, for the Puclaro Dam case study. 2 Acknowledgments This report is the result of the collective work by all members of the team working for Unit 1 B, Analysis of the Role of Institutions in Water Conflicts, of the Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change Project. The team would like to thank Dr. David Sauchyn, University of Regina, co-investigator in the IACC project, for lending his home to the team when conducting fieldwork for the Oldman River Dam case study, and for his contribution of important ideas for Unit 1 B. 3 Table of Contents Contributors: .............................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................... 3 Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 4 List of Figures and Apendices ................................................................................................... 5 I. Problem Definition ................................................................................................................. 6 I.a. Explanation of the overall Project of Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change and its objectives ................................................................................................................................... 6 I. b. Unit 1 B: Analysis of the role of institutions in water conflicts and its importance in achieving the main goals of the IACC project. .......................................................................... 7 I.c. Conceptual framework and basic assumptions for Unit 1 B ................................................. Adaptive capacity and vulnerabilities to climate change ................................................. 11 II. Methodology for Unit 1B on water conflicts and its relation to the broader project of Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change ............................................................................ 16 II.a. Overall research questions ................................................................................................ 16 II.b. Specific research questions .............................................................................................. 17 II.c. Strategies of data collection.............................................................................................. 17 II.d. Research for whom and with whom: key stakeholders and emphasis on the issue of rural communities most vulnerable .................................................................................................. 19 III. Profile of the Case Studies ................................................................................................. 20 III.a. The Oldman River Dam Conflict, in the South Saskatchewan River Basin, Alberta, Canada.................................................................................................................................. 20 III.a.1. Stakeholders in the Oldman River Dam Conflict, in the South Saskatchewan River Basin, Alberta, Canada........................................................................................... 20 III.a.2 Fieldwork in the Oldman River Basin .................................................................. 21 III.a.3. Oldman River Dam chronology of events and key stakeholders ......................... 23 III.a.4 Results from the Oldman River Dam Conflict case study .................................... 27 III.b. Puclaro Dam conflict in the Elqui River Valley ............................................................. 34 III.c. Pascua Lama Project conflict .......................................................................................... 48 IV. Discusión of the results from the three case studies .......................................................... 61 V. Conclusions and recommendations ..................................................................................... 63 VI. References.......................................................................................................................... 68 Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 74 4 List of Figures Figure 1. The Vulnerability Assessment Approach ................................................................. 6 Figure 2. Relation: Exposure – Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity in water conflicts ......... 9 Figure 3: Path to a sustainable water governance system ........................................................... Figure 4: Scheme of analysis for adaptive resolution of water conflicts ................................ 16 Figure 5: Oldman River Basin, the dam and its tributaries …..……………………………..20 Figure 6: Map of the Area of Influence of the Pascua Lama Project………………………..46 List of Appendices Appendix 1: Interview guidelines—English version………………………………………...70 Appendix 2: Decrease in precipitation in La Serena, from 1869 to 2000……………………72 Appendix 3: Location of the Puclaro Dam Conflict… ……………………….……………73 Appendix 4: Photos of the Puclaro Dam……………………………….…………….………74 Appendix 5: Land tenure of the displaced communities ……………...……………………..75 Appendix 6: Environmental baseline: Use of the land in the flooded area……..……...…….75 Appendix 7: Puclaro Dam Social baseline: Benefited population .………………….……..76 Appendix 8: Agreement between Junta de Vigilancia and Compañía Minera Nevada.……..78 Appendix 9: Spatial map of institutions that influenced the conflict Appendix 10: Interview guide for the Pascua Lama conflict…………………………..…….81 Appendix 11: List of interviews Oldman River ……………………………………………..82 Appendix 11: List of interviews Puclaro Dam…………………………………………….…84 Appendix 12: List of interviews Pascua Lama …………………………………………….86 5 I. Problem Definition I.a. Explanation of the overall Project of Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change and its objectives This report presents the learnings attained from our analysis of the “Role of Institutions in Water Conflicts. The report is part of a broader project titled “Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change” (IACC). The IACC Project is being funded for five years by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC). The project falls in the category of SSHRCC’s Major Collaborative Research Initiative. The IACC project team includes researchers from Canada and Chile (Please see details of the IACC project at http://www.parc.ca/mcri/ ). The main goal of the Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change Project is to develop a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the capacities of institutions to formulate and implement strategies of adaptation to climate change risks and the forecasted climate change impacts on the supply and management of water resources in dryland environments. The project’s goal is addressed through a comparative study of two regions at different stages of social and environmental vulnerability: the South Saskatchewan River Basin, in western Canada, and the Elqui River Basin, in north-central Chile. Based on well established and credible global climate models that forecast an increase in climate variability that will lead to increased droughts in the two regions under study, the project focuses on water and rural communities, which is understood to be the terrain of investigation or microcosm that will allow a better understanding of the broader issue of adaptation to climate change (Diaz, et al., 2003/04). Figure 1. The Vulnerability Assessment Approach Current/Past Exposures Current/Past Adaptive Strategies CURRENT/PAST FUTURE VULNERABLITY CLIMATE CONDITIONS Future Exposures Future Adaptive Strategies FUTURE VULNERABILITY 6 As mentioned in the midterm review for the Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change (IACC 2006), “a key element in the project’s approach to studying adaptations to climate change has been the concept of vulnerability .” In the IACC project, vulnerability is understood as the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including