Water management or megadrought: what caused the Chilean Aculeo Lake drying?

Barría, Pilar; Chadwick, Cristián; Ocampo‐Melgar, Anahí; Galleguillos, Mauricio; Garreaud, René; Díaz-Vasconcellos, Raúl; Poblete, David Figueroa; Rubio-Álvarez, Eduardo; Poblete-Caballero, Dagoberto

doi:10.1007/s10113-021-01750-w

Cited by 39 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…These values are an order of magnitude larger than those projected by LCC, since the projected climate trend for NP is one of the largest in the world (Cook et al, 2020). For example, Barría et al (2021) recently determined that the relative impact of the climate factor is more than 10 times larger than the impact of the observed LLC changes in the Aculeo Lake balance (Central Chile; 33 • S). Although these results may discourage conservation, Galleguillos et al (2021) reported that conservative scenarios focused on native forest protection and restoration could partially mitigate the effect of climate change in Mediterranean basins.…”

Section: Synergistic Hydrological Effects Between Climate and Lccmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The three land cover scenarios for 2030 were simulated in the WEAP hydrological model (Water Evaluation and Planning; Yates et al, 2005), considering the same climatic conditions for each. The WEAP model, previously used in Chile (e.g., Vicuña et al, 2012;Chadwick et al, 2020;Barría et al, 2021), is a semi-distributed model that represents the relevant hydrological processes using empirical functions that describe the distribution of water in two soil water storages (root and deep storage). In this regard, the snow accumulation and snowmelt are based on the degree-day method, and the potential evapotranspiration (PET) was calculated with the Penman-Monteith equation.…”

Section: Hydrological Model Weapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anthropogenic alterations of the natural streamflow regime by way of LCCs make isolating the impacts of climate change on hydrology a daunting task (Yang et al, 2017;Chanapathi and Thatikonda, 2020). In Chile the hydrological impacts of LCCs have been evaluated mainly in south-central Chile (< 41 • S; Stehr et al, 2010;Aguayo et al, 2016;Martínez-Retureta et al, 2020;Barría et al, 2021;Galleguillos et al, 2021) and not in tributary basins to the coastal system of northwestern Patagonia. Nevertheless, using rivers like Puelo River as sentinels, several studies have reported anomalous events in fjords of northwestern Patagonia (e.g., surface hypoxia events, harmful algal blooms), mainly during severe droughts (Valle-Levinson et al, 2007;León-Muñoz et al, 2013Iriarte et al, 2017;Díaz et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate and Land Cover Trends Affecting Freshwater Inputs to a Fjord in Northwestern Patagonia

et al. 2021

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Freshwater inputs strongly influence oceanographic conditions in coastal systems of northwestern Patagonia (41–45°S). Nevertheless, the influence of freshwater on these systems has weakened in recent decades due to a marked decrease in precipitation. Here we evaluate potential influences of climate and land cover trends on the Puelo River (640 m3s–1), the main source of freshwater input of the Reloncaví Fjord (41.5°S). Water quality was analyzed along the Puelo River basin (six sampling points) and at the discharge site in the Reloncaví Fjord (1, 8, and 25 m depth), through six field campaigns carried out under contrasting streamflow scenarios. We also used several indicators of hydrological alteration, and cross-wavelet transform and coherence analyses to evaluate the association between the Puelo River streamflow and precipitation (1950–2019). Lastly, using the WEAP hydrological model, land cover maps (2001–2016) and burned area reconstructions (1985–2019), we simulated future land cover impacts (2030) on the hydrological processes of the Puelo River. Total Nitrogen and total phosphorus, dissolved carbon, and dissolved iron concentrations measured in the river were 3–15 times lower than those in the fjord. Multivariate analyses showed that streamflow drives the carbon composition in the river. High streamflow conditions contribute with humic and colored materials, while low streamflow conditions corresponded to higher arrival of protein-like materials from the basin. The Puelo River streamflow showed significant trends in magnitude (lower streamflow in summer and autumn), duration (minimum annual streamflow), timing (more floods in spring), and frequency (fewer prolonged floods). The land cover change (LCC) analysis indicated that more than 90% of the basin area maintained its land cover, and that the main changes were attributed to recent large wildfires. Considering these land cover trends, the hydrological simulations project a slight increase in the Puelo River streamflow mainly due to a decrease in evapotranspiration. According to previous simulations, these projections present a direction opposite to the trends forced by climate change. The combined effect of reduction in freshwater input to fiords and potential decline in water quality highlights the need for more robust data and robust analysis of the influence of climate and LCC on this river-fjord complex of northwestern Patagonia.

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Section: Synergistic Hydrological Effects Between Climate and Lccmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Hydrological Model Weapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate and Land Cover Trends Affecting Freshwater Inputs to a Fjord in Northwestern Patagonia

et al. 2021

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“…In that regard, considering the current limitations of the Chilean water management system to deal with water scarcity problems during the MD (e.g., Alaniz et al, 2019;Muñoz et al, 2020;Barría et al, 2021), and the possible implementation of mega infrastructure strategies to search for new and distant water sources, it is urgent to revise and improve current water allocation mechanisms (Barria et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water allocation under climate change

Barría

Sandoval

Guzman

et al. 2021

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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Chile is positioned in the 20th rank of water availability per capita. Nonetheless, water security levels vary across the territory. Around 70% of the national population lives in arid and semiarid regions, where a persistent drought has been experienced over the last decade. This has led to water security problems including water shortages. The water allocation and trading system in Chile is based on a water use rights (WURs) market, with limited regulatory and supervisory mechanisms, where the volume to be granted as permanent and eventual WURs is calculated from statistical analyses of historical streamflow records if available, or from empirical estimations if they are not. This computation of WURs does not consider the nonstationarity of hydrological processes nor climatic projections. This study presents the first large sample diagnosis of water allocation system in Chile under climate change scenarios. This is based on novel anthropic intervention indices (IAI), which were computed as the ratio between the total granted water volume to the water availability within 87 basins in north-central and southern Chile (30°S–42°S). The IAI were evaluated for the historical period (1979–2019) and under modeled-based climatic projections (2055–2080). According to these IAI levels, to date, there are 20 out of 87 overallocated basins, which under the assumption that no further WURs will be granted in the future, increases up to 25 basins for the 2055–2080 period. The results show that, to date most of north-central Chilean catchments already have a large anthropic intervention degree, and the increases for the future period occurs mostly in the southern region of the country (approximately 38°S), which has been considered as possible source of water for large water transfer projects (i.e., water roads). These indices and diagnosis are proposed as a tool to help policy makers to address water scarcity under climate change.

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“…Unsustainable watershed management practices led to an accelerated population growth and land use changes that largely impacted the water balance of this small lagoonaquifer system, which went completely dry in early 2018. Though there have been many studies focusing on the Aculeo watershed during the last few decades (e.g., [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], among many others), the anthropogenic modifications applied to the watershed and their impact on water resources have only been a topic of discussion in recent investigations [14][15][16][17]. Herein, we have included a detailed socio-economic history of the Aculeo watershed, the history of past climate and its effects on the lagoon's water levels, the strong precipitation recycling effects that this small body of water used to experience, and a history of anthropogenic modifications to the lagoon's water balance, ending with a detailed section on how water demands and the allocation of water rights have increased over time; all of the above show that the impact to the lagoon cannot be exclusively attributed to a persistent reduction in rainfall, but most importantly to the anthropogenic factor and its role in accelerating the drying process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of a Lack of Government Strategies for Sustainable Water Management and Land Use Planning on the Hydrology of Water Bodies: Lessons Learned from the Disappearance of the Aculeo Lagoon in Central Chile

Valdés-Pineda,

Garcia-Chevesich,

Alaniz

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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Several studies have focused on why the Aculeo Lagoon in central Chile disappeared, with a recent one concluding that a lack of precipitation was the main cause, bringing tremendous political consequences as it supported the argument that the government is not responsible for this environmental, economic, and social disaster. In this study, we evaluated in detail the socio-economic history of the watershed, the past climate and its effects on the lagoon’s water levels (including precipitation recycling effects), anthropogenic modifications to the lagoon’s water balance, the evolution of water rights and demands, and inaccurate estimates of sustainable groundwater extraction volumes from regional aquifers. This analysis has revealed novel and undisputable evidence that this natural body of water disappeared primarily because of anthropogenic factors (mostly river deviations and aquifer pumping) that, combined with the effects of less than a decade with below-normal precipitation, had a severe impact on this natural lagoon–aquifer system.

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Water management or megadrought: what caused the Chilean Aculeo Lake drying?

Cited by 39 publications

References 63 publications

Climate and Land Cover Trends Affecting Freshwater Inputs to a Fjord in Northwestern Patagonia

Climate and Land Cover Trends Affecting Freshwater Inputs to a Fjord in Northwestern Patagonia

Water allocation under climate change

The Impact of a Lack of Government Strategies for Sustainable Water Management and Land Use Planning on the Hydrology of Water Bodies: Lessons Learned from the Disappearance of the Aculeo Lagoon in Central Chile

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