Drylands Development Model in Argentinas Central West: the Case of Mendoza Province

ABRAHAM ELENA M.; TORRES LAURA

Planet and Risk

Global Risk Forum Davos

Lugar: Suiza; Año: 2014 vol. 2 p. 8 - 13

2296-8172

Argentina central west encompasses a vast dryland territory, organized on the basis of a great contradiction: the confrontation between oasis and rainfed area (desert lands with no irrigation). Within a territory under arid conditions with different desertification levels, Mendoza is a paradigmatic case. e development model fostered at the end of the 19th century was based on the supremacy of trategic resources: water and soil. A mode of regional development reliant on irrigated lands was since then supported to consolidate the wine export model. Nowadays, Mendozas non-irrigated lands and their people are marginal, not merely by the effect of a restrictive environment but also by the combined action of a fragile environment and the weightier social, political and economic forces that have banished them to the systems margins. Analysis of the regions history informs that non-irrigated spaces provided both strategic natural resources for development of irrigated areas and labor for starting productive activities. Simultaneously, non-irrigated lands were curtailed in their right of access to strategic resources for their social reproduction: water and land.is report delves further into the analysis of the dynamics of territory construction whereby some territories stand as central while others are relegated to marginal positions. e analysis goes deeper into a case study with signs of a serious process of territory impoverishment, social exclusion and progress of desertification.