Severe droughts in San Juan, La Rioja and Catamarca: Five centuries of water scarcity in western Argentina

FACUNDO ROJAS

Barcelona

Workshop; WATERMARKS - Interdisciplinary Workshop on Drought and Adaptation in the Mediterranean during the Little Ice Age (1300 ? 1850 AD); 2019

Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB)

The provinces of Catamarca, La Rioja and San Juan are part of the arid and semi-arid zone of Argentina. In several parts of this territory, the agrarian, social and productive development depends on the glacial contribution of the rivers that descend from the Andes mountain range.Viticulture and export olive growing, mega-mining and tourism are booming activities, promoted by the provincial governments as the mainstays of provincial economic growth. However, these activities require a high consumption of water, in a context of probable scarcity derived from processes of climatic variability and lack of efficiency in the distribution of water resources among social groups, activities and territories.The main objective of this presentation is to describe and examine the social and environmental processes involved in the principal extreme droughts that have been endured in the western parts of San Juan, La Rioja and Catamarca provinces, from the middle of the 16th Century up to the present. Processes of social vulnerability will be analysed, in order to show certain socio-environmental dynamics that have led to conflicts in the use of water and other natural resources.Another goal is to present and discuss the methodology for constructing basic climatic information -such as climatic and river flow series- as well as to debate the categories and methods chosen for the social approach.Preliminary results will be shown and compared with other regions of Argentina and Chile, which have a higher density of similar studies.