Through its history,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

was regularly affected by

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

s. In the more arid parts of Chile droughts are produced when there are low amounts of snow accumulation in the Andes. Chilean coastal basins without snow accumulation are particularly vulnerable to drought. The territory of Central Chile has been affected by long-term droughts in 1280–1450, 1570–1650, 1770–1820 and 2010–present.

Historical droughts

Drought of 1770–82

The 1770–1782 period was one of general drought in Central Chile with a total of three non-consecutive years of extreme drought. In 1772 vineyards and cropfields along

Mapocho River The River Mapocho ( es, Río Mapocho) ( Mapudungun: ''Mapu chuco'', "water that penetrates the land") is a river in Chile. It flows from its source in the Andes mountains onto the west and divides Chile's capital Santiago in two. Course The Mapo ...

in Santiago could not be irrigated.Urrutia & Lanza 1993, pp. 67-68. This drought led the authorities to begin the construction of the long-planned San Carlos Canal in 1772 to divert water from Maipo River to Mapocho River.

Drought of 1924

In 1924 a drought spread between

Coquimbo Coquimbo is a port city, commune and capital of the Elqui Province, located on the Pan-American Highway, in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. Coquimbo is situated in a valley south of La Serena, with which it forms Greater La Serena with more than ...

and Maule provinces.Urrutia & Lanza 1993, pp. 201-203. In Coquimbo Province 70% of the wheat from non-irrigated land was lost while in irrigated areas the harvest loss was of 20%. The price of railroad transport of livestock to places south of

Curicó Curicó (), meaning "Black Waters" in Mapudungun (originally meaning "Land of Black Water"), is the capital city of the Curicó Province, part of the Maule Region in Chile's central valley. The province lies between the provinces of Colchagu ...

was lowered by 40% as there was hardly any grass or plant buds for livestock to eat in Norte Chico. Rural people in Coquimbo Region flocked around the towns of

Illapel Illapel () is a Chilean city, which is the capital of the Choapa Province, Coquimbo Region. It lies along the Illapel River and marks the country's narrowest point along a parallel (94 km). It is located to the east of Los Vilos. Administr ...

, Combarbalá and

Ovalle Ovalle is a city in the Coquimbo Region of Chile, founded in 1831 as a settlement. It has a population of more than 113,000 people. The name Ovalle was chosen to honor to Chile's vice-president, José Tomás Ovalle. Ovalle is the capital of the ...

. Later the intendant of Coquimbo claimed that about hundred people had left the province as result of the drought.

Great Drought of 1968

The drought faced by Chile between 1968, known as the Great Drought of 1968, was one of the largest rainfall deficits in the country during the twentieth century, comparable only to the drought of 1924. The drought had its origin in the low amounts of precipitation that fell in 1967.Urrutia & Lanza 1993, pp. 337-340. The area affected by the drought spanned from Atacama Province in the north to Ñuble in the south. The drought created huge losses for cultivations of potato, rice, maize, beans. Fruit trees and vineyards were also affected. 100 thousand cattle and 1 million sheep died because of the drought. Milk, meat and wool output declined. By September 1969 only 250 thousand goats remained from an earlier population of 650 thousand. Throughout rural Norte Chico, many farmers and communities came to lack water even for human consumption. In 1969 farmers received support of several financial institutions and state agencies including tax exemptions and a

line of credit A line of credit is a credit facility extended by a bank or other financial institution to a government, business or individual customer that enables the customer to draw on the facility when the customer needs funds. A line of credit takes s ...

to buy

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used ...

. In Central Chile, typical river flow increases in December, but this did not happen in 1968. Chile many farmers decided to not cultivate in early summer due to this and to the known fact there was almost no snow in Andes. Later in summer the rivers did grow due to

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

ablation Ablation ( la, ablatio – removal) is removal or destruction of something from an object by vaporization, chipping, erosive processes or by other means. Examples of ablative materials are described below, and include spacecraft material for a ...

, causing many farmers to repent albeit it was too late to cultivate. The decline in hydroelectric power generation (The hydroelectric deficit was of 200 MW) was partly compensated by having the thermoelectric plants of Ventanas, Renca and Laguna Verde function at maximum capacity. National coal production from the Lota-Schwager mine was not enough to supply the need and the government authorized the import of 50 thousand tons of coal from the United States, Poland, France and Germany. In the hydrological year of 1969–1970 the area affected by the drought diminished from previously spanning the latitudes of 27–36° S to 27–32° S.

Drought of 1998

Beginning in January 1997 the

El Niño El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date ...

phenomenon affected Chile during 1 year until 1998. Sea temperatures were high in the Pacific. The drought of 1998 caused an energy shortage in

SIC The Latin adverb ''sic'' (; "thus", "just as"; in full: , "thus was it written") inserted after a quoted word or passage indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed or translated exactly as found in the source text, complete with any e ...

, Chile's main

power grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

. The energy shortage was worsened by problems in the Nehuenco Power Plant driven by natural gas. Annual rainfall in

Zona Sur Zona Sur (''Southern Zone'') is one of the five natural regions on which CORFO divided continental Chile in 1950. Its northern border is formed by the Bío-Bío River, which separates it from the Central Chile Zone. The Southern Zone borders t ...

was far below previous record lows: in Valdivia only fell and in Concepción just , whereas the lowest before 1996 had been in 1924.

Chilean water crisis

The 1980 Constitution of Chile created under dictator

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

recognizes water as a private property and in 1981, his government rewrote laws regulating water, granting the sale and

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of water in a manner similar to the stock market. The sale of water rights has been one of the primary factors that led to lower water levels in some areas. Chile began to experience a drought in 2010 and by 2020, precipitation was 20–45% of average nationally and 10–20% of average in the area of

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

. By 2022, Chile was ranked 16th of 164 for water stress in the world according to the

University of Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

. In April 2022, Chile began a plan to ration water.

References

Bibliography * {{Americas topic, Drought in Water in Chile Climate of Chile Environment of Chile Natural disasters in Chile

Weather events in Chile Climate change in Chile Droughts by country, Chile