Cuando el río suena, agua lleva. A quali-quanti assessment on the state of human migration in response to water scarcity in the Province of Petorca, Central Chile.

Abstract

Shaped by natural as well as anthropogenic drivers, water scarcity represents a major threat to human safety. By slowly permeating territories, prolonged droughts impact human societies, deeply compromising their self-sustaining abilities and constituting a major stressor for their political, economic, and cultural structures as well as dynamics. In addition to the geographical distribution of drying trends being very uneven, the distribution of their effects is also characterized by severe patchiness (Tsing et al. 2019). Indeed, the differential impact of these casualties sees some communities as more exposed to socio-economic and environmental adversities than others. An example is constituted by rural communities whose livelihoods depend on water availability and land productivity. The pervasiveness of these drying events may constitute an incentive for these groups to consider migration as a solution to cope with the progressive degradation of their territory of origin. According to IOM forecasts, water-related hazards (such as floods and droughts) are projected to push tens of millions of people to migrate within their countries by 2050 ( IOM 2021). Therefore, understanding the nexus between water availability, rural communities, and migratory trends is essential. Based on a quali-quantitative assessment of human migration in response to water scarcity in the Province of Petorca, Central Chile, this research project aims at showcasing the complexity of this relationship through the evidence that emerged from semi-structured interviews and cross-analysis of demographic and environmental data. An indirect and complex nexus between the two phenomena is identified, in line with minimalist theories of environmental migration.