Increasing water stress in Chile revealed by novel datasets of water availability, land use and water use

Boisier, Juan Pablo; Alvarez-Garreton, Camila; Marinao, Rodrigo; Galleguillos, Mauricio

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5185-2025

Articles | Volume 29, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5185-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Drought, society, and ecosystems (NHESS/BG/GC/HESS inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5185-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 29, issue 20

Research article

|

15 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 15 Oct 2025

Increasing water stress in Chile revealed by novel datasets of water availability, land use and water use

Juan Pablo Boisier, Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Rodrigo Marinao, and Mauricio Galleguillos

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5185-2025-supplement

Data sets

CR2MET: A high-resolution precipitation and temperature dataset for the period 1960-2021 in continental Chile Juan P. Boisier https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7529682

CR2LUC: Historical (1950-2020) land use and land cover in continental Chile Juan P. Boisier et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13324250

CR2WU: Water use dataset for the period 1950-2020 in continental Chile Juan P. Boisier et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13324235

Short summary

Our study assesses water stress in Chile from the mid-20th century to the end of the 21st century using novel datasets on water availability, land use, and water demand. We compute a water stress index for all basins in the country and show that, in addition to declining precipitation, rising water demand drives a steady increase in stress. As a drier future is projected for central Chile, the water stress index provides a useful tool for guiding water governance and adaptation strategies.