Managing the increasingly scarce water reserves has become an essential issue in Chile, to the point that the South American nation is assigning the water resource its own ministry.
The government sent to Congress a bill to transform the Ministry of Public Works into the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources, an entity that will oversee and coordinate Chile's 43 water-related institutions.
The government, which has been held up by water rights advocates, is attempting to improve control of what appears to be the world's most privatized water system. Chileans' growing unease over inequality, the worst drought in more than a decade and climate change combine to make water a central issue in the process of drafting a new constitution. At the same time, legislators are addressing the debate on changes to water regulations.
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