Chile Communes Under Water Scarcity Decree (DGA)

## What this measures

The number of distinct communes (comunas, Chile's municipalities) covered by at least one water-scarcity decree in force on the last day of each month. A decree over named communes counts those communes; one over a province or region counts every commune in it, using the Ministry of Public Works' official commune list. Decrees over a river basin or an aquifer sector cover parts of communes and are not counted here; they still count in the decrees series.

## Why it matters

It shows how much of the country is living under emergency water rules, in a unit that lines up with local government, census and employment data. Mining regions in the north and the farming valleys of central Chile have spent long periods under decree.

## How to read it

Higher means more communes under drought decree. Chile has 346 communes, so the value can be read against that total. It peaked during the 2019–2022 megadrought.

## What it does not say

Basin and aquifer decrees are left out, so years when decrees were mostly by basin (common before 2013) read low. A commune is counted whether all or part of its territory needs the water. A decree is a government decision as well as a measure of rainfall.

## Source

Dirección General de Aguas (DGA), Ministerio de Obras Públicas de Chile: ArcGIS layer DGA/Decretos_Escasez_Hidrica (official commune, province and region codes, 2008 to April 2023) and the DGA spreadsheet of decrees for later ones; communes from MOP's MAPA_BASE/LIMITES layer (346 communes). No licence is published; displayed with attribution: Fuente: Dirección General de Aguas, MOP.