Urban territorial planning and integrated watershed management in comparative perspective. the Mendoza (Argentina) and Aconcagua (Chile) rivers

Extreme weather phenomena (heat waves, forest fires, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, warmer and more acidic oceans, hurricanes, droughts and floods, etc.), which are changing and intensifying as a result of climate change, are seriously affecting the lives of people in both urban and rural areas. One of the most urgent problems to be solved is water scarcity.It has been demonstrated that part of this meteorological drought is due to human actions and that the water variable must be integrated into urban and land use planning.The hypothesis of this research is that factors of different nature do not allow achieving territorial planning based on integrated watershed management,in the two investigated case studies: the Mendoza River Basin in Argentina and the Aconcagua River Basin in Chile.The objective of this study was to analyze the regulatory, institutional, governance, sustainability, and climate change components that hinder integrated water resource managementthrough a qualitative methodology. Both case studies reveal obstacles to achieving territorial planning based on integrated watershed management. The Chilean case presents even greater difficulties due to a regulatory and legal framework that still centers on private ownership of water.