Negotiating Water Values and Water Rights in Peru’s Highlands

Background and research aims

Due to climate change, the planet’s freshwater supplies are disappearing at an alarming speed. Improving water management and achieving water equity among poor population groups are therefore questions of critical importance for developing countries. Peru is a case in point to understand this challenge. This project investigates how the country’s new water law is implemented in three settings in the country’s highlands and explores how it facilitates new forms of cooperation between the main stakeholders in Andean water management. 

To study this cooperation ethnographically the project examines how water users, water authorities, and water engineers try to achieve water equity by using the institutional framework the law provides to negotiate existing water values and improve water management.