Abstract

Mountain lake environments are highly sensitive to climatic and anthropogenic changes, Lake Laja in central Chile has undergone severe modifications in recent years, impacting its entire basin. Through the diachronic analysis of multi-temporal satellite images Landsat (1986-2016) with supervised classification (ENVI) and evaluated the changes (Idrisi Andes). We define the main factors that would explain the changes in this lacustrine system through analysis of land cover, distribution of water rights and climate data. A reduction of rainfall of 1500-2000 mm is observed to 970-780 mm annually and a sustained increase of the temperature between 1.3-1.6 ° C., also was recognized fluctuations of the flooded surface cover of the lake of 9.994,63 Ha (1985) to 5.135,6 Ha (2013), i.e. a reduction in the period of 48.6%. Then the systematic retreat of Lake Laja is not explained by the climatic variations analyzed, which leads us to infer that the main external cause of this process is the anthropic action, expressed in the pressure and competition for the use of the water resource between actors with unequal relations of power: hydropower plants, small-medium farmers, inhabitants of the sector and entrepreneurs of tourism.