Abstract

Water in the arid regions of the planet is usually the factor that limits an adequate provision of ecosystem services, especially when there are competing uses. Such is the case in the Huasco river basin, located in the hyper-arid Atacama Desert in Chile. This basin has three medium- to small-size cities, large copper mines, agriculture, cattle that together threat the future provision of fresh water due to increased consumption. The risk of facing future shortages because of unbalanced consumption vs. water recharge moved the local government to fund a research project aimed at estimating the total economic value (i.e., use and non-use values) of water in order to have scientific information to enlighten the future decision-making process in terms of the development of an integrated water resource management policy. Thus, we applied a survey to a sample of urban and rural dwellers (such as farmers, ranchers, miners, wetland managers), and interviewed several local experts and public servants. We thus estimated the willingness to pay for water conservation of different stakeholders, and the main actors’ opinion regarding the needs for improved management in a water-scarce basin.