Water Quality Policy

This chapter describes and analyzes water quality policy in Chile. To this end, the Chilean institutions and regulations of greater relevance to water quality issues are described. Subsequently, the main regulatory instruments used, and their implementation, are presented together with the definitions of the main existing prevention or remediation instruments. Finally, the decrees that conform the environmental regulation of the country are outlined. The policies that regulate the environmental quality of the waters in Chile have advanced significantly and a system that potentially will guarantee the quality of the waters is already in place. However, water resources that have secondary quality standards in place are to this date only a very small fraction. Thus, a more decisive push to add more areas is needed for the regulation to have a significant effect in the country.