Assessment of water resources and their use by different productive sectors in Peru

Several international meetings in the last few years, dealing with the matter of water as a resource subject to multiple uses, to pollution, and to competition among different users, have agreed to deal with water resources as a whole regarding its use and management planning. It was therefore agreed that countries should carry out a preliminary assessment of the water resource use in all sectors and this study meets that objective for Peru. The study analyzes the current situation of management and exploitation of water resources by each sector including agriculture, mining, industry, energy, drinking water and drainage, and other uses such as navigation, tourism and acuiculture, with the hope that this will facilitate institutional coordinations at the central level with the different water user sectors. Also included in the study is a historical summary of the evolution of the mentioned sectors and sub-sectors, the institutional characteristics, the human resources, the policy outlines and strategies considered by each sector, as well as the action plans in the field of short, medium and long term investments. Finally, the study indicates the deficiencies and/or limitations that such sectors are having as well as the intersector conflicts for the use of water resources. The importance of this study is that, for the first time, the multiple problems related to the use of water by the most diverse sectors in Peru have been gathered in a simple document. Based on this the government can formulate a strategy oriented to the development of capacities for the management of water resources with the aim of achieving economic development without any conflict in the exploitation of this basic resource.