Análisis de la presión hídrica por medio de la densidad de kernel y su evolución entre 1986 y 2016, en el Valle de Azapa, Chile

The Azapa Valley, located in Northern Chile is, since 1996, an area where the establishment of new rights of water use is prohibited, due to the increased extraction of groundwater. Despite this, until 2016 these rights have been established and regularized, due to the large number of demands arising from the urban growth of the city of Arica and the changes in agricultural land uses, which have tended towards the demand of a greater amount of water. The objective this paper is to determine how the Water Code of 1981 and the changes in regulations determined the evolution of water pressure in the study area, based on information obtained from the Public Water Register and field work, considering the flows requested, the new rights granted and the concentration of water extraction wells. Based on this basic information, kernel density was applied to show the increase of this pressure in the valley, evidencing a historical zone of greater pressure in the lower zone, coinciding with the area of greatest pressure of urban uses (up to approximately km. 6), which has gradually expanded in subsequent years throughout the area, reaching sectors of the upper part, several kilometres more inlandindividual's social and psychological wellbeing.