Almost two decades ago, Uruguay led the way as the world’s first country to enshrine the right to clean water in its constitution. Now it is parched and desperate. Residents can cross the reservoir serving Montevideo on foot. The capital has declared a water emergency, with officials warning that it is a matter of days before it runs dry. For months they have been eking out tap water supplies by adding brackish estuary water, telling pregnant women and people with serious health conditions not to drink it. Authorities have cut taxes on bottled water and are distributing it for free to the estimated one in seven people for whom it is unaffordable. Others are turning to wells.
The main culprit is the worst drought in more than 70 years. Though Uruguay is naturally rich in water, rainfall is highly variable due to the impact of La Niña and El Niño weather patterns. The problems are exacerbated by global heating, which makes dry years drier and rainy years wetter, as well as increasing evaporation losses. Neighbouring Argentina is beset by shortages already. Many more countries around the world face similar challenges – or soon will.
Climatic factors are only one part of this problem. Researchers and campaigners have been warning for years that the growing impact of export-led agriculture and forestry was unsustainable. Only a small proportion of Uruguay’s water is used for human consumption. In 2019, rice, wood pulp, soy beans and meat – the main exports – used more than 50 times as much as went to drinking supplies. There is also anger about the construction of a new Google data centre, which critics say will use millions of litres of water a day, though officials say that the plans have been revised.
Experts say that 2004’s constitutional changes led to major improvements in what had been a hierarchical and fragmented water management system. But integration in planning has not been matched in implementation. Successive governments have failed to adequately invest in maintaining and overhauling infrastructure, perhaps in part because in previous droughts, rain arrived just as matters were getting really desperate: “We all fell asleep,” admitted José Mujica, president from 2010 to 2015. But opposition from big business, as well as complacency, has played a significant role in the failure to establish a satisfactory long-term strategy.
That will have to change if the country is to find lasting solutions. There is reason to be optimistic. The 2004 constitutional reforms, approved by more than 60% of the population in a referendum, also enshrined public management of water supplies, and were motivated in large part by the privatisation of drinking water and sanitation services. A coalition of civil society and political groups, the National Commission for the Defence of Water and Life, identified profit-driven water management and greed as a fundamental threat to the basic rights of citizens. This was a grassroots initiative that succeeded in the face of indifference from political leaders and the media – and outright opposition from business interests.
In a country that has been ranked as the most democratic in the Americas, civil society could play an essential role in finding solutions again. The importance of access to clean water is a top priority for the public once more. Uruguay’s crisis today is the future for more and more nations. They could learn a lot by looking to its past.
