Water resources management in Chile
Much of Chile is dominated by the Andes Mountain range and many high altitude glaciers. With rising temperatures, the IPCC warns of increased melting for many of these glaciers, with some of them disappearing as early as 2020–2030. The Third Assessment Report from the IPCC indicate a critical situation for glaciers in neighboring countries such as Bolivia and Peru. The IPCC report goes on to say that glaciers in Chile are drastically reducing their volume at an increasing rate and that changes in temperature and humidity are the primary cause. In an article from Science Daily in March 2008, the news agency reports that, "if the inter-tropical glaciers of Chile, Argentina, and Colombia disappear, water availability and hydropower generation will be affected." Of the thirty test glaciers monitored in the Andes by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) only Chile's Echaurren Norte glacier thickened between 2005 and 2006.
Geology of Chile
The Intermediate Depression, a series of faults running north to south, separates the Andes from the Coast Range with a steady decrease in altitude as the latitude increases. In Norte Grande the Intermediate Depression is partially covered by a series of salt flats, and has the world's largest potassium nitrate deposits. In Norte Chico, the depression disappears briefly before reappearing in a narrow valley at Santiago. From the narrows southward the valley widens until it is interrupted near Loncoche by the Bahía Mansa Metamorphic Complex (part of the Coast Range), then widening at Los Llanos (near Paillaco). In central and southern Chile (33°-42° south), the landscape is partially covered with glacial sediments from the Andes. In Zona Austral (south of 42° south) the depression dips below sea level, appearing occasionally in islands such as Chiloé. Its southern end is the Isthmus of Ofqui.