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Discovery

Megadrought in Chile

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.31.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Drought is a massive problem for Chile. Jane Chambers has been living in the capital Santiago for more than ten years and has seen huge changes in that time. It used to rain frequently in the winter months between June and September and the Andes Mountains which run down the whole of Chile were snow-capped all year round. But that doesn’t happen anymore. Jane reports on the impact of the mega drought on the country and what is being done about it. She talks to climate scientists Sebastian Vicuna, Director of the Global Change Research Centre, at the Catholic University of Chile and to Rene Garreaud, a Professor in the Geophysics Department at University of Chile and Deputy Director of the Center for Climate and Resilience Research, about whether the megadrought is the result of natural weather patterns or of climate change. She meets farmers who are struggling to find pasture for their goats in the village of Til Til, and Francisco Meza, a Professor in the department of agriculture and forestry at the Catholic University in Santiago, who is helping agriculture adapt to low rainfall. And Jane hears about ways to increase the availability of drinking water through small-scale desalination and by capturing moisture from the air. Picture: Flows of rivers and reservoirs have reached historic minimums in Chile. A severe drought is hitting the country's central area, making local communities more vulnerable to face the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:44.7

You can probably hear the goats all around me and I am here with Felipe Morales who looks after these goats and we're in a very rural community called Las Blancas the sun is beating down it's very dry there are horses and goats

0:52.3

Felipe me pellees my can't explain a little good

0:55.0

when we are what else is?

0:57.0

Well, we have other here to come to the principal

1:01.0

the ganaderia of Caprina.

1:04.0

The team of the other that

1:06.6

has had been as a year in my girders here in our

1:09.0

gator in a book of the pastoreo to the cover.

1:12.0

Felipe is just explaining to me that he looks after herds of goats here and sheep,

1:18.0

and for the last eight years or so, because of the mega-drought, they've been having real problems finding enough grass and enough food for their animals so they've had to look elsewhere.

1:27.0

So, how is that here in Vrano?

1:30.0

In the Vrano, very se se, where the tinec that has

1:33.8

to be the commune of the municipality.

1:35.8

All the people, for here,

1:37.6

that you have that the migrant

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