You are Carmen Quispe Rojas, technical manager of the Junta de Usuarios de Quilcamayo, the water-user board that shares a river among 2,440 users in a valley on Peru's central coast. On Saturday 11 July 2026 you present your plan to the assembly, and one of the questions is whether the board lines its main canal, and how it pays for it, when there is a 40% chance that next season will be dry.
The situation
The board runs the river intake, the main canal and the laterals. It serves two very different groups: 40 export growers with 3,000 hectares of avocado and table grape, which need 10,000 m³ a hectare, and about 2,400 smallholders with 6,000 hectares of maize, cotton and vegetables, which need 8,000. Together they ask for 78 cubic hectometres a season. Ahead of farming come the town's drinking water (4 hm³) and the wetland's ecological flow (6 hm³).
The canal is unlined and loses 30% of its water to seepage before it reaches the intakes; unauthorised intakes take another 6% in a normal year, and more in dry ones. The water authority forecasts about 120 hm³ for this season, close to normal. But in ten seasons the river fell below 80 hm³ twice, and in 2019-20, at 68, the board shared it pro rata: every user got less than half of what they asked for and many avocado trees dried out for good.
The treasurer, Rosa Chávez, has done the sum: in a dry year of about 70 hm³ with nothing changed, about 37 would reach the intakes, and since the tariff is charged per cubic metre, the board would collect half its income just when it spends most. Lining the canal would raise its efficiency from 70% to 80%. With its own funds and credit it would cost S/ 4.0 million and work from next season. The Regional Irrigation Fund, which has just opened a call, co-finances 70%: the board would pay S/ 0.2 million for studies now and S/ 1.2 million in 2028-29, and the lined canal would only work from that season.
The board lives on a tariff of S/ 20 per 1,000 m³ delivered, of which it collects 85%. It spends S/ 1.2 million a season on operation and maintenance, holds a S/ 3.0 million reserve and has a S/ 4.0 million credit line at 10% a season. At the same assembly you will also propose the tariff and a protocol for the dry year.