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Environmental Law Journal becomes part of Scielo Chile

The publication edited by the Environmental Law Center will be part of an open access collection of Chilean scientific journals in all areas of knowledge.

The Environmental Law Journal, edited by the Environmental Law Center of the Law School of the University of Chile, was admitted to be part of the SciELO - Chile Scientific Electronic Library.

SciELO - Chile is an open access collection of texts from Chilean scientific journals, from all areas of knowledge, which predominantly publish articles resulting from scientific research, and which uses peer review of the manuscripts they receive, which show a growing performance in the indicators of compliance with the indexing criteria.

"We are very pleased with this recognition, which is the result of an effort of continuous improvement of the editorial processes developed by the editorial team, which has resulted in the growing increase in the quality of the articles published over the years," said the director of the Journal, Prof. Valentina Durán Medina, adding "we are grateful for the support of the Faculty, which through its Dean, Prof. Pablo Ruiz-Tagle, and the Journals Program of the Research Department, headed by Prof. Daniel Álvarez, has provided permanent support to the work of the journal."

"Once the collaboration agreement between the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile and the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) is signed, the full incorporation of the journal to this collection will take place, starting in 2022" explained the editor Jorge Ossandón Rosales.

This good news is in addition to the admission, in 2020, of the Environmental Law Journal to the SCOPUS database.

As a result, in 2022 the Environmental Law Journal will already be indexed in Scopus, Redib, DOAJ and Latindex, in addition to ScIELO, with the support of SISIB and the Journals Program of the Research Department of the Law School of the Universidad of Chile.

It should be noted that Issue 16 of this biannual journal will be published on December 31.

 

Environmental authorization of seawater desalination activities

Authors

  • Fernanda Skewes Urtubia Universidad de Chile

Abstract

In view of the increasing worldwide water scarcity, seawater desalination has emerged as a viable alternative in the search for a safe and stable water supply. In Chile, public policies regarding the water issue have generally pointed out water desalination as a way to be enhanced. In the northern region of the country, an important number of desalination plants are currently installed and under evaluation. That being said, this kind of work causes an unquestionable impact on the marine environment. In Chile, unlike Comparative law, the applicable legal regime for these kinds of procedures has not been studied deeply. Thus, and contrary to what is generally alleged, under the current regulatory framework, it is not clear whether these are the kind of tasks that must enter the Environmental Impact Evaluation System and achieve an Environmental Qualification Resolution or not. In this context, this paper aims to provide criteria to answer the raised question, and elucidate to which environmental obligations the seawater desalination activities should be submitted.

Keywords:

Water resource scarcity, Desalination, Environmental Impact Evaluation System, Environmental Qualification Resolution