[1] Due to its location, the La Ligua River has a seasonal flow, which peaks in the spring during the snowmelt and reduces exponentially in the summer months.

[1] The main usage of the La Ligua River is to provide water to the principal agricultural economy.

[1] Chile, prior to the agrarian reforms of the 1960s, was dominated large land estates owned by rural based oligarchies.

This is a result of President Eduardo Frei and his Christian Democratic Party, who rose to power in the mid-1960s with strong reformist attitude.

A major component of the agrarian reforms was the expropriation of large estates that were deemed to not be producing enough and forming collective farms.

[2] After the 1973 coup, which ousted Unidad Popular President Salvador Allende and instituted a military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet, land reforms were effectively scaled back.

[4] Around the La Ligua River, this leads to “the expansion and conversion of land to non-traditional export crops.” Beginning in the early 1990s, the area around the La Ligua River has shifted from producing annual crops for the domestic market, like beans, maize, potatoes, wheat, to permanent fruit plantations for export, like avocados, citrus fruits, nuts.

The development of new water/irrigation technologies and the availability of untilled rain-fed land on the valley sides has led to an boom of fruit plantations aimed at growing export-oriented goods.