Procedure for the Formalization of Water Use (Supreme Decree No. 001-2024-MIDAGRI)

Supreme Decree No. 001-2024-MIDAGRI, published on January 9, 2024, establishing a procedure for formalizing water use through the granting of licenses to individuals and legal entities that had used water publicly, peacefully and continuously by December 31, 2014 without holding the corresponding water-use right. The regulation applies nationwide to productive and domestic water uses, including agricultural activities, subject to expressly established exceptions. The National Water Authority (ANA), through its Local Water Administrations, receives applications, assesses supporting documentation, verifies water-use conditions and issues decisions within a maximum of thirty working days, subject to negative administrative silence. Applicants must demonstrate prior water use, ownership or lawful possession of the relevant property or production unit and, where applicable, environmental management instruments and sectoral authorizations. Agricultural activities covering no more than ten hectares are exempt from submitting an environmental management instrument for this procedure. The decree excludes certain activities governed by specific procedures, including aquaculture, collective agricultural water-use arrangements and agricultural activities on land classified for forestry or protection. It originally established a two-year application period from its entry into force and regulated the administrative effects of submitting an application. Its purpose is to facilitate the administrative regularization of existing water uses without granting land ownership rights or authorizing new water withdrawals outside the applicable legal procedures.