Water has emerged as a central historical agent, playing a central role in a wide range of uses, disputes, and political, economic, and cultural debates. This article analyzes, from a historical perspective, the environmental transformations of the Isla La Laja territory in relation to its economic cycles and their effects on the hydrological cycle and water management. Based on the study of documentary sources from the National Archive and the National Library of Chile, the article examines how the discourse of progress and hydraulic modernization legitimized a state policy that mobilized significant economic and institutional resources. This policy favored the appropriation and control of water through the establishment of canal associations, transforming the social and economic relationships surrounding the resource: from a freely accessible public good, granted through usufruct rights, to an exchange good managed by shareholder associations that sought to monopolize its distribution and use.
