| Summary: | Several areas of Latin America suffer from water-related shortages and vulnerabilities. This situation has never been properly handled by local public authorities and has seen no real theoretical advances allowing a better understanding of the problem. This paper will focus on the conceptual analysis of socio-ecological systems and water-related shortages and vulnerabilities. It will use two theoretical approaches: that of complex adaptive systems and that of autopoietic social systems (i.e. systems able to maintain themselves in a larger environment, which makes them close to resilient systems). The goal is to suggest a few starting points for the study of this phenomenon, based on contemporary academic sources, in order to show how different theoretical models can be combined. The conclusion will stress the need to look for more complementary and inclusive perspectives to improve our understanding of contemporary environmental problems.
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