- Argentina 2026
- Chapter 5
Multi-year drought with low Paraná flows
A conditional statement under stated assumptions, never a prediction.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1Argentina’s risk is hydrological and fiscal at once
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Multi-year drought with low Paraná flows
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
5.1Assumptions
Scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01: what is assumed, and what is held constant.
- Baseline
- the 2026 reference state in this edition
- Drivers
- two consecutive seasons of rainfall deficit over the Pampas and the upper Paraná basin, with low river levels in the export season
- Analogues
- the 2022–23 drought12; Paraná low flows 2019–202218
- Interventions
- none modelled; the specification describes the unmitigated case
- Run state
- narrative specification; quantified Foundry run scheduled for Q1 2027
5.2The cascade, step by step
- 1
CLI → WAT
rainfall deficit and low river levels
2022–23 · 2019–22
- 2
WAT → FOO
harvests fall; wheat fell 44% in 2022–23
2022–23
- 3
WAT → INF
vessels load less cargo at river ports
Paraná 2021–22
- 4
WAT → ENE
hydropower falls; thermal generation fills the gap
not bound
- 5
FOO → FIN
export earnings and public revenue fall
2022–23
- 6
CLI → BIO
dry vegetation burns in the north-east and the delta
Corrientes 2022
5.3The scenario as a table of steps
How the shock in scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01 would travel through Argentina’s coupled systems, step by step, under the assumptions the edition states.
| Step | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Climate to water | Rainfall deficit and low river levels. Analogue or source: 2022–23 · 2019–22. | Edition ARG, scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01, step 1 |
| 02 Water to food | Harvests fall; wheat fell 44% in 2022–23. Analogue or source: 2022–23. | Edition ARG, scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01, step 2 |
| 03 Water to infrastructure | Vessels load less cargo at river ports. Analogue or source: Paraná 2021–22. | Edition ARG, scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01, step 3 |
| 04 Water to energy | Hydropower falls; thermal generation fills the gap. Analogue or source: not bound. | Edition ARG, scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01, step 4 |
| 05 Food to finance | Export earnings and public revenue fall. Analogue or source: 2022–23. | Edition ARG, scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01, step 5 |
| 06 Climate to biodiversity | Dry vegetation burns in the north-east and the delta. Analogue or source: Corrientes 2022. | Edition ARG, scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01, step 6 |
A teaching model of a conditional scenario under the edition’s stated assumptions: not a forecast, not a prediction and not a warning. Sources: Argentina 2026, scenario SCN-ARG-DRT-01 (2026); Argentina 2026, references (NR-CIT-1) (2026).
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 12Bolsa de Cereales de Buenos Aires (ed.), Estimates for the 2022/23 harvest under drought (wheat 12.4 Mt, down 44%; soybeans 25 Mt; maize 36 Mt; farm-sector losses about US$33 billion), as reported by the press. BCBA, Buenos Aires, 2023. Observation year 2023.back
- 18Flow analysis of the Paraná River and contextualisation of low flows in 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 hydrological years. Peer-reviewed journal article, Argentina. Observation years 2019–2022. Record read at https://bdu.siu.edu.ar/bdu/Record/I15-R229-article-224/Description, accessed 2026-11-03. Authors and journal to be confirmed from the article page.back