This report describes and explains the importance of the study of water conflicts and how institutions address them in order to understand the exposures experienced by communities, their adaptive capacity and their vulnerabilities to climate change. The authors start with the premise that one of the key aspects revealed by the study of water conflicts is that power differential among the stakeholders in the resolution of the conflicts (for example, the rural communities and the political organizations that govern water resources) may increase the exposure of the communities and stakeholders, negatively affect their capacity and increase their vulnerability to climate change impacts. We seek to understand whether an institution's involvement in a water conflict increases or decreases its capacity to guide communities in their efforts to adapt to climate change impacts, and therefore, directly influencing the level of vulnerability of those communities. To address this specific objective, we analyzed three cases studies of water conflicts: the Oldman River Dam, in Canada (South Saskatchewan River Basin), and the Puclaro Dam (Coquimbo region) and the Pascua Lama project, in Chile.