Using a socio-hydrology stance to address the paradox between global decarbonisation, lithium fever, and sustainability in the Atacama Salt Deposit

Climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by replacing petroleum-driven vehicles with electric vehicles powered by rechargeable lithium batteries. By 2025, 45% of the world’s Lithium will be sourced from water-intensive mining operations adjacent to fragile eco-hydrological systems in the Atacama Desert, the world’s driest desert. In the remote Atacama salt flat basin, home to one of the world’s richest deposits of high-grade lithium, brines are being mined from aquifers, with potential impacts on the long-term environmental, ecological, economic, and social viability of the system. Stakeholders (scientists, communities, and decision-makers) are currently entrenched in adversarial relationships and top-down policy-making and implementation.

A socio-hydrology stance considering telecoupled systems of people and water is essential to address the paradox between the quest for global decarbonisation and unsustainable use of water resources in the Atacama region. The inclusion of social drivers (beliefs, biases, values, and heuristics), however, adds complexity to the analysis. To address this complexity, novel methodologies such as participatory modeling (PM) and agent-based modeling (ABM) can be implemented. The former can enrich the system with specialist and local knowledge, increase the perceived utility of models, their credibility through transparent communication of the limitations and uncertainties, and the adoption and acceptance of the model results, which ultimately guide public policy. The latter seeks to represent explicitly the complexity and heterogeneity in these telecoupled systems.

The socio-hydrological problem at the Atacama salt flat is conceptualized using the Fuzzy-Logic Cognitive Mapping methodology through participatory workshops, involving scientists, regulators, and government officials. An ABM is then coupled to an integrated and regional groundwater-surface water model to better understand the impacts of management scenarios and social interactions, and their feedbacks on the eco-hydrological system. Ultimately, the aim of this research is to take a socio-hydrology stance to analyze a wicked problem with social, environmental, and economic implications at the local and global scales, and in doing so, expand fundamental knowledge of socio-hydrology.