Life on Cracked Earth
Raquel Celina Rodríguez walks carefully across the Vega de Tilopozo in Chile’s Atacama salt flats — ground zero of the Atacama lithium water crisis. Once a thriving wetland fed by underground springs, the land is now dry and fissured, its pools vanished after years of intensive lithium extraction water use. “Before, the Vega was all green,” she says. “You couldn’t see the animals through the grass. Now everything is dry.
Her family once raised sheep here, relying on underground water springs that fed the Atacama’s rare oases. But with climate change and the rise of lithium extraction water use, that balance has collapsed. “They started taking the water,” she explains, pointing toward the vast salt flats now dominated by evaporation ponds.
“They” are the lithium companies—mining a mineral critical to the clean-energy revolution.
A Global Boom, A Local Bust
Lithium, a key component in batteries for electric vehicles and renewable-energy storage, has become the foundation of the green transition. According to the International Energy Agency, global lithium consumption doubled from 95,000 tonnes in 2021 to more than 205,000 tonnes in 2024, and could exceed 900,000 tonnes by 2040.
Chile, home to nearly one-third of the world’s known reserves, has moved to expand production under its National Lithium Strategy, combining state oversight with private partnerships. A major joint venture between state-owned Codelco and lithium giant SQM has approval to extract up to 2.5 million tonnes of lithium metal equivalent between 2031 and 2060.
Santiago officials hail the project as a contribution to global decarbonization and national income. But for the people of the Atacama, the lithium water crisis feels more like a slow-moving disaster.
The Cost of Lithium Extraction Water Use
Lithium in Chile is not mined from rock—it’s extracted from brine. Companies pump mineral-rich water from beneath the desert into giant evaporation ponds, where sunlight concentrates the lithium over several months. The process consumes staggering amounts of water—up to half a million gallons per tonne of lithium produced.
That’s devastating in a region where rainfall is almost nonexistent. A 2023 University of Chile study found the Salar de Atacama—the basin feeding many of these operations—is declining by 1 to 2 centimeters of water per year. The OECD’s Environmental Performance Review warned that lithium extraction water use poses “acute” risks to local hydrology.
The effects are visible. Faviola González, a biologist at the Los Flamencos National Reserve, says, “The lagoons here are smaller now. We’ve seen a decrease in the reproduction of flamingos.” The brine operations, she adds, disrupt the microorganisms that sustain the desert’s food web.
Even the hardy carob (algarrobo) trees are withering. A 2022 NRDC report found nearly one-third of the native trees near SQM’s concession had died from lack of water. SQM disputes this, claiming its monitoring shows recovery—but the desert tells another story.
Communities on the Edge
For residents like Raquel and her neighbor Sara Plaza, the transformation is deeply personal. “The mining companies never stopped extracting,” Sara says. “Maybe I won’t see it, but our children and grandchildren will. Without water, what are they going to live on?”
The nearby community of Peine has already overhauled its entire drinking-water and irrigation system. Community leader Sergio Cubillos says bluntly: “There is the issue of climate change, but the main impact has been caused by extractive mining.”
Cubillos is not opposed to climate action—he’s opposed to inequity. “If the President wants to fight climate change, he must involve the indigenous people who have existed here for millennia,” he says. “We should not be the bargaining chip of the energy transition.”
Corporate Promises, Desert Doubts
Lithium producers argue they are changing course. SQM, one of the largest players, is testing new sustainability measures to cut lithium extraction water use in half by 2031. These include direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies that skip evaporation ponds and systems that capture and reinject water into the ground.
“We are piloting several methods to increase production but reduce at least 50% of brine extraction,” says Valentín Barrera, SQM’s Deputy Manager of Sustainability. One pilot in Antofagasta, he notes, has recovered over one million cubic meters of water.
Yet skepticism runs deep. “We believe the Salar de Atacama is like an experiment,” says Faviola. “We don’t know how these salt flats will react to reinjection. We are being used as a natural laboratory.”
The Global Green Dilemma
The Atacama lithium water crisis reflects a larger moral paradox: the same mineral powering clean energy is degrading one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.
“Who are the electric cars going to be for?” Faviola asks. “Europeans, Americans, not us. Our carbon footprint is small—but it’s our water that’s being taken.”
Professor Karen Smith Stegen of Constructor University puts it bluntly: “It’s hard to imagine any kind of mining that doesn’t have an impact. The issue is whether those impacts are borne equitably.”
In Chile, those impacts are increasingly uneven—green wealth for some, dry earth for others.
Skillings Analysis
Chile’s lithium sector stands at a crossroads. The next decade will determine whether the country becomes a global model for sustainable mining or the cautionary tale of the clean-tech age.
For miners, two challenges loom:
- Technological — perfecting direct-extraction and reinjection systems that truly reduce water loss without destabilizing fragile aquifers.
- Social — restoring trust with indigenous communities through transparent water data, enforceable ESG standards, and fair consultation.
The industry’s reputation now depends on whether it can align the global demand for batteries with the limits of local ecosystems. If not, the Atacama lithium water crisis may mark the point where “green” technology crossed an ethical red line.
Maybe lithium will save the planet. But who will save the desert?
