Lithium brine extraction in Chile's Atacama is sinking the salt flat by 2 cm per year, threatening the water supply for 1.5 million people in one of the driest places on Earth

The Atacama Salt Flat in northern Chile sits in one of the driest environments on Earth, receiving less than 15 millimeters of rainfall per year. Beneath it lies a lithium-rich brine that SQM and Albemarle pump to the surface and evaporate in massive ponds. This process consumes an estimated 500,000 gallons of water per ton of lithium produced. The pumping rate exceeds the natural aquifer recharge rate, and satellite measurements show the salt flat is subsiding by up to 2 centimeters per year. The water table is dropping, freshwater lagoons that support flamingo populations and endemic microbial ecosystems are shrinking, and the aquifer system that indigenous Atacameno communities depend on for drinking water and agriculture is being depleted. By 2025, lithium mining in South America threatens water supplies for over 1.5 million local residents across the 'lithium triangle' spanning Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. In Chile specifically, 65% of lithium operations risk affecting local agriculture through groundwater depletion. The Atacameno communities have filed legal challenges arguing that their water rights and ancestral territories are being sacrificed for a mineral that powers electric vehicles in wealthy countries. The irony is not lost on anyone: the 'green transition' mineral is being extracted in a way that creates an environmental and human rights crisis in the communities where it is mined. Direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies promise to reduce water consumption by reinjecting brine after lithium is removed, rather than evaporating it. But DLE remains largely unproven at commercial scale. A Nature Reviews Earth & Environment study found that the environmental claims of DLE companies have not been independently verified, and the technology's water footprint depends heavily on the specific chemistry and geology of each brine deposit. Companies like SQM have announced DLE pilots, but these are years away from replacing conventional evaporation ponds at full production scale. This problem persists because Chile's water governance framework treats groundwater and brine as separate legal resources, even though they are hydrologically connected. Mining companies hold brine extraction rights that do not account for the impact on adjacent freshwater aquifers. The economic incentive is overwhelming: Chile produces roughly one-quarter of the world's lithium, and the government collects substantial royalties. Reforming water rights to reflect hydrological reality would restrict production and reduce revenue, creating a political economy that favors the status quo even as the aquifer declines.