Socio-ecological controversies between desalination, urbanization, and green mining transition
| Título | Socio-ecological controversies between desalination, urbanization, and green mining transition |
|---|---|
| Año | 2026 |
| Autor | Álvaro Mercado, Daniela Salgado, Pablo Mansilla, Javiera Pavez, Mia-Sue Carrère |
| Tipo | Artículo en Revista Académica |
| Revista | The Extractive Industries and Society |
| Indexación | WoS |
| Edición | June 2026 |
| Volumen | 26"" no puede asignarse a un tipo de número declarado con valor 26. |
| Número | 101866"" no puede asignarse a un tipo de número declarado con valor 101866. |
| Palabras Clave | Desalination, Extractive urbanization, Green mining, Sacrifice zones, Controversies, Chile |
| Área de Investigación | Extensión, Ciudad y Habitabilidad |
| Línea | Ciudad y Extensión |
| URL | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214790X26000171?via%3Dihub |
| Carreras | Arquitectura, Diseño, Magíster |
Under conditions of increasing water scarcity and speculative mineral value, large-scale mining—coupled with seawater desalination and renewable energy infrastructure—has become a central driver of territorial transformation across coastal and hinterland regions worldwide. This article examines how, in Chile’s Norte Chico, desalination infrastructure, framed within discourses of green mining and a just energy transition, operates as an enabling socio-technical device for mining expansion, shaping a new form of extractive urbanization. We hypothesize that desalination, inseparably linked to the growth of tailings dams and associated logistics, produces new corridors of extractive urbanization that reconfigure coastal, rural, and inland territories into operational landscapes. Drawing on Actor–Network Theory and Urban Political Ecology, the study traces how desalination plants, pipelines, and tailings dams associated with Minera Los Pelambres (MLP) reshape hydrosocial relations, everyday practices, and modes of territorial governance in the Pupío Valley, with particular attention to impacts on coastal and rural communities. Methodologically, it combines documentary analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and GIS-based cartographic analysis to track infrastructural expansion and its socio-territorial effects. The findings show that desalinated seawater does not function as a neutral technological fix; rather, it redistributes socio-ecological pressures across scales, displaces environmental risks, and disrupts livelihoods, while enabling the consolidation of new green sacrifice zones under sustainability and energy-transition narratives. By foregrounding the ecopolitical dimensions of desalination and green mining, the article contributes to critical debates on extractive urbanization and highlights the controversies embedded in contemporary socio-ecological transitions.
