Abstract

Desalination is assumed to be important in overcoming physical resource limits, resolving water scarcity, and satisfying water demands for productive activities. In Chile the mining industry is leading the drive toward the construction of new desalination plants, followed by water supply companies that are focused on human consumption. This expanding process is confronting governance challenges due to the multiple interests around desalinated water and the impacts of the process (e.g. ecological, economic, and social). The Atacama Region of Chile is home to major mining industries. It is located in the arid to extremely arid northern part of the country, where water is a contested resource with the farming community and indigenous people, affecting its availability even for human consumption. This context presents a challenge for local development and for the structure of governance, which is competing between territorial scales and the power to affect decision making. Drawing from company sustainability reports and environmental impact assessments, I examine three mining companies in the Atacama Region that are incorporating desalinated water into their water strategy, and facing both governance challenges and new interest from local communities. I also describe what the companies are doing to affect the acceptance of their project’s Social Licence to Operate (SLO). The broader intellectual objective of the article is, first, to explore desalinated water governance and the different interests pursued by actors. Second, the article considers how desalinated water is strategically articulated through the mining industry’s social licence to operate. Finally, the article presents how companies are responding to new societal interest in desalinated water projects. Analysis of these processes evokes questions about the complex governance of desalination, revealing different interests and concerns, and also reveals the strategies used by both mining companies and social groups to achieve their goals.