Desalination is Booming in Chile, however Farmers No longer regularly Profit
Trend & Abet, Economy & Alternate, Editors’ Different, Meals and Agriculture, Meals Programs, Headlines, Integration and Trend Brazilian-vogue, Latin The United States & the Caribbean, Natural Sources, Sustainability, Sustainable Trend Targets, TerraViva United Countries, Water & Sanitation
Water & Sanitation
Scrutinize of a plant owned by Aguas Antofagasta, a firm created two decades ago that now has three desalination plants to produce drinking water to 184,000 households in that barren space city in northern Chile. Credit: Courtesy of Acades
SANTIAGO, Oct 22 2025 (IPS) – Desalination projects are booming in Chile, with 51 plants planned to course of seawater and a blended investment of US$ 24.455 billion. Nonetheless, these initiatives no longer regularly profit tiny-scale farmers, who are threatened by the prolonged drought, and cause environmental concerns.
A behold by the Capital Items Company and the Chilean Desalination and Reuse Association (Acades) printed that these projects, already in the engineering and enhance phases, will add 39,043 liters of water per second in production skill.
“The employ of seawater, desalinated or saline, and reusing wastewater relieves stress on rivers and aquifers, guaranteeing water for folk, ecosystems, and productive activities” –Rafael Palacios.
Fifteen of these projects belong to the mining sector, eight to the industrial sector, eight to the water utility sector, and 20 are linked to green hydrogen, a natty gasoline however very water-intensive, which the nation goals to be a prime producer of.
Of the long hurry plants, 17 are situated in the barren space space of Antofagasta, in the a ways north of this elongated South American nation, which lies between the Andes mountain differ and the Pacific Ocean.
There are 11 projects in the southern space of Magallanes, adopted in quantity by the areas of Atacama, Coquimbo, and Valparaíso, in the north and center of Chile, which listen most of the investment.
Rafael Palacios, govt director of Acades, urged IPS that this nation “faces a plight whereby water availability in northern and central Chile might well well lower by as much as 50% by 2060, so we is no longer going to proceed to rely fully on continental sources.”
“The employ of seawater, desalinated or saline, and reusing wastewater relieves stress on rivers and aquifers, guaranteeing water for folk, ecosystems, and productive activities,” he emphasized.
For the time being, 23 desalination plants are already running in Chile with a skill of 9,500 liters per second. They primarily aid mining needs, however moreover industrial and human consumption.
Regarded as one of the most large greenhouses for the hydroponic cultivation of vegetables irrigated with desalinated water, on the farm of 1 in all the 90 participants of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, in the northern Chilean space of Antofagasta. Credit: Courtesy of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada.
Minute-scale farmers profit
Dolores Jiménez has been president for the final eight years of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, in Antofagasta. The association has 90 energetic participants who collectively salvage 100 hectares the set they’ve created a Hydroponic City.
“We bag no longer receive any water concerns thanks to an settlement with Aguas Antofagasta. We now receive an oasis which we would otherwise no longer receive without that settlement,” Jiménez urged IPS by phone from Antofagasta, the capital of the gap of the identical name.
Aguas Antofagasta is a non-public firm that desalinates water in the north of this nation of 19.7 million inhabitants. The firm attracts water from the Pacific Ocean the utilization of an outfall that extends 600 meters offshore to a depth of 25 meters.
In desalination, outfalls are the underwater pipes that plan seawater and return and disperse the brine in a controlled manner, a ways from the wing and at an sufficient depth.
Based two decades ago, the firm in the mean time desalinates water in three plants in the municipalities of Antofagasta, Tocopilla, and Tal Tal, supplying 184,000 households in that space.
Dolores Jiménez, president of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, displays the energy of the plants thanks to the utilization of desalinated water that reaches tiny farmers due to an settlement with Aguas Antofagasta. Credit: Courtesy of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada
In its challenge to produce the total population, it integrated the association of tiny-scale farmers who grow carrots, broccoli, Italian zucchini, cucumbers, medicinal herbs, and suitable for eating flowers.
“They strengthen us with water from the pipeline that goes to Mejillones (a coastal city in the gap). They financed the connection for us to agree with six 30,000 liter tanks, installed on a position at one of the best doubtless point. From there, we distribute it the utilization of a water tanker truck,” urged Jiménez.
“Now, thanks to a challenge by the (declare) Nationwide Irrigation Rate, we were ready to stable 280 million pesos (US$294,000) for an inter-farm connection that can lift water thru pipes to 70 plots,” she added.
This would also mean necessary savings for the farmers.
Jesús Basáez in his farm in Pullally, on the central wing of Chile. There he grows quinoa, which he irrigates with extremely saline water that the grain tolerates without concerns. Previously, that saline water forced him to pause producing strawberries. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS
In Pullally, in the municipality of Papudo, in the central Valparaíso space, 155 kilometers northwest of Santiago, Jesús Basáez passe to grow strawberries alongside a dozen other tiny farmers. However the sever failed due to the salinity of the groundwater, interestingly precipitated by the drought affecting the La Ligua and Petorca rivers and proximity to the sea.
He then switched to quinoa, which tolerates salinity wisely. On the present time he is is named the King of Quinoa, a grain valued for its dietary properties and flexibility, which used to be an ancestral meals of Andean highland peoples and has now spread amongst tiny Chilean farmers.
Basáez has three hectares planted with white, red, and gloomy sorts of quinoa, which he irrigates with water obtained from a wisely, as he urged IPS at some point soon of a plug to to his farm.
The public University of Playa Ancha, based in town of Valparaíso, installed a mobile desalination plant on his farm that makes employ of reverse osmosis to take away parts from the saltwater which are execrable for irrigation. Force is applied to the saltwater so that it passes thru a semipermeable membrane that filters the water, isolating the salts.
After successful tests, Basáez is now about to resume his strawberry cultivation.
“It used to be three years of research, and it used to be concluded that it’s viable to produce non-brackish water to grow strawberries as soon as more. The challenge is that the worth stays very excessive and prevents replicating this expertise for other farmers,” he acknowledged. The mobile plant ticket the a similar of US$ 84,000.
The mobile desalination plant installed on Jesús Basáez’s farm to analyze the excessive salinity of the water at the position. For three years, lecturers and students from the University of Playa Ancha, in the central Chilean space of Valparaíso, researched how you’re going to be ready to lower the water salinity on this agricultural property. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS
Debating the effects of desalination
Since 2010, Chile has been going thru a long drought with water deficits of around 30%. There used to be vulgar drought in 2019 and 2021, and the nation benefited from a long-established interval in 2024, though the resource deficit persists, in a nation the set water administration is moreover privatized.
A document from the Climate and Resilience Heart of the public University of Chile, is named CR2, indicated that most up-to-date rates of groundwater employ are increased than the recharge skill of the aquifers, inflicting a decline in reserves.
In the 23 already operational desalination plants, seawater is extracted the utilization of outfalls which will no longer be very long, installed alongside the coastline of a shore that has diverse concessions and makes employ of dedicated to aquaculture, artisanal fishermen, and indigenous communities.
The key challenge is the discharge of brine following the industrial desalination course of.
“I received’t ever be against acquiring water for human consumption. Although this extremely concentrated brine that goes to the seabed has an impression the set an unlimited fragment of our benthic assets (organisms from the bottom of water our bodies) are situated. On a native scale, other than in the discharge house, this impression has by no plot been evaluated,” Laura Farías, a researcher at the public University of Concepción and at CR2, urged IPS.
“There might well be literature that sides out that there is definitely an impression. There are diverse phases of natural cycles, from larvae to settled organisms. There might well be even an impression on pelagic organisms that receive the skill to plug. And moreover an impression at the ecosystem diploma,” the academic specified by phone from Concepción, a city in central Chile.
She added that this impression is proportional to the quantity of desalinated water.
Jesús Basáez, in the municipality of Papudo, poses showing a feeble quinoa plant in a single hand and in the other a container designed to sell each kilogram of the grain he produces in its white, red, and gloomy varieties. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS
According to Farías, the water crisis has ended in desalination being fragment of the answer, no subject its impression on marine ecosystems, coastal vegetation, and natural world.
“It is a maladaptation, in consequence of in the stop this can receive impacts that will receive an impression on the coastal inhabitants who rely on those assets,” she emphasized.
There are in the mean time initiatives to legislate on the utilization of the coastal zone, however in holding with Farías, they gaze to “normalize, regularize, and standardize those impacts, after these plants already exist and there are others in quest of approval.”
Palacios, the director of Acades, has a undeniable opinion.
The worries about the environmental impression of desalination on coastal ecosystems are authentic, however most up-to-date proof and technology point to that this impression might well also be managed successfully, he says.
“In Chile, most up-to-date stories disguise no proof that the operation of desalination plants has to this point precipitated necessary environmental impacts, thanks to constant monitoring and developed diffusion methods,” he detailed.
He added that “most regularly, the natural salinity focus is restored within two or three seconds and at lower than 20 meters from the outfalls.”
Palacios explained that analysis by the Environmental Hub of the University of Playa Ancha “confirms increases in salinity of lower than 5% within 100 meters.” And in areas esteem Caldera, a coastal city in the northern Atacama space, they are “lower than 3% within 50 meters, limiting the areas of impression to tiny zones.”
“We are already imposing the first Clear Manufacturing Settlement in desalination and water reuse, promoted in conjunction with the (declare) Company for Sustainability and Climate Change, advancing against voluntary requirements for sustainable administration, transparency, and strengthening the link with communities,” he emphasized.
