Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama
Salt flats are hydrogeological systems with highly valuable wetland and lake ecosystems. The brine pumping carried out to extract lithium is modifying the natural evaporation discharge of salt flats. A methodology to evaluate the impacts caused on water table and evaporation discharge by brine exploitation in salt flats is proposed and applied to the Salar de Atacama. The methodology included field measurements of water table and evaporation rate, followed by its spatio-temporal analysis and the application of the results to a numerical model to improve the brine exploitation design. The spatio-temporal analysis of the water table depth and evaporation rates measured in the field concluded that the evaporation discharge decreased from 12.85 to 10.95 m·s between 1986 and 2018, that is around 15%. This reduction compensated part of the extractions and could contribute to the preservation of the mixing zone ecosystems. At present, this damping capacity is already amortized in the nucleus and the marginal zone is beginning to be affected by the brine pumping. The sensitivity of the phreatic evaporation on the water table depth justified the great uncertainty of the previous evaporation discharge estimations. Thus, an average error lower than 0.5 m was enough to modify the evaporation by >60%. Therefore, considerable effort should invested to faithfully quantify the discharge by evaporation which is critical in water balance of salt flat basins. The numerical model pointed out that the total pumping outflow should be distributed in the largest possible area. This minimizes the water table drawdown and maximizes the capacity of the evaporation decline to compensate the extractions. The results of this work serve as guidelines to improve the efficiency of future salt flat exploitations.
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dig-idaea-es-10261-2407682022-02-10T05:30:35Z Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama Marazuela, Miguel Ángel Vázquez-Suñé, Enric Ayora, Carlos García-Gil, Alejandro Salt flats are hydrogeological systems with highly valuable wetland and lake ecosystems. The brine pumping carried out to extract lithium is modifying the natural evaporation discharge of salt flats. A methodology to evaluate the impacts caused on water table and evaporation discharge by brine exploitation in salt flats is proposed and applied to the Salar de Atacama. The methodology included field measurements of water table and evaporation rate, followed by its spatio-temporal analysis and the application of the results to a numerical model to improve the brine exploitation design. The spatio-temporal analysis of the water table depth and evaporation rates measured in the field concluded that the evaporation discharge decreased from 12.85 to 10.95 m·s between 1986 and 2018, that is around 15%. This reduction compensated part of the extractions and could contribute to the preservation of the mixing zone ecosystems. At present, this damping capacity is already amortized in the nucleus and the marginal zone is beginning to be affected by the brine pumping. The sensitivity of the phreatic evaporation on the water table depth justified the great uncertainty of the previous evaporation discharge estimations. Thus, an average error lower than 0.5 m was enough to modify the evaporation by >60%. Therefore, considerable effort should invested to faithfully quantify the discharge by evaporation which is critical in water balance of salt flat basins. The numerical model pointed out that the total pumping outflow should be distributed in the largest possible area. This minimizes the water table drawdown and maximizes the capacity of the evaporation decline to compensate the extractions. The results of this work serve as guidelines to improve the efficiency of future salt flat exploitations. The authors acknowledge Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. for their support and sharing data throughout the hydrogeological characterization of the Salar de Atacama site. M.A. Marazuela gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the AGAUR (Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, Generalitat de Catalunya) and the European Union (grant number 2017FI B1 00194). 2021-05-14T09:03:33Z 2021-05-14T09:03:33Z 2020 2021-05-14T09:03:33Z artículo http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501 doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135605 issn: 1879-1026 Science of the Total Environment 703 (2020) http://hdl.handle.net/10261/240768 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135605 Postprint http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135605 Sí open Elsevier |
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Salt flats are hydrogeological systems with highly valuable wetland and lake ecosystems. The brine pumping carried out to extract lithium is modifying the natural evaporation discharge of salt flats. A methodology to evaluate the impacts caused on water table and evaporation discharge by brine exploitation in salt flats is proposed and applied to the Salar de Atacama. The methodology included field measurements of water table and evaporation rate, followed by its spatio-temporal analysis and the application of the results to a numerical model to improve the brine exploitation design. The spatio-temporal analysis of the water table depth and evaporation rates measured in the field concluded that the evaporation discharge decreased from 12.85 to 10.95 m·s between 1986 and 2018, that is around 15%. This reduction compensated part of the extractions and could contribute to the preservation of the mixing zone ecosystems. At present, this damping capacity is already amortized in the nucleus and the marginal zone is beginning to be affected by the brine pumping. The sensitivity of the phreatic evaporation on the water table depth justified the great uncertainty of the previous evaporation discharge estimations. Thus, an average error lower than 0.5 m was enough to modify the evaporation by >60%. Therefore, considerable effort should invested to faithfully quantify the discharge by evaporation which is critical in water balance of salt flat basins. The numerical model pointed out that the total pumping outflow should be distributed in the largest possible area. This minimizes the water table drawdown and maximizes the capacity of the evaporation decline to compensate the extractions. The results of this work serve as guidelines to improve the efficiency of future salt flat exploitations. |
format |
artículo |
author |
Marazuela, Miguel Ángel Vázquez-Suñé, Enric Ayora, Carlos García-Gil, Alejandro |
spellingShingle |
Marazuela, Miguel Ángel Vázquez-Suñé, Enric Ayora, Carlos García-Gil, Alejandro Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama |
author_facet |
Marazuela, Miguel Ángel Vázquez-Suñé, Enric Ayora, Carlos García-Gil, Alejandro |
author_sort |
Marazuela, Miguel Ángel |
title |
Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama |
title_short |
Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama |
title_full |
Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama |
title_fullStr |
Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama |
title_full_unstemmed |
Towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: Learning from the Salar de Atacama |
title_sort |
towards more sustainable brine extraction in salt flats: learning from the salar de atacama |
publisher |
Elsevier |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/240768 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT marazuelamiguelangel towardsmoresustainablebrineextractioninsaltflatslearningfromthesalardeatacama AT vazquezsuneenric towardsmoresustainablebrineextractioninsaltflatslearningfromthesalardeatacama AT ayoracarlos towardsmoresustainablebrineextractioninsaltflatslearningfromthesalardeatacama AT garciagilalejandro towardsmoresustainablebrineextractioninsaltflatslearningfromthesalardeatacama |
_version_ |
1777669528027660288 |