Open access peer-reviewed chapter
Abstract
This chapter addresses the environmental and socio-cultural impact that the Industrial Revolution has maintained in the exploitation of the arid territories of the Atacama Desert. The perspectives, challenges and management of a region noted for its great contribution to the economic development of Chile are observed. Since the first promotion of the mining industry, today new industries such as solar energy, tourism and astronomy have strengthened regional development. This is the region with the highest solar radiation on the planet and one of the best places for astronomical observation, in the most Mars-like landscape on Earth. However, the development has not manifested itself in the well being of the cities, which have an average standard of urban development. The methodology of the study has a qualitative approach, assessing the fragility of the desert ecological system, with the strategies of adaptation to climate change and sustainable development. Improving the livability of cities, with unprecedented urban and architectural forms, is a necessity. The research hypothesis proposes that desert territories have a great potential to trigger sustainable energy transition. In conclusion, deserts are key environments to lead the process of innovation and creation of new desert cities.
Keywords
- new technologies
- climate change adaptation
- cities in the Antofagasta region
- Atacama Desert
1. Introduction
The energy industrial revolution in the Atacama Desert has a relevant milestone with the inauguration in June 2021 of Cerro Dominador, the first solar thermal plant in Latin America. This circumstance documented by the report by the journalist Nick Miroff of The Washington Post, on March 31, 2017, allows us to dimension the value of solar energy for Chile, classified as the “Solar Saudi Arabia” [1].
The Atacama Desert is located in northern Chile, administratively between the Antofagasta Region to the north and the Atacama Region to the south, with an extension of more than 1000 km between latitudes 19°S and 30°S. As indicated by researcher Rodrigo Palma, the potential of the Atacama Desert to generate electricity thanks to the high solar radiation could supply 60 times the consumption of Chile and 20% of the world” (Figures 1 and 2) [2].
Figure 1.
Cerro Dominador: The first Concentrated Solar Power Plant in Latin America with 10,600 mirrors (heliostats) of 140 m2 each and more than 1,000 hectares, it is capable of avoiding the emission of about 640,000 tons of CO2 per year and supplying a city of approximately 380,000 homes, located near the saltpeter office of Maria Elena in the Atacama Desert, Chile.
Figure 2.
Cerro Dominador solar platform view in Atacama Desert landscape.
The altitudinal component determines the different environments and characteristics of aridity according to altitude and distance from the sea, three ecological floors can be distinguished, such as: the coastal desert, strip of territory between the marine plains and the Cordillera de la Costa, this area with oceanic influence and the cold Humboldt current, leave a region with high atmospheric humidity and saline coastal environment. The intermediate desert includes the intermediate depression characterized by low relative humidity and clear skies, recognized as the ecological floor of the pampas, it is the driest and most arid area of the planet. It is the driest and most arid zone on the planet. Here there is an important rain shadow, which prevents the advection of humidity to a great extent. The interior deserts, considered the pre-mountain range and high plateau of the Andes Mountains, in this area are the first vestiges, a culture of hunter-gatherers, the natural shelter of the ravines gives rise to human settlements and microclimatic oasis, ideal for subsistence agriculture and livestock.
Technological innovation and the industrial revolution have been fundamental to create a productive infrastructure that financed road works and public facilities, favoring the growth of urban centers [3]. The connection between mining and industry in the Atacama Desert has been key to build the habitability of mining settlements and promotes the development of these extremely arid territories, with an architecture that integrates passive elements of environmental conditioning and prefabrication and modulation technology.
The exploitation of natural resources and their management allowed the growth of port cities, the exploitation of saltpeter between 1880 and 1930 allowed the occupation and urbanization of the central strip or intermediate plain of the Atacama Desert, it is here, in the middle of the saltpeter pampas, in extremely arid and dry environmental conditions, where the “saltpeter cities” are located (Figure 3). The railroad industry with the first steam trains allowed the penetration and conquest of these new uninhabited and unexplored landscapes, incorporating them to this day to the productive map of the region, connecting the industrial enclaves from the coast of Antofagasta with the desert of the altiplano to Uyuni in Bolivia [4]. There were 118 saltpeter offices, in which more than 46,470 workers worked, this generated an unprecedented population of men and women, developing their daily lives and cultural development in these inhospitable environments, mining settlements, and workers who knew how to adapt to the working conditions of great physical effort of the mining work and the environmental conditions of high solar radiation, low humidity, water shortages, and high-temperature differences day-night, with all this created a culture and society with heterogeneous and complex pampino identity. Its unity is given by the shared space: the pampa calichera in the middle of the driest desert in the world, and by the work, linked in all its aspects to the nitrate mining operations.
Figure 3.
Desert Cities: Arturo Prat Saltpeter Office, in abandoned ruins in the “Cantón Central” sector of the Atacama Desert, Sierra Gorda.
Technological innovation and the industrial revolution have been fundamental to create a productive infrastructure that financed road works and public facilities, favoring the growth of urban centers [3]. The connection between mining and industry in the Atacama Desert has been key to build the habitability of mining settlements and promotes the development of these extremely arid territories, with an architecture that integrates passive elements of environmental conditioning and prefabrication and modulation technology.
The exploitation of natural resources and their management allowed the growth of port cities, the exploitation of saltpeter between 1880 and 1930 allowed the occupation and urbanization of the central strip or intermediate plain of the Atacama Desert, it is here, in the middle of the saltpeter pampas, in extremely arid and dry environmental conditions, where the “saltpeter cities” are located (Figure 3). The railway industry with the first steam trains allowed the penetration and conquest of these new uninhabited and unexplored landscapes, incorporating them until today to the productive map of the region, connecting the industrial enclaves from the coast of Antofagasta with the desert of the altiplano to Uyuni in Bolivia [4]. There were 118 saltpeter offices, where more than 46,470 workers were employed, which generated an unprecedented population of men and women, developing their daily lives and cultural development in these inhospitable environments, mining settlements, and workers who knew how to adapt to the labor conditions of great physical effort of mining work and the environmental conditions of high solar radiation, low humidity, water shortages, and high-temperature differences day-night, with all this created a culture and society with heterogeneous and complex pampina identity. Its unity is given by the shared space: the pampa calichera in the middle of the driest desert in the world, and by work, linked in all its aspects to nitrate mining (Figures 4 and 5).
Figure 4.
Chuquicamata Mine, Calama Chile.
Figure 5.
Trucks at work in the Chuquicamata mine.
Undoubtedly, the copper industry has been fundamental in projecting perspectives, in defining the challenges and management processes of the Atacama Desert, driving territorial transformations, the natural landscape, infrastructure, and quality of life in the cities, but it has also been a source of environmental conflicts associated with the use of water that has affected the flora and fauna of the salt flats and the subsistence agricultural economies of the region [5]. Andean communities. However, a challenge for the development of the region is represented by its mono-productive and exporting characteristics of nonrenewable natural resources, basically minerals, which, as we have already mentioned, have a great impact on the national budget and development. The new industries in development today are changing this condition opening to sustainable development, therefore, solar energy and lithium represent a new source of economic, productive, and social development, they are a new future that allows expanding the productive diversification of these arid territories, responding in a better way to the objectives of sustainable development of the UN [6].
In 1998, the lithium industry placed Chile in the first place as a world producer with known reserves in the South Atacama of about 40% of lithium in brines [7]. In the current context of energy transition toward green and clean energies, the demand for electromobility based on lithium batteries has become increasingly relevant, which represents a future development opportunity for the region, however, the biggest challenge is how to obtain lithium in an environmentally responsible manner, without devastating the fragility of the ecosystem of the Salar de Atacama basin, the destruction of its water sources, its geological, ecological and cultural heritage of the driest desert in the world (Figures 6 and 7) [8].
Figure 6.
Lithium mining in the Salar de Atacama contrasts with the fragility of the ecological.
Figure 7.
Hydric ecosystem of the Salar de Atacama basin.
In extreme arid environments, inventiveness and creativity have been put to the test for the adaptation and development of new technologies, for example: The first solar desalination plant in the Domeyko Office, Canton el Boquete, near the port city of Taltal, in the Atacama Desert, built in 1906–1908, supplied the vital element to the population of the saltpeter camp (Figure 8) [9, 10].
Figure 8.
Solar desalination plant of Oficina Domeyko, Cantón el Boquete Atacama Desert, built in 1906–1908. Photograph retrieved by Maria Telkes. Available in The Illustrated London News and other newspapers in England and the United States.
How to obtain fresh water in a desert environment with no rainfall and high solar radiation for the needs of the saltpeter industry was the challenge that the Compañía Salitre de Boquete, Antofagasta, Chile, set out to solve, for which they designed an apparatus composed of a series of frames containing 1850 m2 of glass. The panels are arranged in a V-shape, and under each panel is a shallow tray containing brackish water. The heat from the sun condenses the water on the sloping glass, and this freshwater flows down into a small channel and is carried into the main channel. A total of 3600 liters of fresh water can be collected daily [11].
Another of these innovations are the “fog catchers” for obtaining water in certain areas of the coastal desert. These are cloud capture systems formed by meshes that intercept the fog and, through a system of gutters, collect the water trapped by the mesh. This has allowed the development of fog oasis agriculture associated with the various passive bioclimatic strategies of environmental conditioning, ventilation, and natural heating make it possible to live in extreme climatic conditions (Figures 9–12).
Figure 9.
Bank of clouds developed between 300 and 1200 meters above sea level, in the coastal mountain range, generate the “oasis of fog”. In this zone, cool, moisture-laden air is trapped under a layer of warm air above.
Figure 10.
Original structure of the macro diamond fog catcher installed in the “Los Nidos” sector of the Cordillera de la Costa, in the image its inventor Dr. Carlos Espinosa Arancibia (1924–2022) being interviewed in situ by French TV for the international exhibition “Le bord des mondes” held in Paris in 1995.
Figure 11.
Structure inspired by the “Atrapanieblas” corresponds to the 2011 Integrated Exercise dedicated to the design of an ecology for the coastal desert of Atacama carried out by the basic cycle workshops (Shelter, Resource, Language and Context workshops) of the School of Architecture of the Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile.
Figure 12.
Structure inspired by the “Atrapanieblas”.
According to Cereceda
In the same line of the use of renewable resources, which allow the transformation and decarbonization toward a clean energy matrix, wind farm projects continue to be developed in the Atacama Desert (Figures 13 and 14) the next one called Horizonte of the company Colbún will be the largest in Latin America, which contemplates the installation of 140 wind turbines, which will allow an average annual generation of 2,400 Gwh, equivalent to the energy consumption of 700,000 homes. The implementation of the project will avoid the emission of 1.2 million tons of CO2 per year [13].
Figure 13.
Calama and Valle de los Vientos wind farms near the city of Calama, on the RCH 23 highway that connects to San Pedro de Atacama.
Figure 14.
Wind mills in the surroundings of the city of Calama.
On the other hand, the Atacama Desert concentrates most of the world
Figure 15.
Cerro Paranal Observatory.
Figure 16.
Hotel for Astronomers at 2635 meters above sea level in the Cordillera de la Costa.
The Antofagasta region in northern Chile has the highest solar radiation on the planet. Plant factors of 35% are achieved in single-axis tracking PV plants. The global average plant factor for solar PV plants was 11% in 2020. In the United States, the average was 20% between 2018 and 2020 [14].
This condition has allowed the rapid growth of the solar industry, in 6 years, Chile has quintupled its generation capacity from renewable energy sources and it is projected that, by 2030, up to 70% of its electricity matrix will be clean. The growing investment in these energies, as well as in storage and transmission infrastructure, is a clear sign of a determined transition toward a more sustainable electricity system that shows that the future prospects of the Atacama Desert are very promising for the region (Figures 17 and 18).
Figure 17.
Solar photovoltaic plant Uribe Solar Station near the city of Antofagasta.
Figure 18.
The solar photovoltaic plant designed has a maximum power of 56,632,400 Wp consisting of 182,960 solar modules of 315 Wp, 336 solar trackers on an east-west axis.
The development model of the Antofagasta Region based on the mining industry has followed a pattern of growth, making important contributions to the national GDP with a low level of local development, as evidenced by the low quality of its urban infrastructure. Currently, there has been a high investment in the solar industry that has put the region and cities in northern Chile such as Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta, Calama, and Copiapó back on the world stage, projecting new impulses and challenges of productive development for the entire macro-region of the Atacama Desert [15].
The city of Antofagasta is the mining capital of Chile, with a population of approximately 400,000 inhabitants. Antofagasta
The following perspectives, challenges, and management can be derived from this:
1.1 Perspectives
Are to scale the results and contributions of the region to improve the quality and identity to improve the quality of the infrastructure of the northern cities. For this, it is key to learn from the past by taking advantage of specific design solutions for the local micro-climatic determinant.
1.2 Challenges
Are to continue contributing to the country, but with greater investment and environmental responsibility, to design cities in harmony with the desert ecology and adaptation to climate change. This challenge implies a great capacity for co-creation, since unprecedented proposals must be generated that integrate the views of all relevant actors in the city to turn it into an excellent model and example of development on a human scale.
1.3 Management
It is to design cities that maintain their human scale, more egalitarian, with less inequality and greater identity, with public spaces and buildings that can meet the needs of healthy and safe habitability for people and with technological conditions so that through data intelligent decisions can be made.
2. Perspectives, challenges, and management
2.1 The perspectives
As detailed above, the contribution of arid environments on a productive scale is very significant and even more so in a context of climate change and energy transition.
The perspectives are to scale the results and contributions of the region to improve the quality and identity to improve the quality of the infrastructure of the northern cities. To this end, learning from the past by leveraging design solutions specific to the local microclimate determinant is key [17].
The disconnect in urban and building development is not new and derives from the central vision, and the absence of adequate infrastructure, which is also based on central decisions that are not very conscious and respectful of local realities and needs and end up in unfortunate experiences. The urban development of the city of Antofagasta is very abandoned, planning arrives late and is not articulated with the growth of the city and this generates disorder, generates spontaneous occupation that requires long and costly regularization processes to be in accordance with the regulations in force (Figure 19).
Figure 19.
Self-construction and informal settlements that defy construction and safety standards.
There are undoubtedly notable exceptions in architecture that also allow us to confirm this situation. In the case of Antofagasta, there are buildings such as the “Colectivos obreros,” the Caliche building, and the Curvo building that do represent a modern architecture that adapts and brings together elements of languages very relevant to the environmental conditions. Issues such as fixed or movable eaves to shade the window and the interior of the room are repeated very efficiently in these buildings.
If the construction of urban shade and shadow in the envelope is an invariant element that is recognized in vernacular and contemporary architecture. At the urban and building level, it is required that the cities of arid environments develop proposals unpublished to their environment, that the proposals are correct to their environmental determinant, and take advantage of passive design solutions to develop proposals adapted to the climate, here the fundamental element that takes all the protagonist, is the appropriate response to solar orientation. Depending on the form and architectural program, the provision to solar gain from the north should be considered adequately because the living spaces to the south are often very uncomfortable.
There is an excellent opportunity to generate an architectural and urban language that innovates by being faithful to passive environmental conditioning strategies applied to architectural envelopes and new materials. The double skin, double roof, ventilated facade, and cross ventilation in the coastal desert and the pampas desert are very relevant strategies. In addition, vine-type plant facades provide moisture and color to facades in arid climates (Figures 20–25).
Figure 20.
Case of a house in the Chacabuco saltpeter office, with a shaded corridor around the perimeter and a double ventilated roof and shading system.
Figure 21.
Case of a Chalet house in the María Elena saltpeter office, with a ventilated façade with wooden trellised treillage so that the vine or climbing vegetation covers the architectural envelope.
Figure 22.
Façade with fixed shade house vernacular house of María Elena.
Figure 23.
Contemporary façade of new building Municipality of María Elena.
Figure 24.
Capture of a woman in the streets of Antofagasta in search of sun protection and Fig.
Figure 25.
Shaded shelter in the Trocadero Beach Resort, with great performance in terms of its design, providing continuous shade for the enjoyment of the sheltered walk.
Shade is an architectural element that contributes to the identity of the urban space of desert cities, it must be present because it is a health requirement, given the high rates of skin cancer, for the welfare and enjoyment of public space. With this we will be promoting the importance of the square meters of shade in the public space of desert cities, in favor of this indicator itself and not of the square meters of green areas that will always be far below what the World Health Organization indicator establishes. Shaded structures on an urban scale should have as design premises the continuity of shade, a height, width, and filter quality that does not generate opaque or hard shade, but lets light filter through in a subdued manner. These are solutions that were very present in the vernacular architecture of the northern cities and it is very necessary to recover from the past to put them in the present (Figures 24 and 25).
At this point, it must also be said that the most suitable materials are not plastic sheds because they generate heat and uncomfortable brightness, the best are the natural elements that also have good behavior to the stress of high saline humidity of the coastal desert and resistance to high radiation and dryness of the intermediate desert.
2.2 The challenges
When the city of Antofagasta has been affected by intense rainfall events in the present decade, when these phenomena were of very low occurrence and that this is associated with a human tragedy claiming lives, it is logical to think that if the creeks were dry for years and in a few hours are transformed into imposing beds of water and mud that buried parts of the city means that we have not designed cities observing the reality drawn in its geography. An urgent challenge is to plan safe cities in harmony with the ecology of the desert, it is urgent to carry out only corrective measures such as large infrastructure works to contain the force of water such as alluvial roads, but it deserves a review of the urban design of the city, planning of safe areas, where natural streams should mark and define lines of a conscious design, with areas of land use restriction for housing, assigning them to floodable park areas [18].
The urban sprawl of the city due to the explosive growth of its population due to various phenomena including high migration, construction costs, and high housing availability deficit, has given rise to illegal and uncontrolled land occupation processes, with high risk, given the occupation of the ravines at increasingly higher elevations of the Coastal Mountain Range (Figures 26 and 27).
Figure 26.
Occupation of informal and self-built housing on the hills and ravines of the City of Antofagasta.
Figure 27.
Alluvial via in the ravines, city of Antofagasta.
On the other hand, the rains also bring a completely different phenomenon to the tragedy of the floods, the water brings the awakening of the seeds that were sleeping on the surface of the desert, the magic of the blooming desert covers the always barren desert slopes, for a few days the magic happens and the desert landscape is transformed into a flowery spectacle (Figures 28 and 29).
Figure 28.
Desert in bloom on hillsides in the city of Antofagasta.
Figure 29.
Flowerful desert, after an untraditional rainfall event.
The Atacama Desert is renowned for being the oldest and continuously driest nonpolar temperate desert on Earth, believed to have been arid since the Jurassic period and to have gradually evolved into hyperacidity during the Miocene epoch more than 5 million years ago. In addition, exceptionally high levels of ultraviolet radiation, extreme aridity, low or no soil carbon concentrations, and the presence of strong oxidizing conditions and/or toxic elements in particular habitats make the Atacama an excellent example of the extreme biosphere, the environmental limits that define life on Earth [18].
2.3 The management
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the vulnerability of the city of Antofagasta to climate hazards is very likely for components such as floods, storms, and landslides (alluvium, landslides, debris flows) and very likely for components such as sea level rise, coastal flooding, droughts, high tides and strong waves, landslides, debris flows) and probable for components such as sea level rise, coastal edge flooding, droughts, high tides, and strong waves are high, implying a significant management of these hazards, which are part of situations that have occurred more frequently and are part of real and concrete evidence [19].
Given the conditions described above, the process of adaptation to climate change is an indicator that should be projected in urban and territorial development projects of cities in arid areas. In the particular case of the city of Antofagasta, the impact is double and complex given its location in a narrow coastal plain between the sea and the coastal mountain range, and therefore the rise in sea level and the possibility of alluvium caused by rainfall will have devastating impacts on the environment and especially on the most disadvantaged groups that are informally located on the hillsides and ravines.
In general, the conceptualization processes of the urban structure of the city must be improved in the face of the vulnerabilities described above and, in particular, the design and construction conditions of housing and buildings not designed to withstand rainfall or extreme temperatures, all of which implies changes and updates to housing regulations, which is easy to propose but difficult to implement [20].
In this order, the fragility of desert environments and territories is something that has not been sufficiently repaired, being territories rather depopulated areas, transformations and aggressions to the landscape have remained without the consequence of respect for the environment, there are many areas declared saturated with pollution, mining operations without mine closures and huge pools of accumulation of liquid industrial waste (Riles) from mining companies. Among the main impacts caused by mining effluent discharges and infiltrations are the generation of clear water and acid drainage, the presence of which can result in damage to aquatic systems and plant communities, and negative effects on surface and groundwater quality [21].
Another challenge that is directly related to the quality of life in arid cities is linked to the need to scale the technologies that are developed in the productive industries of the region and contribute to the improvement of the facilities and infrastructure of the cities, in other words, desert cities have a strong imprint of the “mining camp.”. We talk about camp cities, which is associated with the processes of transhumance, high mobility, and rotation of personnel working in mining operations, who move around the territory to their mining operations and do not stay or reside in the city. This has meant that there is less rootedness, and less belonging and appreciation for the city, many professionals are rather passing through and consequently this affects the projection of living in the arid territories, with it the cultural and service proposal is less attractive, despite the best attributes of the climate. All this is counterbalanced by the high costs of housing, food, health, and education services, which are very relevant considerations for families with children. Finally, a relevant variable for desert cities is that the quality of housing is in tune with living conditions, the use of outdoor space is very important because it allows outdoor activities that in other climates are performed inside the house, therefore, the possibility of having houses with a patio, the implementation of specific passive design strategies and solutions for arid climates is not a constant and therefore should be a mandatory requirement (Figures 30 and 31) [22, 23].
Figure 30.
The images are proposed as the synthesis of the coexistence of an Andean world that uses the resources of the place to generate its settlements.
Figure 31.
The image of the Conchi railroad bridge that crosses the Loa River as the image of the industrialized world that with technology and innovations was conquering and domesticating the extreme arid territories just like today.
3. Conclusions
The arid regions of the Atacama Desert present very promising opportunities for future development, consistent with UN Sustainable Development Goals 11 and 7, sustainable cities and communities, with the use of renewable energy resources and higher standards of energy and water efficiency savings.
It is noteworthy how the new governance and public and private organizations in the region are attuned to the need for development with greater environmental and ecological awareness, proposing new models of development of the urban landscape of desert cities, presenting corporate social and environmental responsibility declared in their missions and institutional visions, and the demands of workers and citizens to care for and worry about improving the quality of life of the built environment, incorporating the values of regional environmental identity.
The environmental determinants of climate change, residential energy costs, environmental pollution of cities declared as saturated, desalination of sea water for human consumption and industrial water, decarbonization of the energy matrix, are very present in society, which requires a high corporate commitment, and care to protect the fragile desert ecosystem, to leave behind the look of the desert as a large landfill in which we can bury pollution or leave it in the middle of the pampas, away from the eyes of criticism, however, today the complaint of citizens and communities, increasingly empowered and critical of large investment projects require compliance with environmental regulations for the care and protection of the desert environment.
The adverse environmental impacts of mining operations include an important requirement for the care of water in an environment of extreme scarcity, which has induced companies to change their groundwater use strategies in response to conflicts generated with indigenous communities and environmental organizations that protect the flora and fauna of the salt flats.
The growing recognition of the Atacama Desert as an enormous energy reserves in natural wind and solar resources, astronomical and mineral resources, and tourism resources of spatial, patrimonial, and environmental interest positions the region as a key piece of the country
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