Facility

Atacama Freshwater Rights System (Chile's DGA Registry, Antofagasta Region)

The Atacama Freshwater Rights System is Chile's Dirección General de Aguas (DGA) water rights registry for the Antofagasta and Atacama regions — the administrative mechanism through which mining companies secure rights to extract freshwater from rivers, wetlands, and aquifers in the driest non-polar desert on Earth. Water rights in the Atacama are bought and sold as tradeable property under Chile's 1981 Water Code; mining companies (BHP, Codelco, Antofagasta Minerals, SQM) accumulated rights over decades. Chile's 2022 constitutional water reform and 2022 National Water Strategy began tightening allocations — particularly around the Atacama Salt Flat (Salar de Atacama) ecosystem critical for flamingos and indigenous communities. The DGA water rights registry is an 'administrative chokepoint': no DGA rights = no freshwater = $3.4B in desalination investment. Source: https://www.dga.cl