Andean hypersaline lakes in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile: Between lithium exploitation and unique biodiversity conservation
Andean hypersaline lakes in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile: Between lithium exploitation and unique biodiversity conservation
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DOI：
10.1111/csp2.94
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发表时间：
2019-09-01
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Redon, Stella
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gajardo, Gonzalo;Redon, Stella
高盐湖泊或盐水是具有独特价值和生物多样性的独特生态系统，提供经济（采矿）和非经济服务（水鸟栖息地）。由于盐水转移和气候振荡，世界各地的咸水湖正在缩小，本文提醒人们注意智利北方极端干旱的阿塔卡马沙漠中阿塔卡马盐沼的安第斯高海拔高盐度泻湖的脆弱性。作为世界上最大的从盐湖地下抽取的盐水中开采锂的一个组成部分，盐水分流和水资源短缺应该会损害泻湖的结构，功能及其作为火烈鸟等濒危候鸟栖息地的高生态价值。保护这些泻湖独特的生物多样性和特性需要长期监测，包括像卤虫这样的关键类群。在锂需求飙升的情况下，智利将如何将联合收割机生物多样性协议、湿地和濒危鸟类保护条约结合起来，以支持电动汽车？智利政府已向矿业公司授予新的锂开采配额，直到2030年，这引起了人们的担忧，并表明难以协调利润驱动的经济发展与自然保护。由于这些泻湖可能正在缩小，它们的食物网也发生了变化，这是一个迄今为止只有数量减少的火烈鸟才注意到的问题，因此迫切需要在环境影响评估立法中考虑这些问题。
Hypersaline lakes or brines are unique ecosystems with unique value and biodiversity that provide economic (mining) and noneconomic services (waterbird habitat). As they are shrinking around the world due to brine diversion and climatic oscillations, this article alerts on the fragility of Andean high-altitude hypersaline lagoons in Salar de Atacama in the hyperarid Atacama Desert, northern Chile. As an integral part of the world's largest lithium exploitation from brine pumped from beneath the Salar, brine diversion and water shortage should compromise lagoons structure, functioning, and their high ecological value as habitat for endangered migratory birds like flamingos. Conserving the unique biodiversity and properties of these lagoons require long-term monitoring, including keystone taxa like the brine shrimp Artemia. How Chile will combine biodiversity agreements, treaties on wetlands and endangered birds conservation under the soaring lithium demand to support electromobility? Chile's government has granted new lithium extraction quotas to mining companies until 2030, which raises a concern and shows the difficulty to reconcile profit-driven economic development with nature conservation. As these lagoons may be shrinking and their food web altered, a problem only noticed so far by the declining flamingos, there is an urgent need to consider them in the environmental impact assessment legislation.