Latent Rural Depopulation in Latin American Open-Pit Mining Scenarios

Abstract

The increasing expansion of open-pit mining and the drastic transformations of land use in Latin America have led to processes of rural depopulation among traditional inhabitants, causing unsustainability in rural life systems. In the context of profound, worldwide territorial and environmental transformations, it is necessary to anticipate change scenarios and identify territories prone to rural depopulation. The objective of this article is to determine rural depopulation propensities through an exploratory multivariate study of the demographic, social, economic, and environmental conditions of territories where open-pit mining projects are being installed. First, a theoretical model is created using the grounded theory method for the literature review. Subsequently, indicators are analyzed using quantitative methods and geographic information systems. The results show that latent rural depopulation tends to be generated in territories with socio-environmental vulnerability, where advanced mining extractivism makes them prone to future depopulation. Some factors possibly leading to decreased rural population include the reduction of water availability; deforestation and depeasantization, due to urban development; gentrification, due to real estate speculation in providing lodging and food services to the mining project; and drastic changes in land use.

1. Introduction

On a global scale, the relationship between open-pit mining and demographic changes has proven to be unsustainable due to the drastic environmental and soil changes it produces [1,2]. Mining is one of the economic activities with the greatest socio-environmental impact in the history of Latin America [3]. The structural adjustment of the economy generated by neoliberal policies boosted inaugurations of open-pit mining operations in most Latin American countries between 1980 and 1990 [4,5]. This cemented the prominence of this form of extraction, due to its higher profitability from low operating costs and lower labor demand [6]. Economic development, however, contrasts with the drastic environmental and land use transformations generated by open-pit mining, which turn out to be more aggressive than other mining modalities for inhabitants and their territories [3,7,8,9]. The increased demands for—and the value of—minerals in the global market do not suggest any institutional brake in the short or medium term that will have an impact on the territorial structuring of this activity. Indeed, between 1970 and 2017, mineral extraction in the Latin American region increased six times, from 659 million tons to 3, 972 million tons, generating socio-environmental pressures that may be irreversible [10].

In biophysical terms, impacts have been documented through damage to health due to contamination [11,12]; depletion of natural resources, such as water [13,14,15,16,17,18]; abandonment of environmental liabilities and transformation of local geography [19,20]; tailings breakage [21,22]; and risks from land use change for mining exploitation to the detriment of community space [23].

Furthermore, social impacts and cultural changes in traditional ways of life that have been identified include processes of depeasantization [24,25,26,27], forced displacement [15,26,28,29,30], and the articulation of socio-environmental conflicts between companies and communities [31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38].

The demographic transformations generated by mining, such as rural depopulation and the increase in the floating population, are some of the negative consequences that also result from open-pit mining. Although there are some studies developed on the demographic implications of mining [1,2], research is still insufficient.

Some works against the idea that mining generates a positive impact on demographic structure of its territories have presented cases of depopulation due to alteration of and consequences for basic resources for social reproduction [26,39] or strong levels of population mobility and float [40,41]. Studies detail how mining specialization causes changes in the local economic structure, instability, increase in property values, speculation, gentrification, and social segregation [12,42,43]. The above accounts for the conformation of authentic mining territories [44,45], in which the socio-spatial configuration of mining impacts both land use and territorial organization, as well as the spatial practices and representations of its inhabitants. In parallel, it is important to note that a group of studies has been working on the concept of rural shrinking, to point out the transformations of the spatial structure generated by rural depopulation [46,47,48,49,50].

This article proposes to understand that settlements facing open-pit mining dynamics in fragile ecosystems and human settlements can be found in what we propose to call a situation of latent rural depopulation [51]. This concept identifies those territories where, although there is currently no quantitative evidence of an intercensal population decrease, the integrated analysis of a series of socio-environmental indicators provides prospective evidence that these places are developing conditions that will soon lead to the exodus of their traditional inhabitants. In this way, latent rural depopulation indicates the emerging state of rural population loss, anticipating this process.

Thus, the objective of this article consists of an exploratory study of the demographic, social, economic, and environmental conditions of rural territories in which open-pit mining projects are being installed in order to determine their propensity to rural depopulation in the near future. A theoretical model was constructed from the methodological perspective of grounded theory and through an exhaustive review of studies on rural depopulation. Subsequently, this model was operationalized by means of territorial indicators analyzed by means of geographic information systems. As a theoretical sample, the case study in the mountain range area of the Valparaíso region, Chile—where mining activity is widespread—was analyzed. The selection of the case study is due to the national relevance of open-pit mining. In 2020, of the 33 that produce copper in Chile, five open-pit mines (Chuquicamata, Escondida, Collahuasi, Anglo American Sur, and Rodomiro Tomic) are responsible for 51.6% of the total national production, more than 2959 million tons, confirming the importance of this mode of extraction [52]. The analysis verifies the relevance of using the concept of latent rural depopulation to characterize these environments.

The findings of the exploratory analysis show that, in scenarios affected by water scarcity where mining extractivism is advancing, the activity has the potential to alter the biophysical and social balance of the settlements exposed to the eventual extraction, so that the traditional territoriality of the historical inhabitants is threatened by the emergence of spatial practices and representations predominantly related to mining, which may motivate them to abandon their territories in the following years. At the same time, it is noted that rural depopulation mainly affects younger age groups. The main triggering factors could be the decrease and access to water quality, desertification, risks and accidents due to mining tailings breakage, transformations in traditional employment, threats to local identity, instability, real estate speculation, damage to health, and drastic changes in land use, among others.

Rural Depopulation and Its Consequences Associated with Natural Resource Extractivism

Critical research efforts on mining have provided globally compelling evidence on the need for more detailed analysis of governance, benefits, and biases of mining activity. Furthermore, work addressing the relationship between the socio-environmental changes produced by mining and its integral effects on the demographic and spatial structure of settlements is still scarce [51]. This becomes especially important in the context of climate change effects, due to the fact that open-pit mining demands large volumes of water and land surface for operations and waste deposit [18,53,54,55]; therefore, the deployment of this extractive modality over rural territories in conditions of socio-environmental vulnerability represents an important area of academic interest to address [56,57].

In Latin America, studies have identified an association between rural depopulation and the extractivism of natural resources for large-scale export of raw materials, where drastic changes in agricultural land use have led to the loss of population and the modification of the productive and social structure of rural communities. Some of these studies describe changes in agricultural land use to implement pine and eucalyptus forest crops [50,51,58,59,60,61,62], as well as migration and demographic and economic decline due to sociometabolic fractures1 generated by mining [39,63,64,65,66].

Based on these studies, rural depopulation is understood as a process in which rural settlements lose population and see their spatial structure altered, causing or increasing conditions of socio-environmental vulnerability due to various natural or anthropogenic factors which can act simultaneously [61,67,68,69,70,71]. Complementarily, the notion of “rural shrinking” allows us to understand, from a territorial and multidimensional perspective, the dynamics of rural depopulation beyond demographic change, studying how these processes are generated from the perspective of governance, planning, and territorial policies [50,72,73].

Commonly, rural depopulation studies have focused on four areas: (i) those that investigate the relationship between industrialization and urbanization as determinants of rural exodus [74,75]; (ii) studies on globalization and the changes in the economic system that caused the modernization and transformation of the traditional agrarian structure to an export-oriented one [76,77]; (iii) the relationship between rural depopulation and accessibility of rural settlements located in remote areas and the distance to urban areas, as determining factors affecting the living situation of rural inhabitants [78,79,80,81]; and (iv) climate change and natural disasters [62,82] as well as the negative effects of extractivism on the territory [83], which are understood as factors of rural depopulation.

Additionally, documented consequences include migration of young female population for education, work, and better basic services, causing aging and masculinization [50,59,84,85], progressive land abandonment, and unsustainability of rural territories [86,87,88,89].

This article proposes the concept of latent rural depopulation to prospectively analyze territorial scenarios where the rural population may decline due to changes in the demographic and spatial structure of a settlement produced naturally or anthropogenically or due to the forced abandonment of inhabitants threatened by the effects of climate change and extractivism. Some indications are located in works that anticipate a future depopulation in Japan [90,91] due to the fall in fertility and the increase in aging, as well as the documentary study on rural depopulation in Latin America that warns about the impacts of extractivism in vulnerable areas [51]. This is a novel concept, still being developed, about which little is known and whose follow-up and deepening can offer important elements to the global literature on the subject.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Focus

This research is exploratory in nature, as it studies issues that have not been addressed and makes initial approaches to be deepened in subsequent works [92,93,94]. The relationship among demographic changes generated by mining represents an academic challenge, since the lack of background and territorial indicators are a limitation. At the same time, the proposition of the concept of “latent rural depopulation” is based on the grounded theory methodology [95,96], which provides a framework for qualitative interpretation of data for the creation of concepts based on the analysis of research results. Thus, an exhaustive review, comparison, and codification of 90 scientific articles dedicated to the study of the relationship between depopulation and mining has been carried out, which allowed us to identify the main evidence and conclusions that have been obtained in this field of study (Figure 1). Based on this, the main factors that determine the processes of rural depopulation were identified, and their study allows the construction of a geographic model with indicators that allow the study of the preponderance of rural depopulation (a detailed explanation of these factors is developed in the Section 5).

Subsequently, quantitative analysis was carried out using REDATAM census statistical software and ArcGis Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The construction of indicators was based on the theoretical review to analyze the preponderance of the territories to the latent rural depopulation.

Empirically, the research is based on data gathered from fourteen communities located inland in the Valparaíso Region, in central Chile, South America (Figure 2). This area is characterized by the strong pressures generated by climate change, the privatization of water resources, and the impacts of extractive activities associated with agribusiness and mining that contribute to the strong conflict over water and the concentration of pollution in this area [83,97]. It is important to note that since 2007, the Canadian company Andes Copper began prospecting work to install a gigantic open-pit mine called Vizcachitas, located in the Las Tejas sector, on the course of the Rocín river, the main tributary of the Putaendo river and whose transformations may affect the community of Putaendo [98]. In addition, an open-pit project from the state-owned company CODELCO called División Andina operates in Los Andes, which generated more than 4, 409 million tons of copper between 2001 and 2020 and which may also affect the community of San Felipe [52,99].

This case is especially relevant: the existing water scarcity, combined with mining activities in both operational and prospecting stages, means communities are undergoing both effective rural depopulation and also latent rural depopulation. This experience can provide results for problems that are present in other national, regional, and global geographies where the risk of rural depopulation due to mining activities is one of the most serious threats because it limits growth opportunities, generates environmental problems, and hinders the provision of public services [1,2].

2.2. Methods and Techniques

The territorial dimensions of the theoretical model shown in Figure 1, which emerged from the grounded theory analysis conducted through the literature review on mining and rural depopulation, resulted in the 12 proposed indicators to measure the preponderance of rural population loss (

Table 1. Statistical analysis indicators.

No.	Indicator	Functionality
1	Demographic variation	Identify the decline or increase of rural population in certain periods of time.
2	Demographic variation by five-year age groups	Identify the decline or increase of rural population in certain periods of time by age groups.
3	Aging index	Identify the degree of aging of the rural population.
4	Masculinity index	Identify the degree of masculinization of the rural population.
5	Employed by branch of economic activity	To identify the variation of economic occupations in specific time periods. Three branches were selected: (1) Agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishing; (2) Mining and quarrying; and (3) Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles.
6	Water shortage decrees	Identify the communities that are in a situation of water scarcity.
7	Mining activities	Identify communities with past and current mining activities.
8	Mining tailings	Identify the communities with mining tailings.
9	Usual residence	Identify the floating population in a community.
10	Mining conflicts	Identify the existence and location of mining conflicts.
11	Change of land use	Identify land use transformations in urban and industrial areas.
12	Desertification	Identify the degree to which the land is affected by climate change and human activities.

). These are: (i) demographic variation, which expresses the eventual changes in the population around the number of inhabitants; (ii) demographic variation by age groups, which shows the demographic changes by age group; (iii) aging and (iv) masculinization, which account for the demographic fragility that can generate urbanization and depopulation processes; (v) employment by branch of economic activity to locate the transformations in local employment and the weight of the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors; (vi) water scarcity, which shows the ecological vulnerability of the territories due to the exploitation of nature and the effects of climate change; (vii) mining activities, which denote the increase in demand for water and land; (viii) mining tailings, which identify the risks of accidents that can cause forced displacement of people; (ix) habitual residence, which provides information on the floating population, particularly those associated with mining and the service activities it demands; (x) mining conflicts, which show the tensions over the forms of occupying the territories; (xi) land use change, which serves to show the transformations in land use for industrial mining activities and urbanization; and (xii) desertification, which explains the degradation of land due to climate change and human activities.

For indicators 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9, information was collected from the last three Population and Housing Censuses of the National Institute of Statistics (1992, 2002, and 2017) [100,101,102] through REDATAM, a system for processing census information. It works on the basis of rural population in Chile which is located in areas with a population less than or equal to 1000 inhabitants or between 1001 and 2000 inhabitants and where more than 50% of the population that reported having worked is engaged in primary activities [103]. For indicator 6, recent reports from the Ministry of Public Works on water scarcity decrees prepared by the General Water Directorate were reviewed. For indicator 7, the approved mining projects entered into the Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA), 1996–2022, were considered [104]. For indicator 8, the mining tailings survey prepared by the National Geology and Mining Service (SERNAGEOMIN) was used [105]; for indicator 10, the database of the Mining Conflicts Observatory of Latin America (OCMAL) was consulted [106]; for indicator 11, the land use and vegetation survey of the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF)2 was reviewed [107]; and for indicator 12, the National Catalog of Geospatial Information was reviewed with data from the Ministry of the Environment [108].

The relative intercensal variation formula [109] was used to analyze indicators 1, 2, and 5 to know their behavior over time between 1992 and 2017:

Relative variation = (recent base − initial base)/initial base× 100

Indicators 3 and 4 were analyzed using the following formulas:

Aging index = (persons 65 years old and over/under 15 years old) × 100

Masculinity index = (number of men/number of women) × 100

Indicators 6, 7, 8, and 10 were grouped in an Excel table indicating the communities with water scarcity and the number of projects, tailings, and mining conflicts in each. Indicator 9 estimates the percentage of the floating population by dividing the number of inhabitants who reported not living in the community by the total rural population and multiplying the result by 100. This was based on 2017 census data:

Floating population = (rural inhabitants living outside the community/total rural population) × 100

GIS was used to analyze indicators 11 and 12. This same method was used to represent and identify the spatial relationship between rural depopulation, projects, tailings, and mining conflicts, as well as to show how these indicators are expressed in the territory. It was also used to analyze the variation of economic activities and determine which have lost the most importance over time. Overall, the results of the statistical and GIS procedures are presented through graphs and maps.

For the integrated analysis, a matrix measuring the depopulation propensity is proposed. The rows represent the communities and the columns, the causal indicators. Each indicator is equivalent to one point if it is present in the communal territory; the final column expresses the total obtained by adding the indicators.

Four categories are proposed for pilot consideration (

Table 2. Propensity for rural depopulation.

Propensity for Rural Depopulation	Indicator
Very High	7≤
High	6
Average	5
Low	≤4

):

3. Results

3.1. The Case of Chile: Extractive Industries and Demographic Changes

Chile is an emblematic case of economic development based on copper mining and in which rural depopulation is a trend. Census data show that the rural population went from representing 16.59% in 1992 to 12.98% in 2017, showing a clear decrease [100,102]. Meanwhile, between 1990 and 2020, more than 139 million tons of copper were extracted and 99.5% was exported, with a production growth of 260.94% over thirty years [52,99]. The mining boom began in the 1990s due to the country’s comparative advantages and the neoliberal governance designed during the dictatorship period (1973–1989), when the Foreign Investment Statute (D.L. 600) (1974), the Water Code (1981), and the Mining Code (1983) were enacted [110,111]. The return to democracy with the government of Patricio Aylwin meant political stability for economic investment, allowing the mining institutional framework designed during the dictatorship to have relevance by guaranteeing the ownership of deposits, subsidies, commercial openness, and flexibility for individuals to obtain water use rights, the balance of which has been negative for society, since the environment of the mining areas was transformed, affecting the mountain populations of northern and central Chile [112,113,114].

At present, copper exports are fundamental for the Chilean economy: by 2020, they represented 51.7% of the total value of exports [52]. However, the national territory is suffering the effects of climate change due to drought and water scarcity, which opens a discussion on the viability of this development strategy, since water is an indispensable natural resource for the operation of the mining industry and for the social reproduction of life. Recent water balance studies show a decline of between 13% and 37% of five main river basins in the country in the last thirty years and project a national shortage of precipitation of up to 50%, plus a rise in temperature of up to 2.5 °C projected for 2030–2060 [115].

However, businessmen and governments claim that copper mining promotes wellbeing through employment and social actions for vulnerable socioeconomic groups and is considered an activity that cares for the environment by adopting the approaches of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development promoted by the United Nations (UN). This economic activity has received strong criticism from academia and civil society for the sociometabolic fractures it produces, due to the fact that the interaction between economy and nature entails transformations in the biophysical and social dimension of the territories that, in the current context of climate change, may aggravate it [116,117,118,119,120].

However, what has not been well studied at the national and regional levels are the demographic impacts generated by open-pit mining, particularly in those territories where the inhabitants are in situations of ecological fragility [51].

In Chile and other Latin American territories, the strengthening of extractivism and natural disasters have alerted institutions about rural depopulation due to the lack of opportunities and vulnerability in rural areas that generate socio-environmental pressures with the possibility of provoking rural–urban migration [121,122]. According to some authors [70,123], the human propensity to migrate is sensitive to vulnerability and exposure to risks, to the extent that, as these increase as extractive activities, social and ecological vulnerability also increase, causing territories with greater exposure to suffer socio-environmental transformations and their historical population to abandon their territories.

3.2. Propensity for Latent Rural Depopulation in the Study Area

Of the fourteen communities included in the study area, five showed rural depopulation between 1992 and 2017: Calle Larga (−17.7%), Nogales (−17.2%), Petorca (−12.4%), San Felipe (−10.2%), and Santa María (−10.7%) (Figure 3). This is strongly related to the water shortage that has been affecting the area for years, as all of the municipalities show this environmental problem (

Table 3. Water scarcity decrees.

Community	Date of Decree	Expiration Date	Rural Population
Cabildo	20 August 2022	8 October 2022	7215
Calle Larga	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	4141
Catemu	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	6185
La Ligua	20 August 2022	8 October 2022	9381
Llay Llay	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	6636
Los Andes	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	5691
Nogales	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	3341
Panquehue	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	3467
Petorca	20 August 2022	8 October 2022	5723
Putaendo	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	10,020
Rinconada	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	2142
San Esteban	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	7483
San Felipe	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	7227
Santa María	3 October 2022	9 October 2022	5453

).

Another common factor are mining tailings—a total of 75 across the entire area under study—at risk of disasters caused by accidents, e.g., cases already documented in Brazil and Mexico [21,22]. The highest number are in Petorca (19) and Cabildo (22), while Calle Larga and Santa María are the only ones without. Figure 3 shows relationships among depopulation, mining, conflicts, and the presence of mine tailings in the study area. The case of Petorca is notable, at a rural depopulation rate of −12.4% and the highest number of mining tailings (22), of which six are abandoned. Another case is Nogales, which has 15 projects submitted to the SEIA, 8 mining tailings, and a rural depopulation rate of −17.2%. Crucially, mining remains very active in the area, with 108 projects submitted to the SEIA between 1996 and 2022 in the entire area except for Rinconada, Santa María, and Calle Larga.

The results of the land use change analysis show significant transformations in the area between 1997 and 2017. The land use destined for urban and industrial areas—which includes open-pit mining expansion areas—increased 127.35%, while land uses for Stunted Forest (−99.76%), Scrubland (−65.05%), and Snow and Glaciers (−4.68%) decreased (Figure 4). Other land uses that also increased were agricultural land (27.92%), plantations (11.88%), and water bodies (2.94%). This has a relationship with the increase in the area of fruit monoculture, mainly avocado and citrus, which have generated a generalized problem regarding water availability in this area [83]. Plantations grew due to the planting of pine and eucalyptus, thus the infrastructure to retain water for irrigation purposes also increased.

In ten communities, areas without vegetation increased over the same period of analysis. In all communities, the use of urban and industrial areas increased, and conversely, in all communities, the use of scrubland decreased. The use of snow and glaciers declined in Calle Larga (−33.21%), Putaendo (−41.81%), and Los Andes (−36.53%). Notably, while agricultural land associated with fruit production increased in 12 communities, it decreased in Los Andes and San Felipe—affected by the open-pit mining project División Andina—by 8.13% and −0.87%, respectively.

In addition to the transformations caused by changes in land use, desertification conditions were identified throughout the area, both due to climate change and human mining and agro-export activities. According to the Ministry of the Environment, Petorca, Cabildo, Putaendo, Catemu, Santa María, and Llay Llay have a severe state of desertification, while the rest of the communities analyzed have a moderate state of desertification (Figure 5).

These elements denote a vulnerable zone in ecological terms, prone to increased problems due to the advance of open-pit mining. This especially so in Putaendo, where the probable installation of the Vizcachitas prospecting project could generate strong socio-environmental fractures. This may explain why four communities register mining conflicts, hosting 3 of the 49 systematized by OCMAL: Llay Llay, Los Andes, and Putaendo (Figure 3)3.

Furthermore, although rural depopulation is manifested in only five communities, when analyzing five-year age cohorts, the result shows that all communities show signs of rural depopulation in at least one age group between 1992 and 2017 (Figure 6). The most affected communities are La Ligua, Nogales, Petorca, Santa María, Calle Larga, and San Felipe, where depopulation is constant in the 0–4 to 35–39 age cohorts; moreover, the last two communities register rural depopulation in all age groups 0–44 years. In contrast, the 35–39 and 40–44 age groups increased, showing a strong aging process, accompanied by high levels of masculinization of the rural population in the area.

Between 1992 and 2017, the age composition moved toward greater aging levels, which may have been triggered by a decrease in births and an increase in youth migration (Figure 7). The cases of Catemu (68.84), La Ligua (92.81), Petorca (85.49), Putaendo (75.97), and San Esteban (75.98) stand out. Though this is accompanied by a decrease in the masculinization of the territory, all communities remain above 100 points, a high masculinization trend in rural populations, indeed, exceeding the national average for 2017 (95.9). Los Andes had the highest masculinization index, reaching a level of 172.6 in the same year.

The transformations in the spatial structure of the area’s rural population are associated with a constant process of depeasantization and tertiarization. The primary activities of agriculture, livestock, and fishing declined in the fourteen communities analyzed, so that their importance in the regional economy declined considerably. The cases of Rinconada (−30.64%), Panquehue (−30.16%), Calle Larga (−29.88%), San Esteban (−27.51%), Santa María (−21.51%), Catemu (−19.06%), and Putaendo (−18.96%) stand out (Figure 8).

Parallel to the decline in primary activities, there was an absolute increase in employment in secondary and tertiary activities, mainly in mining and quarrying, wholesale and retail trade, and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (Figure 9). The greatest increase has been in tertiary activities, which demonstrates a change in spatial practices and rural lifestyles in the study area.

Finally, it bears mention that all communities registered a floating population in 2017. At the time of the census, many respondents were either living abroad in another community or in another country (Figure 10). Los Andes presents the most acute cases of masculinization and floating population precisely where there are currently open-pit mining operations, which reflects a characteristic of these territories being prone to demographic flows and low female population. Of the 1925 people living outside the community, 27.32% go to Los Andes to work in mining, 9% in commerce, 8.25% in transportation and storage, and 6% in accommodation and food service activities. In fact, the latter two increased their relative importance in the economy of Los Andes, 46.22% and 97.55% between 1992 and 2017, respectively. The above data express active mobility dynamics associated with secondary and tertiary activities, in which mining plays an important role.

The quantitative analysis of territorial indicators on latent rural depopulation in the study area shows that, in places with water scarcity, desertification, and land use changes in urban and industrial areas with a concentration of mining tailings, extractive activities, and mining conflicts, the rural population has been lost either across total population structure or among five-year age cohorts. The latter result shows depopulation more explicitly, especially in the young sectors between 0 and 35 years of age. This is accompanied by a strong aging and masculinization process. This can be explained by the demographic and spatial transformation of the area to the extent that primary activities lost weight in the economy, while secondary and tertiary activities gained importance, as in the case of Los Andes, where these activities are associated with open-pit mining with high levels of floating population.

The socio-environmental indicators of variation in economic occupation, water scarcity, tailings, extractive activities, mining conflicts, land use change, and desertification show that the area includes communities that are in conditions of socio-environmental vulnerability and latent rural depopulation due to open-pit mining. Of the fourteen communities, two have a low propensity for depopulation (Calle Larga and Santa María). Although the census shows they are among the communities that have lost rural population, this phenomenon may be due to the dynamics of aging and masculinization of the population. However, two other communities register a medium propensity of rural depopulation (Rinconada and Panquehue), six show a high propensity of depopulation (Cabildo, Catemu, La Ligua, Nogales, Petorca, and San Esteban), and four communities have a very high propensity to rural depopulation. Among this last category is notably Putaendo, where the Vizcachitas open-pit mining project is advancing, in addition to Llay Llay, San Felipe, and Los Andes, home to mining conflicts and where, in the last one, an open-pit mining project is currently being developed (

Table 4. Matrix of propensity for rural depopulation.

Communities/Indicators	Variation in Economic Occupancy	Water Scarcity	Mining Tailings	Extractive Activities	Mining Conflicts	Change of Land Use in Urban and Industrial Areas	Desertification	Total
Cabildo	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	6
Calle Larga	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	4
Catemu	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	6
La Ligua	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	6
Llay Llay	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Los Andes	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Nogales	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	6
Panquehue	1	1	1	0	0	1	1	5
Petorca	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	6
Putaendo	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Rinconada	1	1	0	1	0	1	1	5
San Esteban	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	6
San Felipe	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Santa María	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	4

).

4. Discussion

The integrated analysis of socio-environmental indicators (Table 4) shows that the study area has experienced a series of demographic, social, economic, and environmental changes. The rural population has already been lost in some communities, and in all communities, the rural population has been lost across some five-year age cohorts, which is exacerbated by high levels of aging and masculinization. There is a demographic and economic fragility that implies the transition from primary to secondary and tertiary activities. There is also ecological vulnerability due to the concentration of mine tailings, mining activities, water scarcity, desertification, and changes in land use. Therefore, the advance of open-pit mining increases the conditions of socio-environmental weakness. The results of the multivariate analysis show that the study area hosts communities in a state of “latent rural depopulation” due to open-pit mining, since four of them have a very high propensity to population loss (Putaendo, San Felipe, Llay Llay, and Los Andes). Putaendo may further be directly affected by the installation of the Vizcachitas project, so the rural population is at imminent risk of decreasing in the near future. In Los Andes and San Felipe—which also continue to show a high propensity for rural depopulation—population has already decreased in young age groups and in the total population aged 0–39 years, respectively. Both communities show a relationship between the loss of rural population and conditions of water scarcity, desertification, changes in land use due to mining activities, and rural transformations resulting from the operations of the Andina Division open-pit mining project, driving processes of depeasantization and tertiarization of the local economy. It is a masculinized and aging territory, with a large influx of floating population, especially in Los Andes, where real estate and mining services activities have also grown.

Open-pit mining can generate probable social and environmental fractures in the space where it is installed, reconfiguring it as a mining space [44] with spatial practices and representations tending toward mining. This is expressed in socioenvironmental transformations that raise the conditions of vulnerability of settlements due to water depletion, from where economic concerns arise as a result of changes in agricultural and livestock production that depend on water resources [13,14,17,24].

Social fractures can also develop as a result of population increase due to migration of outside workers [15]. This can lead to real estate speculation due to the construction of services for the mining industry and, subsequently, to gentrification [42], the effects of which could lead to the expulsion of the local population. These changes are reflected in Los Andes with the increase in real estate activities, transportation, and accommodation and food services. This means that mining territories are not only characterized by an increase in population [124,125,126,127] but also by a fragile demographic structure with a loss of population in some age groups.

This text argues that the sociometabolic fractures promote a transformation of the rural structure into an urban one, due to the depeasantization of the resident agricultural population by forcing them to seek their livelihood in other secondary and tertiary activities and due to the urban development demanded by the mining project to provide lodging and food services to the workers who arrive at the site. To the extent that the settlers are not proletarianized and become absorbed in mining work, and rents and housing costs increase, the possibilities of migration increase. While this does not mean that the rural family will disappear in its entirety [24], it will lead to a decrease in the young rural population due to the change in traditional life and socio-spatial changes in the settlement, who will have to leave to seek employment and educational opportunities. In addition, in the long term, the encroachment of mining activities due to the size and expansion of the project that includes changes in land use and mine tailings could generate forced displacement, leading to deterritorialization and reterritorialization of the settlement [23,26,30].

From this perspective, latent rural depopulation is expressed in the tendency to occur in territories with socio-environmental vulnerability, where mining extractivism induces them to be more prone to depopulation in the future. These elements coincide with McLeman [70], who argues that an increase in socio-environmental risks and vulnerability increases the possibilities of migration due to territorial changes and the lack of vital resources for the reproduction of life of its residents. Latent rural depopulation is also related to political deterritorialization, where traditional inhabitants lose political control of their territories, and thus the agency of social movements and organized inhabitants who, through creative activities, seek to promote actions in the community to halt socio-ecological transformations. Remedies may include the revaluation of territorial resources and natural and cultural heritage through the conservation of their territory, which can be strengthened with the implementation of creative geographic strategies of geovisualization around Biogeocultural Virtual Heritage [50], which offers important elements to enhance collaborative governance [71].

5. Conclusions

The growing expansion of open-pit mining in Latin America has generated processes of rural depopulation demonstrated by demographics in population and housing censuses [39]. However, in a context of profound territorial and environmental transformations, it is necessary to anticipate scenarios of change and identify those territories with propensity toward rural depopulation. Rural depopulation generated by mining is the result of environmental unsustainability, due to a solely economic conception of development. Mining governance prioritizes economic—rather than social and environmental—objectives, toward an extractive activity that requires large expanses of land for operation and greater resources and produces greater amounts of waste. At the same time, it denies local inhabitants as valid interlocutors, preventing their participation in decision making about the course of their territories and their lives. Depopulation is accompanied by a process of deterritorialization in which local inhabitants lose political, social, and economic control over their territories.

Latent rural depopulation is a multidimensional phenomenon in social, environmental, demographic, and territorial terms, which can occur in a territory due to multiple anthropogenic and environmental factors. The latent mode refers to a process that is underway, where population decline and change in settlement structure may manifest in the near future due to various causes, whether natural or derived from human activities.

In the context of a series of social and environmental changes, many rural territories are facing situations of social and ecological vulnerability. This problem directly affects the territoriality of the historical inhabitants, which may motivate them to abandon their places of origin at a later date. Thus, to the extent that the territories described see their sociometabolic relations altered by the advance of the extractive-based economy or by a natural event, the conditions of vulnerability increase the risk that local territoriality will be disrupted—i.e., a potential scenario for depopulation.

In this perspective, we speak of latent because, although no population loss is recorded in the statistics, the empirical and theoretical data regarding depopulation suggest that the socio-environmental pressures represent possible factors that may cause a demographic decline in the future. Thus, the concept of latent rural depopulation holds space to evaluate the determinants of depopulation from a territorial perspective. In the case of mining, its momentum in recent years has contributed to the acceleration of socio-environmental changes on a global scale. This has affected rural territories, where this activity is most strongly positioned. For some actors, mining contributes to rural development; however, what is reflected in its wake is a set of territorial restructurings derived from fractures in the physical and social dimension of the settlements where it is deployed. Rural depopulation is one of the most complex territorial restructurings. It is not only the processes where mining has already decreased population but also those scenarios where the activity is in its initial phase (prospecting or exploration)—and even where only the mineral potential of the subsoil has been announced or a concession has already been granted to a company in the field to verify its capacity. In this case, the advance of mining extractivism in vulnerable territories can contribute to their future depopulation: the environmental and social changes it produces can directly affect the local territoriality of its historical inhabitants and drive them to abandon their territory or, due to the urbanizing impulse of mining, the population can change its status from rural to urban as primary activities lose weight in the economy and are replaced by secondary and tertiary activities.

Based on theoretical contributions and empirical evidence of the social and environmental fractures produced by open-pit mining, we propose a model of latent rural depopulation, which includes anthropogenic and natural factors that account for a reality experienced not only by the study area but also by several territories on a regional, Latin American, and global scale.

Anthropogenic factors include (i) the increase of open-pit mining sites, which represent a threat due to the use and contamination of water, the generation of mining tailings, the increase in the mobility of workers, the formation of corporate territories, and the processes of forced displacement; (ii) governance crises that result in historical inhabitants losing political control of the territories and institutional failures; (iii) territorial planning setbacks that represents a weak or flexible legal structure and rapid changes in land use, in a context where urbanization is prioritized and rural gentrification is promoted, which may lead to demographic decline and the depeasantization of the territory; and (iv) the exploitation of nature from the privatization of water, the depletion of common goods, the overexploitation of natural resources, and desertification. In addition, natural factors include climate change, which implies droughts and water scarcity, resulting in ecological fragility.

The pilot proposal of territorial indicators made it possible to corroborate the relevance of the concept of latent rural depopulation. Conditions of demographic fragility were identified with active processes of rural depopulation, accompanied by loss of the young population, aging, and masculinization. Increases in the floating population were also observed, with greater incidence in mining communities. In addition, the multivariate analysis matrix shows that the study area presents socio-environmental vulnerability, since the local economic structure has been transformed, moving from primary to secondary and tertiary activities, with conditions of severe water scarcity, changes in land use, desertification, presence of mining tailings, extractive activities, and conflicts between local populations and mining companies.

The advance of open-pit mining in areas such as Putaendo, where the Vizcachitas project is to be located, represents a risky scenario for demographic, spatial, and environmental fragility, characteristics leading toward a very high propensity for future rural depopulation. In Llay Llay, which also shows a very high propensity to rural depopulation, the installation of a mine with these characteristics could generate a loss of rural population and affect the spatiality of the settlement. In Los Andes, where there are currently open-pit mining projects, there are already young rural depopulation processes, which may worsen over time due to the factors indicated in the proposed model. This same situation may occur in San Felipe, which already has rural depopulation between the ages of 0–39 years and shares the effects of open-pit mining in Los Andes due to the operations of the Andina Division project of the state-owned company CODELCO.

Finally, the study was limited by an absence of established indicators or measurement indexes. Future research on the subject should incorporate methodological tools based on interviews, surveys, and collective mapping to learn about local perceptions and, with the support of spatial data, complement the measurement of the propensity to latent rural depopulation in territories with socio-environmental vulnerability. This will aid in disentangling the problem and, eventually, advancing and promoting strategic actions from public institutions, universities, and civil society itself to avoid population decline and the probable spatial changes that this may cause by locating not only the possible factors of rural depopulation but also the possible development alternatives that emerge from local spaces.