distinction highlights the robustness of strategic planning outcomes while acknowledging flexibility at the level of detailed infrastructure layout. Overall, the study demonstrates that shared water infrastructure can support resilient mining water supply while enabling regional integration and community water provision. The results underscore the value of participatory, multi-criteria planning frameworks for informing long-term water infrastructure decisions in arid mining regions under uncertainty. KEYWORDS Water scarcity, Shared water infrastructure, Desalinated seawater, Mining water supply, Participatory planning, Decision-support tool. 1. INTRODUCTION Water scarcity is widely recognised as one of the most pressing environmental and socioeconomic challenges worldwide, with especially severe impacts in arid and semi-arid regions. These territories are characterised by low average annual precipitation, high interannual variability, and strong sensitivity to climate change, resulting in structurally limited and uncertain water availability (Greve et al., 2018; Kurian, 2017). Over recent decades, sustained growth in water demand driven by population increase, urbanisation, and the expansion of water-intensive economic activities has exacerbated these constraints, transforming water scarcity into a critical limitation for regional development. Importantly, water scarcity is not solely a physical or climatic phenomenon, but the outcome of complex socio-hydrological processes shaped by governance arrangements, regulatory frameworks, and infrastructure investment decisions (Frontuto et al. 2025). In arid regions, prolonged over-extraction of groundwater, degradation of ecosystems associated with endorheic basins and salt flats, and increasing competition among productive, urban, and ecological water uses have intensified water insecurity and territorial conflicts (ArenasCollao et al., 2024). Traditional responses to scarcity have largely relied on supply-side solutions, such as new abstractions, reservoirs, or inter-basin transfers. However, these approaches have shown significant environmental and social limitations when implemented through fragmented, sector-specific planning processes (Gleick, 2003). Recent literature therefore argues for integrated and long-term water planning approaches that explicitly recognise the interdependencies between natural systems, infrastructure networks, and social dynamics, particularly in arid territories subject to intensive resource extraction (Pagliero et al., 2024). Large-scale mining is a water-intensive industrial activity, particularly during the processing of metallic and non-metallic minerals. Paradoxically, many of the world’s most important mining districts are located in arid and hyper-arid regions, where natural water availability is extremely limited. Empirical evidence shows that, in sparsely populated arid basins, the introduction of large mining projects can increase regional water demand, in some cases exceeding sustainable ecological flows several times over (Arenas-Collao et al., 2024; Aitken et al., 2016; Odell et al., 2021). In response, the mining industry has progressively improved water management practices by promoting more efficient water use, adopting alternative sources such as seawater desalination, increasing water recovery and recycling, and implementing strategies to reduce freshwater abstraction while addressing environmental and regulatory requirements
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