Large-scale desalination: What can we learn from Australia?

Abstract

Desalination S eawater desalination is an immensely scalable and climateindependent water resource, and is being adopted on a global scale. Around 68 Gigalitres of desalinated water is already being produced each day by nearly 15 000 desalination plants (Imagine a cube of water standing as tall as the Empire State building in New York). This capacity is growing by about 12% each year, which suggests that global water scarcity is growing faster than both the economy and the population. Large-scale desalination will take off in South Africa within the next few years; our surface water resources are already stretched to capacity in many catchment areas, and are vulnerable to changes in climate. But desalination will be only a part of a collective response to address water security, alongside conventional resources, and a multitude of water reuse, conservation and demand management initiatives. Whereas some dams will still be built or upgraded in years to come, a new breed of water infrastructure project will join the project pipeline: the large-scale desalination plant.

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