Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Water Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/watres

Review

Desalination and sustainability e An appraisal and current perspective

Veera Gnaneswar Gude
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mississippi State University, MS 39762, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 July 2015
Received in revised form
26 October 2015
Accepted 5 November 2015
Available online 12 November 2015

Desalination technologies have evolved and advanced rapidly along with increasing water demands
around the world since 1950s. Many reviews have focused on the techno-economic and environmental
and ecological issues of the desalination technologies and emphasized the feasibility of desalination
industry as an alternative to meet the water demands in many water scarce regions. Despite these efforts,
many perceptions about desalination processes hinder their applications for potential water supplies.
This article has two specic aims: 1) provide an overview of the desalination trends around the world
and discuss the sustainability components of desalination processes in comparison with other water
supply alternatives; and 2) discuss case studies for desalination, and drivers and factors that inuence
sustainable desalination and other alternative water sources for desalination to increase our current
understanding on the sensitive and futuristic issues of water supply and resource management options
for drought facing regions. Although some of the facts and recent developments discussed here show
that desalination can be affordable and potentially sustainable, contributions that meaningfully address
socio-economic and ecological and environmental issues of desalination processes are urgently required
in this critical era of severe water stress for the present context and the future development of desalination technologies.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Desalination
Sustainability
Environmental impacts
Socioeconomics
Water transport
Social acceptance

Contents
1.
2.

3.

4.

Introduction (oilewater relation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Worldwide desalination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
2.1.
Desalination technologies and renewable energy sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
2.2.
Current trends in desalination industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
2.3.
Recent developments in desalination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Sustainability of desalination technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.1.
Economics of desalination and other alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.1.1.
Conventional water supplies vs. desalination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.1.2.
Water transportation costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.2.
Energy, environmental, and ecological considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.2.1.
Energy budget for a small RO desalination plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.2.2.
Environmental issues of desalination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.2.3.
Environmental emission comparison with large dams and wastewater systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.2.4.
Ecological impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.3.
Social issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Desalination out of desperation e case studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.1.
Desalination in California, USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.1.1.
Energy requirements for different water supply options in CA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.2.
Desalination in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.3.
Desalination in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.4.
Desalination in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

E-mail addresses: gude@cee.msstate.edu, gudevg@gmail.com.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2015.11.012
0043-1354/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

88

5.
6.
7.
8.

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

4.5.
Desalination in Saudi Arabia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.6.
Desalination market around the world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Affordable desalination e a worldwide scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
What drives desalination? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Other alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

1. Introduction (oilewater relation)

Water, in general, has evolved as a social and economic commodity in many parts of the world (Rogers et al., 1998, 2005) and it
has gained the socioeconomic status of energy sources such as oil.
Water, the primary basis for continued sustenance of all life, cannot
be exactly matched in its quality with any other element present on
the Earth. While water and oil have some common features that are
critical to human civilization, a few special characteristics of water
as a commodity make it even more precious for our sustainable
development: 1) to handle the shortfall of oil resources, there are
many alternative energy sources that can replace and ll the gap
between supply and demand, however, the same is impossible for
water, water cannot be replaced with other resources, 2) oil reserves are nite and non-renewable (at least in human life-cycle
scale) whereas water resources are renewable and follow certain
cyclic process in which it can neither be destroyed nor created and
its presence varies along the regions of the world, and 3) oil
shortage can be managed in many parts of the world by transporting to the place of need due to its high monetary value for
economic benet, which may not be an attractive option for water
transportation and therefore water issues are local in nature and
are dealt with local water and energy sources (Savenije, 2002).
The importance and value of water has been highly pronounced
in recent years due to ever-growing global population, rapid
industrialization and urbanization (Gude, 2015a). Over the past
century, the worldwide population has tripled while the water use
or water withdrawals increased more than six-fold which suggests
increasing water consumption mostly driven by improved living
standards and industrialization all over the world. Many regions
realize the inadequacy of existing freshwater sources to meet ever
growing water demands. In some cases, sufcient surface and
ground water sources to even meet current demands for water
supplies are not available. Therefore, the need for utilizing saline
waters from the oceans and other brackish water sources and the
processes that convert saltwater into freshwater have become
rational and logical approaches in these regions (Gude and
Nirmalakhandan, 2010). Desalination technologies have been
developed over the past 50 years (Semiat, 2000). Desalination
technologies initially were both cost- and energy- prohibitive.
However, the impetus to install desalination plants in many coastal
and metropolitan cities for providing freshwater needs stems from:
i) the desperate necessity to support the water demands; ii) dramatic improvements in energy consumption by desalination
technologies; and iii) reduced investment and processing costs for
desalination processes.
The purpose of this paper is two fold. First, it provides an
overview of the desalination water industry around the world. Then
it discusses the sustainability components of desalination from the
perspective of existing alternatives and current scenarios, followed
by an update on the recent approaches to embrace desalination
technologies in water scarce countries and the drivers and factors
that inuence desalination. This article attempts to provide a new
perspective on the desalination systems with reference to the

existing water supply options. Environmental (including energy

and ecological), economic and social aspects of desalination systems have been discussed. A few case studies have been provided to
elaborate the role of desalination industry in this ever waterchallenging and climate changing world.
2. Worldwide desalination
While desalination of saline waters has now been accepted as a
promising alternative for freshwater source, the energy demands
by the existing desalination technologies for water production
continue to pose challenges in their applications. In general,
desalination technologies require large quantities of high grade
thermal energy and/or prime quality electricity for freshwater
separation which results in release of waste heat, greenhouse gas
emissions and concentrates (brine) into the environment. The
worldwide desalination capacity is increasing at a steadfast pace
consuming equivalent amounts of fossil fuel sources with
concomitant greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007, the total installed
desalination capacity around the world was 47.6 million m3/d, in
2008 it was 58 million m3/d, and in 2011 it reached to 65.2 million
m3/d and then to 74.8 million m3/d in 2012 which is projected to
increase to 97.5 million m3/d by the year 2015 (Bennett, 2013).
While global population increased in a linear trend over the past
ve decades, water production by desalination technologies has
taken an exponential path. The production of 1000 tons (m3) per
day of freshwater by desalination technologies requires 10,000
tons (toe) of oil per year and results in environmental degradation
through greenhouse gas emissions and brine discharges
(Kalogirou, 2005; Gude, 2015a). This situation can be termed as
oil for water or water for non-renewable energy sources or
water being named as the new oil indicating a pressing demand
on the exhaustible fossil fuel reserves around the world. This situation creates social and economic impacts such as dependence
on the oil rich foreign countries and economic instability for both
oil-rich and water-rich countries. Since oil rich countries will
experience high demands for oil supplies and similarly water rich
countries for water supplies.
2.1. Desalination technologies and renewable energy sources
Well established desalination technologies can be classied as
thermal (phase change) and membrane (non-phase change) processes. Thermal processes consist of an evaporator and condenser
to vaporize freshwater from the feedwater (seawater or brackish
water) under suitable operating temperatures and pressures and
condense the same to produce freshwater while membrane processes use a physical barrier such as a membrane to separate the
dissolved salts from the feed water by mechanical or chemical/
electrical means using a membrane separator between the feed
(seawater or brackish water) and product (potable water) (Gude
et al., 2010).
Thermal desalination technologies include solar distillation (SD)
such as solar stills and active and passive solar desalination

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

89

Fig. 1. Desalination using renewable energy sources and coupling schemes.

systems; multi-effect evaporation/distillation (MED); multi-stage

ash distillation (MSF); thermal vapor compression (TVC) and
mechanical vapor compression (MVC). Membrane desalination
technologies include electrodialysis (ED) and reverse osmosis (RO).
Other hybrid processes combine both thermal and membrane
separation mechanisms in a single unit or in sequential steps to
produce potable water which are membrane distillation (MD) and
reverse osmosis combined with MSF or MED processes.
Some of the oil-rich countries derive most energy needs for
desalination from the fossil fuel sources at present, however unacceptable are their long-term consequences. These supplies are
expected to last in adequate quantities for the present and some
future generations. However, desalination scientists, engineers and
policy makers must consider sustainable alternative energy sources
for desalination and make use of this grace period to determine
what is scientically possible, environmentally acceptable, and
technologically feasible. Since desalination technologies are energy
intensive, use of existing nite fossil fuel sources is not a sustainable and affordable approach. Instead, renewable energy supplies
derived from solar, wind, geothermal and wave (tidal) energy
sources show greater promise for long term sustainability of
desalination technologies for freshwater production. Fig. 1 shows
the relationship between various renewable energy sources and
desalination technologies (Gude, 2015a). To achieve maximum
utilization of energy sources, a suitable energy-desalination
coupling scheme should be identied. Some desalination technologies require the energy source on site and some do not have this
requirement (off-site). A few on-site desalination and renewable
energy schemes are (i) wind-MVC; (ii) solar thermal-TVC; (iii) solar
thermal-MSF; (iv) solar thermal-MED; (v) solar thermal-SD; (vi)
geothermal-TVC); (vii) geothermal-MSF or MED. Other off-site
schemes are (a) Wind-MVC; (b) Wind-RO; (c) Solar PV-RO; (d)
Solar PV-MVC; (e) Geothermal-MVC; and (f) Geothermal-RO. Other
renewable energy sources that could be of potential interest are

biomass based power generation, hydropower and ocean thermal

energy (Bennett, 2011a). Energy storage may become an important
element in these congurations to provide for reliable energy
supply that addresses the uctuating intensity and intermittent
nature of the solar and wind energy sources. Tidal(wave) energy is
also intermittent in nature and it needs to be generated and stored
for later use by desalination systems. For more details on energy
storage applications in desalination, readers are referred to a
detailed and dedicated assessment presented elsewhere (Gude
2015a).
2.2. Current trends in desalination industry
In year 2005, the desalination technology share was dominated
by thermal technologies namely MSF and MED (up to 60%) followed
by membrane technologies (40%). This situation is now ipped with
membrane based processes accounting for more than 60% market
share and the remaining share by thermal and hybrid processes.
About 70% of the desalination plants installed after the year 2000
were membrane desalination plants (National Water Commission,
2008). Reecting this trend, current desalination industry represents 63% reverse osmosis, 23% of MSF and 8% of MED processes,
and the reminder including electrodialysis and other hybrid processes (Fig. 2A). The compound annual growth rate of the desalination industry between 1997 and 2008 was 17% and it continues
to grow. The majority of the desalination capacity is owned by
municipalities for drinking water supplies and industrial utilities,
while the remaining portion is shared by power plants, irrigation,
tourism, military and some other applications (see Fig. 2B)
(Bennett, 2013).
The specic energy consumption for water production has
dramatically decreased from 20 kWh in 1970s (Von Medeazza,
2005) to 2.5 kWh in 2010 (Gude, 2011). Desalination costs have
also reduced signicantly since mid-1990s to a cost less than

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V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Fig. 2. Desalination industry by technology, users, and cost components (Costs assume a $0.05/kWh electricity cost and an oil price of $60/bbl).

US$0.75 per m3 in 2008 (Fig. 2) (Bennett, 2011b). Technological

developments and lower specic energy consumption have alleviated the freshwater costs. Moreover, several amendments in
membrane and heat transfer materials, and manufacturing practices also contributed to the lower capital and operating costs with
higher productivities (Henthorne and Boysen, 2015). Water production costs for dominant desalination technologies are shown in
Fig. 2C. The operating and maintenance costs are shown in detail as
well (see Fig. 2C) (GWI, 2012a, b). RO technology is competitive at
water costs compared to MSF and MED technologies (Kesieme et al.,
2013) in the current industry.
2.3. Recent developments in desalination
Desalination research has advanced signicantly in recent years
in both membrane and thermal technologies. Several emerging
technologies such as forward osmosis, and semi-batch RO processes have been discussed in membrane desalination technologies
while membrane distillation, humidication and dehumidication,
adsorption desalination, pervaporation are receiving increasing
interest (Subramani and Jacangelo, 2015). Advances in membrane
development include nanocomposite membranes, nanotube
membranes, aquaporin membranes, graphene based membranes.

Among these nanocomposite membranes have reached the

commercialization status while the others still require signicant
work towards commercialization. Among the emerging desalination technologies, adsorption desalination, forward osmosis and
membrane distillation show promise for further developments and
will be discussed here briey and for more information related to
other emerging and alternative desalination processes, the readers
are encouraged to refer to other recent contributions (Semiat,
2008; Gude et al., 2010; Gude, 2011; Elimelech and Phillip, 2011;
Penata and Garcia-Rodriguez, 2012; Gao et al., 2014; Ghaffour
et al., 2014; Gude, 2015a,b; and Subramani and Jacangelo, 2015).
Adsorption desalination is an emerging and promising technology for near future. Adsorption desalination and cooling (ADC)
cycles involve selective adsorption of water vapor from saline water
and desorption of the same activated by thermal regeneration.
Activated carbon, silica gel and zeolite materials have been utilized
as adsorption media due to their high surface area and porous
nature (Ng, 2003). Two beds are typically used in ADC cycles, one
for adsorption and the other for desorption. More details on the
operating principles can be found in Ng et al. (2014). Heat recovery
between the condenser and the evaporator is also possible in ADC
process (Ng et al., 2011; 2012). In addition, ADC hybridization with
MED process was also developed (Ng et al., 2011).

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Membrane distillation (MD) technology has over 50 years of

history. MD can be considered as hybrid technology which includes
both membrane and thermal characteristics of desalination processes in which freshwater evaporates from hot saline feed water
on one side of the semipermeable membrane which is condensed
by the cooling water stream on the other side of the membrane.
Several congurations namely direct contact, sweeping gas, vacuum, and air-gap membrane distillation were developed over the
years for various desalination and other separation applications in
two main congurations of tube type or at plate (Yarlagadda et al.,
2009, 2011; Camacho et al., 2013). Membrane distillation process
can be integrated with forward osmosis and reverse osmosis and
crystallization processes to enhance water recovery and/or energy
efciency. Since MD is also an energy intensive process, solar or
geothermal sources or other waste process heat can be used as
heating medium. The economics can be found to be favorable in
some cases.
Most commonly used membranes in membrane distillation are
PTFE (polytetrauoroethylene), PP (polypropylene), and PVDF
(polyvinyldeneuoride). PVDF has high hydrophobicity, thermal
resistance and oxidation resistance while PVDF has high mechanical strength with good hydrophobicity and thermal resistance. PP
also has good thermal and chemical resistance. Membrane fouling
and wetting have been realized as major obstacles for MD process
advancement into commercial applications. Novel membranes or
materials have been introduced recently which include carbon
nanotubes, uorinated copolymer materials and surface modied
polyethersulfone (PES) to increase the mechanical strength,
porosity and hydrophobicity. Energy and economic issues still
persist which prevent the technology from commercialization
although this technology has already been used in a wide range of
applications. The future research will need to focus on increasing
the water recovery, improving energy efciency with cost minimization objectives. Detailed discussions on various aspects of MD
technology have been well discussed by Camacho et al. (2013).
Among the membrane desalination technologies, forward
osmosis (FO) process is being actively pursued recently to increase
recovery of the water source. The FO process is based on the
principle that water (solvent) diffuses through a semi-permeable
membrane from low concentration region to high concentration
region by a natural process. The amount of water recovery is
facilitated by a high concentration draw solution and the extracted
water needs a separation step for nal recovery. The separation
process can be expensive depending on the draw solution characteristics. The rst generation FO draw solution was water and
ammonium bicarbonate (NH4HCO3) mixture (McCutcheon et al.,
2005). Several innovations were reported recently such as inclusion of high surface area and high osmotic pressure, hydrophilic
magnetic nanoparticles (Ling et al., 2010) and polyelectrolytes of
PAA-Na salts (Ge et al., 2012) for efcient recovery of draw solutions. More details can be found in a detailed review by Chung et al.
(2012). For water reuse and desalination, FO could be an energyefcient process when compared with RO process provided that
the separation process is cost-effective. Current challenges include
development of highly efcient membranes, cost-effective recyclable draw solutes, and fouling control suggesting future research
needs in these areas.
Hybridization appears to be a feasible option for both membrane and thermal desalination processes. Forward osmosis integrated processes with membrane distillation and other low
pressure membrane processes are good examples for desalination
of groundwater, seawater and wastewater in membrane bioreactors (Cath et al., 2010; Linares et al., 2014; Li et al., 2015). The
goal of hybridization is to increase water recovery with low specic energy consumption. Integrating membrane distillation with

91

MVC technology could be benecial as well (Swaminathan, 2015).

Recovery of rubidium from RO concentrate using MD and ion
exchange process scheme was also reported. (Naidu et al., 2015).
Zero liquid discharge (recovering water from the concentrates) for
eliminating liquid wastes is another recent development using
electrodialysis (electrodialysis metathesis, EDM) process for
brackish water treatment (Bond et al., 2011; Oren et al., 2010;
Davis, 2015). Most of the emerging technologies (MD, FO, ED,
EDM, and EDR) can be employed in zero liquid discharge schemes.
Energy and cost constraints are the major focus for research in this
area. Not much has been reported on the development of energy
recovery devices since these devices are already operating at
their maximum energy recovery potentials. However, enhanced
water recovery scheme incorporating brine mixing with feedwater
(in a closed-circuit conguration) to optimize both water and
energy recovery is an interesting option (Elimelech, 2015; Stover,
2015).
3. Sustainability of desalination technologies
Sustainability of desalination technologies can be assessed by
four components which comprise environmental, economic, social
and technological areas. In addition to the other key components,
technical feasibility becomes an important component in the
evaluation of desalination processes since they are chemical-, costand energy- intensive contributing to environmental emissions and
technology has a vital role to play in their mitigation. The economic
impact depends on various factors such as water source availability
and its quality, type of energy source, process technology, labor,
operation and maintenance costs, geographical location, and nally
on the nancial package. The environmental component includes
the greenhouse gas emissions (global warming and acid rain potentials), brine and chemical discharges (eutrophication, water
quality and ecological impacts) into the receiving environments
and the ecological impacts associated with these environmental
emissions. While the social factors include social acceptance, condence in quantity and quality of the water sources and their demands and the acceptance of desalination technologies and trust in
the water providers.
3.1. Economics of desalination and other alternatives
3.1.1. Conventional water supplies vs. desalination
Desalination clearly is not a universal solution for freshwater
supplies in all water scarce regions. But it has been proven to be a
viable alternative for communities facing severe drought and
increasing urbanization, industrialization and population growth
issues. Due to their energy and cost intensive nature, desalination
technologies are often looked down upon as a potential water
supply alternative or viewed as a last resort. However, some recent
concerns over climate change and water scarcity combined with
industrial development have led many scientists and engineers to
consider desalination processes as freshwater supply resources.
Desalination costs are inuenced by various factors (Zander et al.,
2008). A comparison between the conventional (surface and
ground water sources) and desalination based technologies for
freshwater supplies may help the engineers and scientists realize
the pitfalls and the required improvements in desalination to make
them more acceptable. For instance, a cost comparison between
conventional (coagulation-occulation-sedimentation and ltration scheme) and desalination (seawater reverse osmosis, SWRO)
based freshwater supply options shows that conventional water
supplies are only economical in regions where there are ample
sources of surface or ground waters within reasonable distances
(Table 1) (Gude, 2015b). The low-end water costs indicate these

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V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Table 1
Comparison of water costs for conventional and desalination water supply options (Voutchkov, 2011, 2014; Plappally, 2012).
Range

Low
Medium
Higha
a

Energy requirements (kWh/m3)

Water production costs ($/m3)

Conventional water supplies

Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO)

Conventional water supplies

Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO)

0.1e0.5
1.0e2.5
2.5e4.5

2.5e2.8
3.0e3.5
4.0e4.5

0.25e0.75
0.75e2.50
2.50e5.00

0.50e0.80
1.00e1.50
2.00e4.00

Conveyance and distribution costs included, even higher water costs are applied in some countries.

Fig. 3. Comparison of water costs for conventional and transported desalination water supply options.

conditions where the lowest costs for desalination can be reported

for brackish water sources. For this scenario, the desalinated water
costs are twice the conventional water supply costs but the specic
energy consumption is quite high (by 5e25 times). In another case
where communities experience signicant industrial growth and as
a result population increase, the water supply costs can become
pricy as the technologies need to be updated to meet the increasing
demands and distribution systems need expansion. If brackish or
seawater desalination is considered as an option, the costs could be
reasonably adjusted due to large scale production and if seawater
desalination is considered, the specic energy consumption will be
reduced to a factor in the range of 1.4e3.0. In a case where local
water sources are inadequate and the population to be served is
fairly large, both the specic energy consumption and water
costs increase signicantly (case studies to be discussed in later
sections). In this high-end water costs scenario, the local water
resources are not adequate to meet the demands and therefore, raw
water has to be imported from water-rich regions and costs also
reect the water reuse and conservation efforts as well as transportation requirements. If seawater desalination is considered as an
alternative for this scenario (assuming seawater is available within
reach), the specic energy consumption and water costs can be
more attractive when compared to conventional water supply
option.
3.1.2. Water transportation costs
Average water supply costs in various countries are shown in

Fig. 3. Citizens in some of the European countries are having to pay

much higher water prices than other developed countries. This has
different contexts which include policy, economic and environmental. Water pricing policy should include the socioeconomic,
environmental, sectoral, and structural elements. In developing
countries such as China and India, water prices are heavily subsidized which actually is not a sustainable measure (Sachs, 2013).
This promotes changes in user behavior mainly irresponsible use
and inefcient resource utilization. Many countries in the Europe
have revised their water pricing policies to account for the local
environmental and socioeconomic elements and to ensure the full
recovery of the costs incurred in water supply system. An ideal
water pricing policy should also provide proper incentives to
encourage efcient resource utilization leading to pollution
reduction and resource protection and its longevity. When subsidies applied previously on the water prices were removed in
many of the European Union states, water prices were increased by
a very high factor (between 5 and 20). For example, water prices in
Hungary went up by 15 times when these subsidies were removed
(Water Prices-Policy issue, 2010).
According to a recent water tariff survey by Global water intelligence (2014), global water costs have risen by 4.3% during the last
year with an average cost of $2.14/m3 for water and wastewater
services combined. The highest water tariff of $10.09/m3 was reported for Aarhus, Denmark while other countries such as
Turkmenistan and Ireland did not have any tariffs. Ukraine experienced a steep increase (doubled the water tariffs) while the water

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

tariffs in Germany and Denmark have fallen signicantly due to the

payoff of their investments in the water infrastructure. The water
prices in US have increased by 7% over the last year mainly part of
the planning for reviving aging infrastructure and combatting the
water scarcity due to drought especially in California (Bednorz,
2014).
In many urban areas, local water resources are reaching the
capacity limits in serving the populations, leaving transportation of
desalinated water as a source of water supply. A study estimated
costs of the transported freshwater from coastal desalination plants
(Zhou and Tol, 2005). For example, the city of Beijing in China could
transport freshwater from the nearest ocean source located at a
distance of 135 km and an overall elevation difference in transportation of 100 m (see Fig. 3). The water supply cost for this source
was estimated as $1.13/m3. Similarly for Delhi, India, Riyadh, KSA
transported desalinated water costs will be $ 1.90 and $1.60 for
transportation distances of 1050 km, 350 km and elevation differences of 500 m and 750 m respectively. A comparison between the
conventional water supply costs and transported desalinated water
costs shows that the difference is acceptable since the desalinated
water costs have reached to the levels of conventional water supplies in recent years but the transportation costs will be unavoidable. The difference in costs that stems from the transportation
distance cannot be considered as a hurdle since water must be
supplied to the communities at any cost.
3.2. Energy, environmental, and ecological considerations
3.2.1. Energy budget for a small RO desalination plant
Water production involves energy utilization and associated
environmental emissions (Gude et al., 2011). Energy is required at
various stages of water production (Plappally, 2012). Energy utilization in large scale desalination plants can be well managed. For
example, in MSF and MED processes, the specic energy requirements decrease with number of stages which is known as
performance ratio. The same applies to membrane processes where
addition of stages increases energy savings as well as water recovery and often energy budget is enhanced by energy recovery
devices. However, for small scale applications such as domestic
uses whether desalination is affordable depends on the overall
energy budget of the individual domestic unit. A comparison between the desalination energy utilization with that for other domestic uses may provide a useful insight on the overall energy
budget of a domestic household. A typical family consisting of four
members in the Middle Eastern countries would have a water
consumption rate of nearly 18 m3/month (150 L per person for a
family of four) and uses about 1200 kWhe of electricity or other
equivalent energy sources per month (Semiat, 2008). A seawater
desalination process (RO process) can deliver the freshwater needs
at an energy utilization rate of 140 (kWhth)/month (fuel value)
excluding water transportation energy needs. The transportation
needs for an average distance of 1500 km/month can be met by a
family car with 160 L of oil consumption per month which is
equivalent to 1500 (kWhth)/month while the electricity needs (for
lighting, heating and cooling) are around 1200 kWhe/month which
are equivalent to 2667 (kWhth)/month (with a conversion efciency of 45%; 1200 kWhe/0.45). From this analysis, desalination
energy needs represent only 9.3% or 5.2% or 3.2% of the transportation energy, electricity, and total domestic energy needs
respectively. This analysis clearly supports the use of desalination
process for affordable freshwater supplies at domestic levels.
3.2.2. Environmental issues of desalination
Desalination plants can have signicant impact (direct or indirect) on the environment. Increased use of fossil fuels for

93

desalination may accelerate air pollution due to greenhouse gas

emissions which include carrbon monoxide (CO), nitric oxide
(NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) known to
have detrimental inuence on local public health and environment (Younos, 2005). Desalination plants also utilize signicant
amounts of chemicals for pretreatment of saline water and posttreatment of desalinated water. Discharge of large amounts of
chemicals into the coastal waters results in ecological imbalances
and major impacts are usually observed in conned water bodies
pner, 2008; Qdais, 2008). The concentrates
(Lattemann and Ho
generated from brackish water via an RO process (with 60e85%
recovery) would have a concentration factor that is 2.5e7 times
higher and the same for the seawater RO (with 30e50% recovery)
would be between 1.25 and 2.0 (National Water Commission,
2008). Thermal desalination technologies have a wide range of
recovery ratios between 15 and 50% with a concentration factor
of 1.15 (due to cooling water mixing). Table 2 compares chemical,
biological and physical properties of the RO and MSF desalination
process concentrates (Chang, 2015; Roberts et al., 2010). Specic
seawater concentrate properties such as salinity, temperature,
and various chemicals used for coagulation, biocides for controlling biological growth, anti-foaming, anti-corrosion and
cleaning chemicals cause serious environmental concerns for
their proper disposal. About 2 units of concentrate is generated
for every unit of desalinated water produced. Current practice of
handling these concentrates is to discharge them into the coastal
waters which could have detrimental effects on the aquatic life
and coastal environment. Brine/concentrate disposal technologies and management options are not as robust and practical as
desalination technologies and in many cases, brine discharge
poses major concerns for disapproval of new inland desalination
plants and some coastal desalination plants. Continuous recovery
and discharge of the seawater at a specic location may also
affect the quality of incoming supply water for desalination in
the long run. To mitigate major environmental concerns related
to brine/concentrate discharges, concentrates should be prediluted with the seawater to minimize the effects related to
high salt concentrations. Temperature effects can be eliminated
by proper heat dissipation though cooling towers and by dilutiing with seawater. Removal or substitution of hazardous substances by implementing alternative treatment methods would
alleviate the negative impacts on the environment. In particular,
biocides such as chlorine may acutely affect non-target organisms in the discharge site, should be replaced or treated prior to
discharge. Chlorine can be effectively removed by different
chemicals, such as sodium bisulte as practiced in RO plants,
while sulfur dioxide and hydrogen peroxide have been suggested
to treat thermal plant reject streams. Filter backwash waters
should be treated by sedimentation, dewatering and land deposition, while cleaning solutions should be treated on-site in
special treatment facilities or discharged to a sanitary sewer
system. Recovery of valuable chemicals such as gypsum from the
concentrates is an attractive option. Reuse of treated brackish
water in irrigation applications is another alternative to reduce
the demands for freshwater sources. Air pollution can be mitigated by using natural gas and renewable energy sources. Finally,
improving the desalination process schemes would enhance the
energetic and environmental performance of the desalination
processes. For instance, a SWRO plant with a capacity of 100
million m3 (per year) would require an electrical load of 50 MW
(Semiat, 2008). A desalination and power plant cogeneration
scheme would operate at a higher efciency than separate
desalination and power generation plants. Because the cogeneration scheme operates based on the water supply demands
which are subject to dayenight and summerewinter uctuations

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V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Table 2
pner, 2008; Dawoud and Al Mulla, 2012).
Potential ecological/environmental impacts of the RO and MSF desalination process concentrates (Lattemann and Ho

Physical properties
Salinity and temperature

Plume density

RO plants

MSF plants

Environmental/ecological impacts

Up to 65,000e85,000 mg/L ambient

seawater temperature

About 50,000 mg/L 5e15  C above

ambient

Negatively buoyant

Positively, neutrally or negatively

buoyant depending on the process,
mixing with cooling water from colocated power plants and ambient
density stratication
Could be below ambient seawater DO
because of physical deaeration and use
of oxygen scavengers

Can be harmful; reduces vitality and

biodiversity at higher values; harmless
after good dilution
Can be harmful; can have local impact
on biodiversity

Dissolved oxygen (DO)

If well intakes used: typically below

ambient seawater DO because of the
low DO content of the source water
If open intakes used: approximately the
same as the ambient seawater DO
concentration
Biofouling control additives and by-products
Chlorine
If chlorine or other oxidants are used to
control biofouling, these are typically
neutralized before the water enters the
membranes to prevent membrane
damage
Halogenated organics
Typically low content below harmful
levels

Removal of suspended solids

Coagulants (e.g. iron-III-chloride)

Coagulant aids (e.g. polyacrylamide)

Scale control additives

Antiscalants acid (H2SO4)

Foam control additives

Antifoaming agents (e.g. polyglycol)

Approx. 10e25% of source water feed

dosage, if not neutralized

Very toxic for many organisms in the

mixing zone, but rapidly degraded,
THM e RO e MSF

Varying composition and

concentrations, typically
trihalomethanes

Carcinogenic effects; possible chronic

effects, more persistent, dispersal with
current, main route of loss is thorough
evaporation

May be present if source water is

conditioned and the lter backwash
water is not treated. May cause efuent
coloration if not equalized prior to
discharge
May be present if source water is
conditioned and the lter backwash
water is not treated

Not present (treatment not required)

Non-toxic; increased local

turbidity / may disturb
Photosynthesis; possible accumulation
in sediments

Not present (reacts with seawater to

cause harmless compounds, i.e. water
and sulfates; the acidity is consumed by
the naturally alkaline seawater, so that
the discharge pH is typically similar or
slightly lower than that of ambient
seawater). Typically low content below
toxic levels

Typically low content below toxic levels

(reacts with seawater to cause harmless
compounds, i.e. water and sulfates; the
acidity is consumed by the naturally
alkaline seawater, so that the discharge
pH is typically similar or slightly lower
than that of ambient seawater)

Poor or moderate degradability high

total loads / accumulation, chronic
effects, unknown side-effects

Not present (treatment not required)

Typically low content below harmful

levels

May contain elevated levels of iron,

chromium, nickel, molybdenum if lowquality stainless steel is used

May contain elevated copper and nickel

concentrations if inappropriate
materials are used for the heat
exchangers

Non-toxic in concentration levels; good

degradability
Copper e MSF (15e100 mg/L) e Low
acute toxicity for most species; high
danger of accumulation and long term
effects; bioaccumulation
Only traces metals; partly natural
seawater components; no toxic or long
term effects (except maybe for Ni in
MSF)

Alkaline (pH 11e12) or acidic (pH 2e3)

solutions with additives such as:
detergents (e.g. dodecylsulfate),
complexing agents (e.g. EDTA), oxidants
(e.g. sodium perborate), biocides (e.g.
formaldehyde)

Acidic (pH 2) solution containing

corrosion inhibitors such as
benzotriazole derivates

Not present (treatment not required)

Contaminants due to corrosion

Heavy metals

Cleaning chemicals
Cleaning chemicals

resulting in an energy-efcient process scheme. Gas turbines can

provide higher efciency with the use of high thermal energy
released in off-gases reducing the actual energy utilization
compared to other common uses.

Highly acidic or alkaline cleaning

solutions that may cause toxicity
without neutralization, disinfectants
highly toxic at very low concentrations,
detergents moderate toxicity;
complexing agents very poorly
degradable
MSF cleaning solutions e Low pH,
corrosion inhibitor e Highly acidic
cleaning solutions that cause toxicity
without neutralization low toxicity;
poor degradability

3.2.3. Environmental emission comparison with large dams and

wastewater systems
Construction of dams may increase access for water supplies but
these contribute to many environmental and ecological issues

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

(Timofti et al., 2011; Lindstrom et al., 2012; Subbaraman et al.,

2013). One of the main impacts is the loss of habitats since the
dams serve as barriers for sh migration from one place to the other
leading to extinction. Temperature and chemical composition of
water in the reservoirs is also different from the owing waters. The
restricted and reduced ow downstream is more saline which
makes it less suitable for certain sh and aquatic species while
human activities upstream the reservoir could cause accumulation
of nutrients resulting in eutrophication (International Rivers). Also
anaerobic conditions in the deep reservoir water causes decomposition of vegetation emitting greenhouse gases over large surface
areas which also causes higher water losses.
As a comparison, wastewater treatment by activated sludge
process releases 1500 tons of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) for
every 1000 tons of wastewater treated. These emissions are not
generally considered greenhouse gas emissions (these are considered natural emission cycles by USEPA). In addition, greenhouse
gas emissions for the electricity use in wastewater treatment accounts for 0.5e1.1 kg CO2 emissions per unit (m3) of wastewater
(Shrestha et al., 2011). Other emissions include NO2, N2O, H2S, and
CH4 from various process stages. On this basis, water production by
desalination plants should not be a prohibitive option. Moreover,
according to a recent report by the Australia's National Center of
Excellence for Desalination, the Perth desalination plant has been
providing freshwater for the residents in a most sustainable
manner supported by renewable energy sources with little or no
environmental impact. This plant discharges its brines into Cockburn Sound, a conned body of water. This plant has the mostmonitored brine outfall location in the world which has operated
for the past several years without any environmental harm. This is
an encouraging report for the current desalination industry.
3.2.4. Ecological impacts
Thermal desalination plants draw the source water equivalent to
8 or 10 times of the freshwater quantities produced in the plant
while the reverse osmosis plant draws 3 times the product (Morton
et al., 1996). Thermal desalination plants discharge brines at slightly
higher temperatures but their salinity is lower than membrane
desalination plants. It appears that thermal desalination plants
would have higher ecological impacts but the membrane desalination plants use large quantities of chemicals for pretreatment,
control of membrane scaling and biofouling. The desalination
brines were previously reported in terms of their salt concentrations ignoring the additive chemicals used for the above purposes.
Although these concentrations are quite small when compared to
salt concentrations, they have been reported to have direct or indirect impacts on the marine aquatic life in a few cases. Chlorine
concentrations should be closely monitored as well. Selection of an
ideal location with minimum ecological signicance along with low
intake velocities is an important measure to mitigate the ecological
impacts (Morton et al., 1996). Desalination plants similar to other
water supply or treatment systems would have environmental and
ecological impacts during and after construction and in operation
stages (Lokiec, 2013). Several measures can be implemented to
minimize the environmental and ecological impacts.
It is often very difcult to compare the environmental impacts of
different water supply options such as surface water sources,
groundwater withdrawal, transported water across long distances
and brackish water or seawater desalination. These options present
complex situations for different locations which cannot be
normalized for all the geographical locations around the world. A
large body of literature is available on the ecological issues but it is
quite descriptive and qualitative rather than quantitative and many
studies assessed considering site-specic socioeconomic and
environmental parameters only. Some studies are decient in

95

proper design details and statistical analyzes making conclusive

interpretation of results difcult (Roberts et al., 2010). Assessment
methodologies should be improved signicantly to clearly identify
the ecological impacts (Roberts et al., 2010; Zhou et al., 2011).
Comprehensive environmental impact assessment using the
framework of integrated coastal management with large number of
indicators covering most of the critical issues would be helpful
which are generally overlooked under conventional assessments
(Liu et al., 2013).
Pre-treatment of source water is essential for preventing
biofouling in membrane processes. Some post-treatment including
disinfection can also cause some health concerns. Recent studies
report on the adverse impacts of disinfection byproducts (DBPs)
discharged through brine ows into the marine environment.
Disinfection byproducts formed in the pretreatment of membrane
processes from the organic compounds such as chloroform, bromoform, halophenols and other phenols can be detrimental to the
aquatic life (Agus and Sedlak, 2010). Chronic effect of bromoform as
low as 50 mg/L concentration on oyster larvae were reported while
the lethal dosage was reported to be as high as 1000 mg/L (Stewart
et al., 1979). Haloacetic acids are also toxic to species like aquatic
macrophytes and phytoplankton at relatively low concentrations
(e.g., monochloroacetic acid and monobromoacetic acid inhibited
growth in green algae Scenedesmus subspicatus at concentrations of
7 mg/L and 20 mg/L, respectively (Kuhn and Pattard, 1990)).
Bromide-rich brines can cause formation of trihalomethanes (Agus
et al., 2009; Krasner et al., 2006). Kim et al. (2015) provided a
detailed review of the impacts of disinfection byproducts and
several recommendations were made in this report. These include
systematic evaluation of full-scale seawater desalination plants for
various DBPs, impact of dissolved organic carbon, and other
chemical compounds such as antiscalants (e.g., BaSO4, CaSO4,
SrSO4, CaCO3, and silica) or antifoaming agents (e.g., acylated polyglycols, fatty acids and fatty acid esters, silicon-based compounds)
and the interaction chemistry of the disinfection agents with these
chemicals.
3.3. Social issues
Techno-economic and environmental aspects of the desalination plants receive considerable attention when compared with the
social issues. Similar to environmental impacts, installation of
desalination plants could have signicant social impacts during
construction and operational phases. Social issues for desalination
technologies include lack of public trust and condence in water
provider, people's response to dust, noise, and visual amenity impacts, beach and ocean-based recreational activity impacts,
disruption to the properties and activities along the pipeline,
impact on the future residential development, impact on the industrial development in the local area, impact on local economic
activity, risk to public safety, disruption of local businesses, and
impact of construction on road users.
A survey was conducted in Australia for four locations namely
Binningup, Myalup, Pamelup estate and Pipeline route with over
333 respondents. About 45% of respondents on this survey had a
very low or low levels of trust while 28% neither trust nor distrust
the water corporation. When asked about the installation of the
desalination plant, 55% of the respondents did not approve the
seawater desalination project while 23% neither approve nor
disapprove (SSDP, 2009). A good portion of the respondents
expressed concerns about the negative impacts on the marine
environment during both the construction and operation phases of
the project. Also a majority of the respondents mentioned about
the negative impacts on the recreational use of the beach. Other
signicant opinions expressed over the positive impact that the

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V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

desalination project might have were about local economy during

both construction and operation phases. When asked for suggestions to improve the desalination project, the respondents have
indicated a few important aspects such as noise reduction, visual
and environmental impacts. About 41% of the respondents suggested that the desalination plant be located elsewhere which
might have the possibility for inclusion of water transportation
costs. Other suggestions included adaptive management, fostering
local employment and further research on environmental impacts.
Social issues with desalination technologies also vary with the
size of the community. Small communities might have lesser issues
when compared with large communities having large number of
fer, 2007). For example, small communities
issues (Werner and Scha
are usually located in remote locations where water supply infrastructure itself does not exist and reliance on transported water is
common. For these communities, onsite water production via
desalination technologies might seem attractive. The social issues
or concerns with small communities are not insignicant in their
impact. For example, it is important to have skilled labor to maintain the desalination facilities. Especially if the community has a
limited access to the electric grid, renewable energy sources have to
be employed which again demand higher levels of expertise and
skills from the operators. Public education and participation is a
must. Where the communities did not accept desalination technologies as their water supply option, systems introduced in these
communities did not fare well. Where the social impacts were
neglected, such installations resulted in abandonment and
dysfunctional units. The community should also demonstrate the
commitment and ownership of the facility to ensure reliable water
supply both in quantity and quality. For small communities, operative risk and demand satisfaction also become important factors
connected with skill levels and sustainable behavior.
Sustainable behavior can have a positive impact on the success
of the desalination plants. Respectful use of water sources and
proper maintenance of the desalination plants is critical to sustenance of small communities. Sustainable behavior can be improved
by public education but it can have both positive and negative
impacts. Those people that already oppose the desalination technologies might become even stubborn in their perspective but the
others with uncertain opinion might embrace desalination option.
Another common issue is that communities, in many cases, do not
like to have a physical plant installed in nearby locations or cities
for various reasons often termed as Not In My Backyard (NIMBY).
Construction of large desalination plants involves several inconveniences to the local communities including closure of recreational facilities, local transportation, noise and air pollution and

aesthetical depreciation, inow and outow trafc transporting

materials.
Other foreseeable social impacts with desalinated water are
diverse. First, desalinated water is now introduced as a commodity
which might have both positive and negative impacts on the economic and social status/reforms of a region or country. The freshwater costs through desalination are agreed to be affordable for
tourism purpose but the same is not acceptable as a domestic water
supply source in many regions which can be considered a social
injustice or a conict with the most basic human right to have
access to clean and affordable water supplies. The former use can
also have a signicant impact on the local energy sources and the
local environment.
4. Desalination out of desperation e case studies
While the value of water sources is underappreciated in many
parts of the world, water scarcity can present substantial challenges
for sustainable development. Water scarcity hinders economic
development, detriments human health, leads to environmental
degradation and promotes political and social instability. Measures
such as water conservation, improving efciency of supply and
distribution systems could help but the contribution from these
efforts will not be substantial. New water supplies/resources must
be identied and developed for reliable and sustainable development of future water supplies since global populations are expected
to increase by 50% by 2030. Global agencies (including WHO, UNDP,
UNICEF, etc.) expect that 24 of the least developed countries, many
of them along coastal areas without access to freshwater and
electricity, need to more than double their efforts to reach the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for basic health, sanitation, and welfare (Gude and Nirmalakhandan, 2010). It is imperative for arid and oil-rich countries in the Middle Eastern region to
rely on desalination technologies for their freshwater supplies. But
some other parts of the world rich in water resources earlier are
now facing serious water source-supply issues. Climate change and
shifting population demographics, which exacerbate water shortages in certain areas of accelerated population growth, are adding
to rapid industrialization where reliable freshwater supplies are
being severely stretched. Seawater represents as an obvious
resource to tackle the resulting problem of water scarcity, especially
in coastal areas. Five case studies can be discussed here: the state of
California in the USA, desalination plants in Australia, sustainable
water supply scheme in Singapore, SoutheNorth water transportation project and desalination trends in China, and the desalination plants and water supply in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Fig. 4. Existing and proposed desalination plants in California, surface water and brackish desalination plants in Florida and Texas.

Fig. 5. California's continuous drought since 2011 and water supply options and relative energy consumption (kWh/m3) for southern California to battle the continuous drought and
simultaneous increase in water demands (water transport from the northern Californian dams and reservoirs, water transport from Colorado River, water reclamation for indirect
water reuse, and desalination of inland brackish water or seawater from pacic ocean and gulf of Mexico (Cooley, 2014).

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V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

4.1. Desalination in California, USA

Large disparities exist within the United States water source
availability. The USA is relatively a water abundant country in absolute terms but there are signicant regional differences: the
Southwest region of the country is arid and drought-prone while
the Northeast and Midwest areas have more precipitation and access to the Great Lakes (which make up the largest surface freshwater system on Earth). An additional 60.56 billion m3 per year of
water is required by 2020 for municipal and light industrial uses in
USA (Cohen, 2007). In California alone, combined agricultural, urban, and environmental demands already exceed average supplies
by 1.23  109 m3 (326 billion gallons) per year while 50% of the
nation's future population growth is forecast to occur in CA, FL, and
TX e regions already experiencing water shortages. Fig. 4 shows the
map of existing desalination plants in California, Florida and Texas
states in the USA. Florida leads the nation in the use of desalination
technology, both in number of facilities using the process (more
than 140) and the quantity of potable water produced each day
(1.95  106 m3 or 515 million gallons). This is reective of efforts to
meet the needs of the state's increasing population while avoiding
overuse of traditional drinking water sources, particularly in coastal
areas of central and south Florida. The majority of the source water
treated at desalination plants in Florida is not saltwater, but
brackish ground water or surface water. A few Florida water plants
draw their source water from coastal seawater. The Tampa Bay
Seawater Desalination Facility is the only large-scale reverse
osmosis facility in the state using a coastal surface water source.
However, seawater desalination technology is being considered for
application in other areas such as the Coquina Coast project in
Flagler County in Northeast Florida where land-based and novel
ship-based approaches are being considered. Texas is in a severe
drought, with groundwater supplies predicted to decline by 30%
over the next 50 years. At the same time, the population of Texas is
predicted to grow by 21 million, which will further stress the demands for freshwater. With dwindling surface and ground water
sources, it is necessary for Texas to examine alternative methods of
providing freshwater. One option is to desalinate the abundant
supply of brackish groundwater.
4.1.1. Energy requirements for different water supply options in CA
The state of California has been experiencing a historical record
of drought that is considered worst in the past 1200 years. Fig. 5
shows the drought trends in various parts of the USA and a
recent noticeable severe drought trend for California. Texas is not
too far from this situation. The demand for water supplies in Florida
originates from the economic development and population growth.
This situation which is also common in some parts of Texas and
Florida forces many legal administrators, engineers and scientists
to consider desalination as a freshwater supply alternative since
inexhaustible sources of seawater are available along the coastal
lines for these states. In California, other alternatives of water reuse
and conservation practices have been implemented in recent years
to battle the drought conditions. Between April 2013 and April
2015, water use decreased by 13.5%. In April 2015, Gov. Jerry Brown
has urged a 25% percent reduction in urban water use. Residential
water use accounts for 12% of total use in the state and communities with highest per capita water use are forced to cut the daily
consumption by 36%. Further, the California's drought resulted in
announcing a $1 billion desalination plant, slated to begin converting Pacic seawater into 0.19  106 m3 (50 million gallons) of
potable water daily by 2016 which will be the largest desalination
plant in the Western Hemisphere.
Energy requirements for different water supply options are
shown in Fig. 5 (NOAA, 2015). Seawater desalination in California

takes nine times as much energy as surface water treatment and 14

times as much energy as groundwater production. This is based on
estimated energy consumptions for seawater reverse osmosis
desalination process of 3.4 kWh.m3; conventional surface water
treatment (coagulation, occulation, sedimentation and ltration/
disinfection of 0.36 kWh/m3; and groundwater treatment of
0.24 kWh/m3). These numbers are based upon the assumptions
that the water sources are readily available within reasonable
depths or distances. But this is not the case everywhere. For
example, southern California receives surface water from Colorado
River through massive supply pipelines and conveyance systems.
Since water has to be supplied through long distances with
geographic elevations, the energy costs are signicant counting
between 14 and 19 percent of the residential energy costs which
includes air conditioning. In contrast, a conventional intake system
of a seawater reverse osmosis facility is only 15 to 20 percent of the
total water production costs. These costs decrease signicantly
with the desalination plant capacity. Therefore, it can now be
concluded that desalination could be a better alternative in areas
where other traditional water supply schemes prove to be energy
or capital (cost) intensive and pose environmental issues.
4.2. Desalination in Australia
Australia is the driest continent inhabited in the world
(Australian Government National Water Commission, 2005). It's
water supply sources are continuously being jeopardized due to
climate change patterns of severe droughts followed by forest res
and oods. The continent experienced worst drought for many
years since early 2000s (Hall et al., 2011). Similar to California in
USA, 10e15 years of low rainfall (El Saliby et al., 2009) what is
known as millennium drought (most dry period in more than 100
years) has been the cause for the urgent rise of desalination plants
in Australia. Fig. 6 shows the precipitation levels over the past 55
years (1950e2005) (Bureau of Meteorology) and the desalination
plant locations and their capacities in Australia (Grifn, 2013). The
rst major desalination plant was commissioned in 2006 in the city
of Perth which produces a 45 million m3 per year. A second desalination plant produces about 50 million m3 per year which will be
expanded to double its capacity due to continued drought. Adelaide
installed a 100 million m3 per year plant and another one in the
state of Queensland, a 48 million m3 plant is built. Above all, the
most expensive and controversial plant was commissioned in
Melbourne at a capacity of 150 million m3/d ($3.6 billion investment). But when the drought situation has been alleviated with
recent excess rainfalls some of the plants are not operating round
the clock or some extended periods. However, by building this
particular plant in the state of Victoria, the water supply security for

Fig. 6. Drought in Australia, desalination plant locations and costs.

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

99

the most populated city was enhanced albeit at high capital costs
which could have been reduced signicantly if the decisionconstruction process was delayed for over a year (Traves and
Davies, 2008; Water Services Association of Australia, 2008;
Water Services Association of Australia Ltd, 2013). Renewable energy sources such as wind farms have been utilized at many of
these plants (WSAA, 2011). The Australia's annual investment in
water supply and sources is about $2 billion per year equivalent to
$81 per capita per year (Australian dollars). The average residential
water use has decreased from 243 L per capita per day in 2003 to
191 L per capita per day in 2007 (WSAA, 2012). The country has
invested signicantly in water conservation, water reuse, recycling,
and reclamation, and rainwater harvesting as a strategic plan for
mitigating the impacts of droughts as well as allocating large reservoirs as water storage vessels. Although the recent drought
conditions disappeared, these will return in time and Australia is
prepared with its sophisticated infrastructure and management
policies to provide sustainable water supplies with condence
(WSAA, 2013; Radcliffe, 2015).
Desalination is not the ultimate solution for many communities
in Australia where it can have detrimental environmental impacts
on the concentrate receiving environment. Water recycling through
indirect potable reuse is a potential option to reduce the need for
high desalination capacities. However, there could be a high opposition from the local communities. As a part of the efforts to
convince the public and encourage high social acceptance for water
recycling alternatives (indirect potable reuse) over desalination
(because treatment costs and energy requirements for wastewater
recycling are lower) for water source supplies, several campaigns
were implemented. A comparison between the two options was
prepared as shown in Table 3 (National Water Commission, 2008).
Despite several successful attempts on the public educational
campaigns, indirect potable reuse was an unacceptable option for
public leaving desalination as the primary technology for water
supply.

high end use. The country has set a target of becoming water selfsufcient by the year 2061. To achieve this, a sustainable strategy
with four major elements has been adopted (Fig. 7). These are
water catchment (i), reclaimed water (ii) desalination (iii) and
imported water (iv) (Xie, 2006; Khoo, 2009; Luan, 2010). The local
water catchment area includes a comprehensive network of drains,
rivers and canals and 17 reservoirs which occupy about 65% of the
land area. This is planned to be enlarged to 90% of the land area by
2061 to increase the local water catchment for benecial uses
making this project the largest in the world for an urban setting
(Wong, 2011). Reclaimed water also known as NEWater is a
recycled water program that collects wastewater efuents and
processes it through advanced treatment schemes such as membrane ltration (ultraltration followed by reverse osmosis) and UV
disinfection for reuse purposes. This treatment scheme provides
water quality which exceeds the WHO (world health organization)
guidelines for drinking water quality. This NEWater system
network consists of four major used water treatment plants (Bedok
e 86,000 m3/d; Kranji 55,000 m3/d; Ulu Pandan e 150,000 m3/
d and Changi e 230,000 m3/d) which meets up to 30% of the current nation's water demand. The third element is the desalination
processes installed to treat seawater to produce freshwater at two
major desalination plants with a total capacity of 460,000 m3/d but
only operating at 230,000 m3/d which is 10% of the current water
needs. The fourth and the most signicant water supply option for
Singapore is imported water. Nearly 1.1 million m3/d of water is
transported from Malaysia through causeway system. The 2061
water self-sufciency strategic plan for the country is to provide for
100% water needs independently by the rst three strategic elements -by increasing the NEWater supplies to 50% and desalination
capacity to 30% and local water catchment to 20%. Singapore also
invested signicantly into programs to enhance the efforts of public
education and water conservation (Tortajada and Joshi, 2013).

4.3. Desalination in Singapore

550 of the China's 600 largest cities are experiencing severe

water stress today listing the country as one of the 13 water poorest
countries in the world (Macedonio et al., 2012). China is home to
20% of the world's population but only 7% of its freshwater (Sachs,
2013). Per capita water resources available in China are 2200 m3
which places China at 121st among other nations in the world and
this volume is expected to decrease to 1700 m3 within the next 50
years (Liu and Chen, 2001). Similar to the USA, China's precipitation, surface and groundwater supplies are concentrated in the

Singapore (land area e 700 km2 and annual precipitation e

2400 mm) is home to 5.5 million population with a water demand
of nearly 2 million m3/d. The country depends on its water needs on
Johor, Malaysia protected by a bilateral agreement made in 1961
(Tan et al., 2009). It's annual investments in water supplies and
sources are $ 609 million equivalent to $117 per capita per day. The
average water tariffs are about $1.88 per m3, and $2.38 per m3 for

4.4. Desalination in China

Table 3
Comparison of desalination and water recycling schemes in Australia (National Water Commission, 2008).
Item

Desalination

Water recycling

Example
Plant location

Kwinana Desalination Plant, Perth, Western Australia

Kwinana Industrial Precinct

Intake structure
Intake structure capacity
Feed water
Total dissolved solids,
in feedwater (TDS)
Treatment process

Sub-surface collector wells

2e2.5  product water capacity
Seawater
26,000e40,000 mg/L

Western Corridor Recycling Project, Queensland

Located at existing wastewater treatment plants
(Luggage Point, Bundamba, Gibson Island, Oxley)
Collection basin prior to discharge pump station
1.2e1.3  product water capacity
Secondary treated municipal wastewater
600e1500 mg/L

Product distribution

Process mechanical screening, chemical occulation and ltration

to remove microorganisms, suspended solids and particles
Reverse osmosis to remove dissolved solids
Chlorination, chemical stabilization and uoridation to prepare
water for distribution system

Return to large node in drinking water distribution system

Mechanical screening followed by chlorination and

membrane ltration to control biological fouling and
remove microorganisms and particles
Reverse osmosis to remove dissolved solids
Advanced oxidation (UV H2O2 or Ozone) to disinfect
parasites and remove small organic molecules
Chlorination and chemical stabilization to prepare
water for discharge in the environment
Supplied to power stations and used to recharge
Wivenhoe dam

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V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Fig. 7. Sustainable water supply strategic plan for Singapore: (i) local catchment areas; (ii) wastewater reclamation and reuse; (iii) desalination; and (iv) water transport (map of
catchment areas in the inset).

South, whereas the Northern part of the country is drought-prone.

About 80% of the surface and groundwater is available in Yangtze
River and southern parts of china where 54% of the population
resides in nearly 35% area of the whole country (Zhou and Tol,
2004). The water scarcity issues in northern China have been
complicated by the upstream and downstream use conicts and
political issues (Cai, 2008). The Chinese government is attempting
to address this uneven distribution through an ambitious $60
billion South-to-North water transfer project (Liu and Zheng,
2002), which aims to divert water from the Yangtze River to drier
regions in the North, where major cities like Beijing and Tianjin are
located with the hopes of attaining economic prosperity and stability in more populous northern region where the per capita share
of regional water has declined to near-crisis levels (shown in
Fig. 8A). The water transport system consists of an extensive system
of tunnels, dams, reservoirs and canals, all connecting and diverting
water from China's largest rivers e including the Yangtze, Yellow
and Hai River. At its peak capacity, the entire system can move
nearly 45 billion m3 of water annually. First proposed by Mao
Zedong in 1952, the project was ofcially approved in 2002. The
rst stage of construction, the 717 mile (1155 km) long eastern
route, was completed in 2013. This project had to face many criticisms due to enormous environmental damage that it created
through mining, construction and environmental pollution and
increased potential of oods and droughts in some areas and with
displacement of many people from their homes (Futuretimeline,
2015). After all this, it appears that by 2050 southern China may
not be in a position to transport water to the northern region since
the region has already begun to experience drought weathers
leaving desalination an option. The central government's Special
Plan for Seawater Utilization calls for producing 3.05  106 m3 (807
million gallons) a day of puried seawater by 2020 e roughly
quadruple the country's current desalination capacity. Fig. 8B
shows the energy requirements for various water supply options
including groundwater supplies, local and distance water transportation and brackish or seawater desalination in China. It is clear
that seawater desalination requires about 9 times higher energy
requirements when compared to groundwater supply source.
However, it can be noticed that the desalination costs have been
reduced signicantly over the recent years from 12.5 RMB/m3 in
1995 to 5 RMB/m3 in 2015 (Fig. 8C) while the desalination market

revenues increased steadily over the recent years (Fig. 8D) despite
the energy requirements and associated environmental emissions
(Peng, 2015).
4.5. Desalination in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia withdraws about 20,000  106 m3 annually despite
its annual renewable water capacity of only 2400  106 m3
(Kajenthira et al., 2012). It is the largest country in the world
without rivers and lakes (Llamas and Custudio, 2003) and has a
population of 25.7 million. About 80% of the water supplies are met
with the non-renewable groundwater sources which require
desalination due to high salinity. Saudi Arabia has the largest share
(17%) of the worldwide desalination capacity. The country needs to
increase the daily desalination capacity by 6  106 m3 which may
cost up to 200 billion dollars (Mezher et al., 2011). Between 2012
and 2015, the desalination capacity was expected to grow by 9.5
percent annually. The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC)
plans to invest $11.7 billion in capital expenditures and $4.5 billion
in operations expenditures through 2020, highlighting the vast
opportunities for desalination technology development and engineering, procurement, and construction rms (KSA, 2013).
Saline Water Conversion Corporation in Saudi Arabia constructed the world's largest desalination in Ras Al-Khair, an industrial city with a capacity of 0.728  106 m3 per day in 2014
(Water technology 2015a). The hybrid desalination plant consists of
8-MSF units and 17-RO units. The MSF units have a capacity of
0.606  106 m3 per day while the RO units hold a capacity of
0.257  106 m3 per day. This project also houses 2650 MW combined cycle power plant. The project construction cost was SAR
27bn which is approximately $7.2bn (Water technology 2015b).
There are six major projects expected to tender during the
2015e2016 timeframe. The largest is the Jubail thermal and reverse
osmosis (hybrid) project estimated to be worth US$ 3 billion (GWI,
2015). The remaining ve projects are all saline water conversion
plants utilizing reverse osmosis; they include Rabigh Phase 4, US$
1.2 billion; Umluj SWRO, US$ 30 million; Aqeer SWRO, US$ 20
million; and, South Dhahran SWRO, US$ 200 million. For this to
happen, developments in engineering services, membrane and
thermal desalination technologies and efcient utilization of solar
energy should be pursued. Wastewater treatment also needs

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

101

Fig. 8. Water transfer project in China. (A) Red lines show the southenorth water transportation project for transferring water from Yangtze River to Beijing and Tianjin major cities;
(B) energy requirements for various water supply options; (C) trends in desalination costs between years 1995 and 2015; and (D) desalination market value over the recent years.
(For interpretation of the references to colour in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

investments of nearly $23.9 billion in capital expenditures and

$11.9 billion in operations expenditures between 2012 and 2020.
Saudi's wastewater treatment capacity is expected to expand by
12.8 percent annually as well. Water reuse should be given a high
priority considering the water scarcity and the economic growth.
Saudi Arabia is the third-largest per capita water user in the world
(SAMC, 2010), yet currently treats and reuses only 18% of the total
wastewater produced (Al-Musallam, 2006; U.S.-SABC, 2009, 2010;
Kajenthira et al., 2011). Kajenthira et al. (2012) suggested that
implementation of increased water conservation and reuse across
the oil and natural gas sectors could conserve up to 29% of total
industrial water withdrawals at costs recovered over 0e30 years,
depending on the specic improvement. This study also indicated
that increasing wastewater treatment and reuse in six high-altitude
inland cities (Macca, Taif, Medina, Khamis, Abha, and Riyadh) could
save a further $225 million (2009 dollars) and conserve 2% of Saudi
Arabia's annual electricity consumption.
4.6. Desalination market around the world
The top desalination markets between 2010 and 2013 were
listed as Saudi Arabia ($1e5.16 billion); USA ($2e4.42 billion) and
Australia ($3e3.24 billion) followed by Israel, Kuwait, Libya and
UAE at $2.5 billion; $2.480 billion; $2.44 billion; and $2.2 billion
respectively (GWI, 2010). China and India, the most populated
countries would have unprecedented demand for the desalination
industry to meet the ever growing water supply needs. These
countries were at $1.52 billion and $1.3 billion respectively followed by Chile with $1.2 billion. Other countries in most need for

desalination are Caribbean Islands, Morocco, Spain, Oman, Iran,

Egypt, Bahrain, Turkey, Algeria and Jordan which completes the top
20 desalination markets in the recent years. Advancement of
desalination industry also promotes the economic growth and local
employment security for the nations. In many of these countries
the need for desalination industry arises since there are simply not
adequate freshwater sources or they are heavily polluted rendering
them not suitable for potable uses.
5. Affordable desalination e a worldwide scenario
At present, one third of the world population is lacking access to
clean water and by 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute
water scarcity, and two thirds of the global population will be living
under water-stressed conditions (Macedonio et al., 2012). Many
parts of the world are reaching a critical situation of water scarcity.
Water scarcity is classied into physical water scarcity and economic water scarcity (Rijsberman, 2006). Physical water scarcity
means that there are simply no adequate water resources to meet
the current needs. The economic water scarcity refers to a situation
where the water sources are available in abundance (water
resource availability is higher than the withdrawal, or the resource
capacity is underutilized) but the mechanisms to acquire access to
these sources have not been established or are inuenced by human, institutional, and nancial capital limitations. This could be
because of the economic issues, polluted water resources and political and social and climatic issues. In most cases the economic
water scarcity refers to a situation where the affordability to obtain
clean water has been jeopardized due to economic issues. Physical

102

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

water scarcity is currently experienced in southwestern region of

the United States which includes California, Arizona, New Mexico
and Texas and Mexico, Middle Eastern and North African countries
(MENA region) and southeastern European countries, Southern
India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and western Australia. Economic water
scarcity is experienced in central and Latin America including
Caribbean region, South and central Africa, North India, some parts
of China and some other Asian countries. In some of these countries, desalination supported by renewable energy sources could be
implemented as a sustainable option but many non-technological
barriers need to be overcome.
As it was discussed before, the energy requirements for desalination have fallen signicantly in recent years. Although the energy
budget for domestic desalination units appears to be reasonable,
many communities around the world cannot afford these energy
demands and associated costs. Fig. 9 depicts the desalinated water
affordability around the world. The vertical axis presents the cost
per capita of desalinated water to all at all times. The horizontal axis
depicts the ability to pay for water and it increases from left to right.
Four basic quadrants can be identied. The bottom right quadrant
depicts situations where the costs of supplying water in a sustainable manner are low, and countries' ability to pay is high. These
situations are limited largely to rich humid regions, particularly in
Western Europe and North America. In these countries the main
cost may pertain to assuring adequate water quality and pollution
prevention. The top right quadrant pertains to regions where the
per capita cost of clean water supply is high, but as these regions are
rich these costs are still only a small share of the total gross national

product (GNP) per capita. Thus countries in this quadrant, such as

the arid but rich Gulf oil states, can afford the high cost of clean
water supply even when this includes large-scale seawater desalination. These countries may enjoy the desalinated water, despite
their extreme rst order scarcity due to availability of ample nonrenewable energy sources and inexhaustible seawater sources.
The bottom left area depicts poor regions with ample water resources. In these regions the cost of desalinated water supply may
be low, but as the GNP is also low even these comparatively low
costs may become a signicant burden. These countries do not
suffer from rst-order scarcity. Because of second-order scarcity
and particularly low nancial capacity, desalination may not be an
attractive alternative. Examples of such countries would include
Congo, Madagascar, or Bangladesh. The worst situation, however, is
depicted by the upper left quadrant. This is the situation where the
per capita cost of sustainable clean water to all people at all times
would require high cost per capita, and in which such costs would
be a large share of the per capita GNP. Thus, regions in this situation
may nd that the costs of sustainable clean water are unaffordable
for their citizens and especially through desalination technologies.
The countries most prone to this situation are, naturally, poor
countries in arid or semi-arid regions. Such countries may have had
relatively high adaptive capacity, as demonstrated by traditional
societal institutions and infrastructures, and yet may not have the
nancial resources to cope with rapid increases in population or
pollution due to a weak economic base. Desalination alternative
may not be meaningful for many low income countries due to very
low GNP where other meaningful indicators could make more
sense (Feitelson and Chenoweth, 2002).

Fig. 9. Water desalination affordability around the world (These water tariffs include water and wastewater xed costs, water variable costs, wastewater variable costs and total
sales tax (GWI)).

V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Comparison of current worldwide water supply costs could

provide a different perspective as shown in Fig. 9. Many developed
countries such as Canada and USA and many European countries
have high freshwater costs. Water supply costs (tariffs including
wastewater disposal) of as high as 9.7 $/m3 were also reported (e.g.,
Copenhagen, Denmark). These data are collected from GWI database (GWI, 2014). The water costs in highly populated (such as
China, India, and Pakistan and Bangladesh) and poor countries are
barely minimum and often water supplies are available free of cost.
The citizens in these countries may not be willing to pay the high
costs of desalinated water. It is interesting to note that the water
costs (mostly supplied by desalination processes) in some of the
Middle Eastern countries are very low with Jeddah in Saudi Arabia
charging about 0.03 $/m3 (Zetland and Gasson, 2013). The water
prices are heavily subsidized in some of these countries despite the
use of large quantities of non-renewable energy sources. A reason
for this could be that desalination plants are often combined with
power production schemes reducing the water costs signicantly.
The governance of the country also inuences water costs. However, there is no clear relationship between the wealth and the
water costs of a nation. For example, the water costs for Gent,
Belgium are 7.43 $/m3 in 2011 but the water prices in Egypt are
$0.04/m3. The low water prices could possibly be related to low
capital and labor costs in Egypt. However, based on the GNP,
Belgium has a GNP per capita which is 14 times higher than that for
Egyptians while the water costs are 188 higher for Gent, Belgium
(Zetland and Gasson, 2013).
6. What drives desalination?
Considering the freshwater costs from desalination alone, they
have dramatically decreased over the past decades due to the improvements in process schemes, materials for construction and
other signicant improvements in membrane materials, water ux,
durability and costs and energy recovery possibilities. However, the
desalination costs and market implementation are affected by
external factors such as population growth, climate change, environmental emissions, and economic downturn or growth
(Masciangioli et al., 2004). Many countries will be affected by these
external factors in their ability to afford for desalinated water.
Fig. 10 shows how external factors affect the per capita costs and
the ability to pay for desalinated water costs. Other factors that
inuence the desalination industry positively for a coastal community will be saltwater intrusion issues due excess groundwater
pumping, industrial expansion, population growth, tourism industry growth, cheap energy sources (as in oil rich countries)
subsidized environmental emissions fee, and most importantly
water shortages and continued drought periods. The factors that
might inhibit the growth of the desalination market will be the

Fig. 10. Energy, environmental and economic drivers of desalination industry.

103

environmental opposition (concern for greenhouse gas emissions

and marine environment), water reuse and recycling programs,
high capital costs, high energy costs, and political instability and
uctuating drought period which will not allow for a critical evaluation of the future needs of a community. Cost is perceived to be
the major hurdle for the desalination plants to produce freshwater.
It is estimated that freshwater supply costs could be 5 to 6 times
higher even with favorable nancial package. Despite these high
costs, several desalination projects are currently being planned to
replace some part of the water supply that Southern California now
draws from the Colorado River. Because the cost analysis shows
that desalinated water is cost-effective for this region which is
stricken by continuous droughts recently.
7. Other alternatives
Other potential sources for water supplies are brackish water
sources available in local aquifers, produced waters from oil and gas
industries and recycled water from wastewater treatment plants.
These can be considered as non-conventional water sources for
water desalination in that the water composition and salt levels are
signicantly different from seawater sources and the technologies
required to treat these are also different. For example, ground
(brackish) water has a greater tendency to precipitate sulfate (for
example, gypsum), carbonate (for example, calcite), and silicate
scales. The dissolved solids concentration of saline groundwaters
typically is less than that of seawater. The tendency of saline
groundwater to form scale is important to its suitability for use in
desalination. Saline groundwater also may contain some constituents, such as arsenic, elevated radioactive compounds, and dissolved organic material, at greater concentrations than in seawater.
Although a relatively large body of information exists on the
chemical behavior of solutes within desalination systems, relatively
little research has been undertaken on the chemical suitability of
water from various aquifers as sources for desalination.
Brackish water desalination may have less environmental impacts based on life cycle analysis. This is mainly due to the fact that
some of the brackish water sources have lower salt concentrations
which reduces the energy demands for salt separation and asso~ oz and Fern
ciated environmental emissions (Mun
andez-Alba,
2008). Energy and environmental impacts may vary by location
because brackish water sources have a wide range of dissolved
solids concentrations (between 1000 mg/L to 150,000 mg/L). For
example, seawater desalination may have an energy and air emission footprint of 1.5e2.4 times larger than that of imported water in
California which can reduce the environmental impacts of brackish
water desalination (between 53 and 66%) in comparison. If the
annual water needs (326 m3) of a typical Californian were to be met
with imported water, it will require 5.8 GJ of energy with associated
360 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions while seawater desalination
may require 14 GJ and release 800 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions.
Interestingly, water desalination using solar thermal energy has
lower greenhouse gas emissions than that of imported or recycled
water as discussed in Stokes and Horvath (2009).
Although brackish water sources are attractive for desalination,
it should be noted that these sources are not innite unlike
seawater sources. Increased extraction of groundwater may result
in a situation termed as water mining due to the fact that
groundwater aquifers recharge at a much slower rate than they are
consumed. This may result in land subsidence. If brackish
groundwater sources are exploited for domestic water supplies,
continued extraction of brackish water in coastal communities may
result in saltwater intrusion into groundwater aquifers which
eventually increases energy consumption for the desalination
process along with environmental emissions.

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V.G. Gude / Water Research 89 (2016) 87e106

Produced waters are different from groundwater sources since

they are a byproduct of various energy production operations and
its extraction is inevitable. These can serve as excellent sources for
desalination processes. However, the salt concentrations are often
10e20 times higher than the seawater sources but vary between
100 mg/L and 400, 000 mg/L of total dissolved solids (Guerra et al.,
2011). This fact poses signicant limitations for existing desalination technologies because they are not designed for this type of
brackish water source. Other signicant issue with produced waters is that they contain high concentrations of organic compounds
which may also affect the performance of desalination
technologies.
Water reuse is emerging as a promising non-conventional water
resource (Molinos-Senante et al., 2011). However, proper assessment of reuse options are essential to determine its suitability. As
shown in Table 3, comparison between the water recycling process
treatment and the desalination process schemes shows that
advanced treatment of wastewater efuents need additional process steps to deliver water quality suitable for most indirect potable
uses (National Water Commission, 2008). This indicates the potential for higher environmental emissions associated with them.
In the case of desalination plants, the salt concentrations are
generally higher and with water recovery this is expected to be
even higher. However, with proper dilution and pre-treatment of
the brine discharge from the desalination outfalls, the ecological
and environmental impacts can be mitigated.

8. Conclusions
Once considered as energy- and cost-intensive technology for
freshwater production, desalination has now become a promising
alternative for providing freshwater needs around the world. The
desalination industry is projected to experience unprecedented
growth concurrently with population growth and rapid industrialization all over the world. The following areas need to be given
proper consideration while planning for new desalination plants:
 Desalination costs have declined signicantly for both thermal
and membrane technologies over the past decades. Signicant
cost reductions have been achieved, especially for RO technology, favored by growth rate, plant capacity, higher permeation
rates and improvements in membrane materials. However,
further reduction in desalinated water costs in the future is quite
a challenging task despite the continuous improvements in
membrane and energy recovery technologies since the equipment, raw materials, and energy costs are rapidly rising. Hence,
greater understanding of water scarcity scenarios and discoveries targeting local supply issues will benet from strategic
planning and management. Further, technological advances in
novel membrane development, process congurations such as
closed circuit RO and process hybridization of membrane and
thermal processes are crucial for developments in the near
future.
 More research efforts should be dedicated to development of
desalination technologies such as membrane distillation and
adsorption desalination that can efciently harvest solar energy
and waste process heat for water production. Process management schemes should not only focus on minimizing specic
energy consumption but also on enhancing water recovery
through various options.
 Environmental regulations for desalination plants are being
implemented more strictly in countries like the United States,
the European Union and Australia which might add to the
desalination costs, particularly due to high project permitting
requirements and fee. However, if the environmental pollution

from the desalination plants can be reduced by utilizing

renewable energy sources and by modifying the process
schemes to use less toxic chemicals, freshwater production
through desalination systems can become an affordable, sustainable, and environmentally-benign approach in the near
future.
The environmental, economic and social components of desalination sustainability are similar in nature to other water supply and wastewater treatment alternatives. As the economic and
social issues related to desalination are more exible in nature,
environmental and ecological issues need more non-biased and
comprehensive investigations. For regions where desalination is
the most feasible alternative, the environmental issues demand
serious consideration.
A new perspective needs to be adopted to deal with the water
scarcity issues and the crisis around the most drought stricken
areas to promote desalination as alternative or primary water
supply process. Engineers and scientists along with the policy
makers and regulators are urged to exercise caution in evaluating the desalination process as an option for meeting the
water demands.
A well-informed, unbiased and objective assessment with
reference to other available options is necessary to design a
scientically feasible, economically affordable and environmentally friendly water supply scheme for a local community.
This can only become possible with availability of more detailed
studies addressing ecological and environmental impacts of
desalination processes at small and large scale applications. The
effects of various chemicals used in Pre- and Post-treatment of
desalination process streams on the consumers as well as the
receiving water bodies should be studied in detail.
Since desalination is not a sustainable alternative for all situations, other alternatives such as water reuse and rainwater
harvesting should also be actively pursued because these options carry a different set of environmental benets.

Acknowledgments
This research was supported the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), the Bagley College of Engineering
(BCoE), and The Ofce of Research and Economic Development
(ORED) at Mississippi State University. The author acknowledges
the funding support from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) through P3 (People, Planet, and Prosperity)
Phase I Awards SU835721 and SU835722.
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