Can desalination solve global water shortage?

As population grows, water becomes more scarce

And as the global population burgeons and is expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, there is an urgent need to embrace water technologies to address the worrying pressure this will place on resources. 

Among the innovations touted is water desalination, which has received a warm welcome from both government and industry players. The process of removing salt, impurities and other minerals on a massive scale to quench the thirst of millions and be used in other activities, like farming, largely involves two techniques: The less technical one is the heating of sea or salty water to draw pure vapour, which is then cooled into liquid that is safe for drinking; the more complicated process, dubbed reverse osmosis, uses membranes that push water through filters at a high pressure in order to remove salt and other impurities. 

The over 20,000 desalination plants available globally embrace these processes, producing approximately 25 billion gallons of desalinated water every day. 

Over half of the global desalination capacity lies in the Middle East and North Africa, with the global market set to reach $37 billion by 2032. 

“While desalination on its own cannot solve the global water crisis, it is proving to be one of the most effective ways of taming water loss and boosting supplies with the evolution of technologies involved in water recycling reaching millions who would otherwise struggle with access to clean and affordable water,” Matthew Wasike, a water engineer at the University of Nairobi, explained to FairPlanet. “This comes at a time when water has become a political and global issue of momentous proportions.” 

Governmental and private sector interventions

Aware of the threat that water scarcity poses to nations and their citizens, governments have spent millions of dollars on desalination initiatives. 

For instance, in October 2024, the Moroccan government and French utilities firm Veolia inked a deal to build what they say will become the largest seawater desalination project in Africa for regions plagued by droughts. It is expected to supply the water needs of about 9.3 million people, or one in four Moroccans. Officials in the North African country said by 2050, half of its drinking water will come from desalination plants.

Namibia, still recovering from its worst drought in over a century, has been working with neighbouring Botswana to develop the Walvis Bay desalination plant, whose recycled water would be shared among the two countries. It also plans to start building a second desalination plant this year, while a Chinese nuclear firm announced plans to build the African country’s largest plant in the Erogen region. 

Beyond governments, private players have supported desalination efforts through investments of mega-projects and small-scale interventions. 

Berlin-based start-up Boreal Light has been working with millions of undersupplied people through an innovative model dubbed WaterKiosk. Last year, it supplied 23 Kenyan hospitals with solar-powered desalination systems which would provide more than 1 million litres of safe drinking water per day. It has expanded its services to other countries, including Somalia, Tanzania and Madagascar. 

Human-caused challenges

Ongoing droughts have been exacerbated by human-caused climate change in southern Italy, the Amazon river basin, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Horn of Africa in the past two years. Water desalination plants now don’t just seek to ease water shortages in areas with low access, but also fill in the gaps from climate impacts. A desalination plant in Cape Town, for example, will be built to counter threats of climate change and unpredictable rainfall.

Wars are also destroying desalination plants that take years and high sums to construct. In war-torn Gaza, the only desalination plant serving the strip’s northern part was destroyed by the Israeli military in January this year, pushing the area’s humanitarian crisis into a deeper abyss. 

The enormous cost involved in building and operating such plants also add on the water bills of already underdeveloped regions, as well as low-income families who spend more on utilities. But it’s important to note that compared to building dams, desalination plants are the cheapest available technology for clean drinking water. 

“The benefits of desalination go beyond the single-use value of the water produced. If coupled with water reuse for irrigation, desalination reduces groundwater abstraction and augments the water cycle,” noted a European Commission-backed study. “As such, it may support both adaptation to, and mitigation of climate change impacts by deploying plentiful water for human use, with all the benefits that entails, while helping preserve and restore ecosystems.” 

There have also been concerns about the exorbitant cost of energy involved in the process and its impact to the environment from carbon dioxide emissions, and the threat to marine biodiversity as a result of the dumping of salt and unwanted minerals into oceans. 

Enter green desalination

However, as technology advances, countries and organisations are tapping into modern innovations, like using renewable energy to enhance clean desalination. 

Saudi Arabia’s power firm ACWA Power, while partnering with research and development company Water Global Access announced the integration of green water desalination technology in seawater desalination which would reduce energy consumption while ensuring that the byproducts released after desalination were completely green. 

“At a time when Africa is grappling with a high cost of energy and over 600 million of its population not connected to the national grid, energy conservation is key. And as the continent faces unprecedented water shortages, it has to accommodate modern and sustainable ways of recycling waste water management,” Michelle Karimi, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) specialist, told FairPlanet. 

“By being well endowed with renewable energy, the continent is at a pole position to embrace these clean energy sources in finding lasting solutions to water shortages. Desalination provides a plausible option.