An Economic Assessment of the Global Potential for Seawater Desalination to 2050

Seawater desalination is a promising approach to satisfying water demand in coastal countries suffering from water scarcity. To clarify its potential future global scale, we perform a detailed investigation of the economic feasibility of desalination development for different countries using a feasibility index (Fi) that reflects a comparison between the price of water and the cost of production. We consider both past and future time periods. For historical validation, Fi is first evaluated for nine major desalination countries; its variation is in good agreement with the actual historical development of desalination in these countries on both spatial and temporal scales. We then simulate the period of 2015–2050 for a Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP2) and two climate scenarios. Our projected results suggest that desalination will become more feasible for countries undergoing continued development by 2050. The corresponding total global desalination population will increase by 3.2-fold in 2050 compared to the present (from 551.6 × 106 in 2015 to 1768 × 106). The major spread of seawater desalination to more countries and its availability to larger populations is mainly attributed to the diminishing production costs and increasing water prices in these countries under the given socioeconomic/climate scenarios.

[1]  Marc F. P. Bierkens,et al.  Modelling global water stress of the recent past: on the relative importance of trends in water demand and climate variability , 2011 .

[2]  A. Stikker,et al.  How water scarcity will effect the growth in the desalination market in the coming 25 years , 2001 .

[3]  Xun Wu,et al.  Adoption of increasing block tariffs (IBTs) among urban water utilities in major cities in China , 2017 .

[4]  Baltasar Peñate,et al.  Current trends and future prospects in the design of seawater reverse osmosis desalination technology , 2012 .

[5]  P. Glueckstern,et al.  Cost estimates of large RO systems , 1991 .

[6]  Hassan A. Arafat,et al.  Capital cost estimation of RO plants: GCC countries versus southern Europe , 2014 .

[7]  Lawrence L. Kazmerski,et al.  Energy Consumption and Water Production Cost of Conventional and Renewable-Energy-Powered Desalination Processes , 2013 .

[8]  Hannah G. Yamada,et al.  An assessment of global net irrigation water requirements from various water supply sources to sustain irrigation: rivers and reservoirs (1960–2050) , 2013 .

[9]  Raphael Semiat,et al.  Energy issues in desalination processes. , 2008, Environmental science & technology.

[10]  Hisham Ettouney,et al.  Developments in thermal desalination processes: Design, energy, and costing aspects , 2007 .

[11]  Jadwiga R. Ziolkowska,et al.  Desalination leaders in the global market – current trends and future perspectives , 2016 .

[12]  Umberto La Commare,et al.  Assessment of methodologies and data used to calculate desalination costs , 2017 .

[13]  Subhajyoti Das,et al.  The World's Water 2006-2007 , 2009 .

[14]  S. Piper.  Impact of water quality on municipal water price and residential water demand and implications for water supply benefits , 2003 .

[15]  S. Kanae,et al.  A global water scarcity assessment under Shared Socio-economic Pathways – Part 2: Water availability and scarcity , 2012 .

[16]  A. Lamei,et al.  Basic cost equations to estimate unit production costs for RO desalination and long-distance piping to supply water to tourism-dominated arid coastal regions of Egypt , 2008 .

[17]  Sangho Lee,et al.  Economic Evaluation of a Hybrid Desalination System Combining Forward and Reverse Osmosis , 2015, Membranes.

[18]  Isha Ray,et al.  Urban water supply in India: status, reform options and possible lessons , 2009 .

[19]  A. M. Blanco-Marigorta,et al.  Energy efficiency and desalination in the Canary Islands , 2014 .

[20]  Marshall A. Wise,et al.  Balancing global water availability and use at basin scale in an integrated assessment model , 2016, Climatic Change.

[21]  E. Stehfest,et al.  RCP2.6: exploring the possibility to keep global mean temperature increase below 2°C , 2011 .

[22]  Theodoros Zachariadis,et al.  Residential Water Scarcity in Cyprus: Impact of Climate Change and Policy Options , 2010 .

[23]  Yoshiki Yamagata,et al.  Estimation of Gridded Population and GDP Scenarios with Spatially Explicit Statistical Downscaling , 2016, Sustainability.

[24]  J. Ziolkowska.  Is Desalination Affordable?—Regional Cost and Price Analysis , 2015, Water Resources Management.

[25]  Naota Hanasaki,et al.  A seawater desalination scheme for global hydrological models , 2016 .

[26]  David Saurí,et al.  The end of scarcity? Water desalination as the new cornucopia for Mediterranean Spain , 2014 .

[27]  Nicholas Milne,et al.  Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation , 2013 .

[28]  S. Kanae,et al.  Global Hydrological Cycles and World Water Resources , 2006, Science.

[29]  R. Semiat,et al.  Energy and environmental issues in desalination , 2015 .

[30]  Noreddine Ghaffour,et al.  Technical review and evaluation of the economics of water desalination: Current and future challenges for better water supply sustainability , 2013 .

[31]  D. Gerten,et al.  Grand Challenges Related to the Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Freshwater Resources , 2015 .

[32]  Keywan Riahi,et al.  A new scenario framework for climate change research: the concept of shared socioeconomic pathways , 2013, Climatic Change.

[33]  Mohammed A. Al-Sahlawi,et al.  Seawater desalination in Saudi Arabia: economic review and demand projections☆ , 1999 .

[34]  M. Kainuma,et al.  SSP3: AIM implementation of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways , 2017 .

[35]  Sophia Ruester,et al.  The Impact of Governance Structure on Firm Performance – An Application to the German Water Distribution Sector , 2010 .

[36]  L. Mays.  Groundwater Resources Sustainability: Past, Present, and Future , 2013, Water Resources Management.

[37]  A. Angelakis,et al.  Desalination Technologies: Hellenic Experience , 2014 .

[38]  R. Tol,et al.  Evaluating the costs of desalination and water transport , 2005 .

[39]  H. Chandler.  Database , 1985 .

[40]  Christian Breyer,et al.  Local cost of seawater RO desalination based on solar PV and wind energy: A global estimate , 2016 .

[41]  Ahmed A. Askalany,et al.  Recycling brine water of reverse osmosis desalination employing adsorption desalination: A theoretical simulation , 2017 .