How water scarcity will affect the growth in the desalination market in the coming 25 years

Desalination technology is finding new outlets in supplying water to meet growing municipal domestic consumption needs in water scarce countries with a per capita availability below 1,000 m³/y. An expansion of the current municipal water desalination market was related to the population growth and the groundwater scarcity in the coming 25 years in various regions of the world: Europe, The Caribbean, South East and Western Asia, GCC States and North Africa. First, the current impact of desalination on the renewable groundwater resources in these selected areas was determined. Results indicated, that the desalination capacity exceeds 2–10 times the renewable groundwater resources in Qatar, Kuwait, Malta and Saudi Arabia, 10–50% in Libya and Barbados, and less than 0.5% in Jordan, Yemen and Singapore. In the future, a population growth from 51–116 million, 1995–2025, was assumed to be the driving force determining the need for desalination in order to maintain the current urban municipal domestic water consumption (an average of 0.265 m³/cap/d) in these countries. By 2000, a total sea and brackish water desalination capacity of 7.3 million m³/d was installed for municipal purposes in these countries. This indicated a growth in the desalination capacity of 1.9 million m³/d, 35%, between 1995 and 2000. By 2025, the growth in the municipal water desalination market will need to reach 14.8 million m³/d, 200%, to maintain the current urban municipal domestic water needs and to prevent any decline in renewable groundwater resources in the 10 water scarce countries selected in this study.

The current impact of desalination varies greatly among the 10 water scarce countries selected in this study. The current installed desalination capacity exceeds the renewable groundwater resources by a factor 2–10 in Qatar, Kuwait, Malta and Saudi Arabia, while it accounts for 10–50% in Libya and Barbados and less than 0.5% in Jordan, Yemen and Singapore. The driving force determining the need for desalination development in municipal domestic water supply is assumed to be the population growth from 51 million in 1995 to the projected 116 million by 2025. This will cause continuous decline in the renewable groundwater resource availability in the 10 selected water scarce countries. A growth in desalination capacity of ca. 15 million m³/d will be needed to supply the urban population in the 10 water scarce countries and to prevent groundwater withdrawals for municipal purposes in the next 25 years.