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

Desalination technology is finding new outlets in supplying water to meet g rowing municipal domestic consumption needs in water scarce countries with a per capita availability below 1,000 m(3)/y. An expansion of the current m unicipal 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 N orth Africa. First, the current impact of desalination on the renewable gro undwater resources in these selected areas was determined. Results indicate d, that the desalination capacity exceeds 2-10 times the renewable groundwa ter 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 t he current urban municipal domestic water consumption (an average of 0.265 m(3)/cap/d) in these countries. By 2000, a total sea and brackish water des alination capacity of 7.3 million m(3)/d was installed for municipal purpos es in these countries. This indicated a growth in the desalination capacity of 1.9 million m(3)/d, 35%, between 1995 and 2000. By 2025, the growth in the municipal water desalination market will need to reach 14.8 million m(3 )/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.