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As a community a thought is lingering in the back of our minds. Our population is exponentially growing, and as we see more and more fresh water slip down the drain away from us, Where will we look to get fresh drinking water in the future?
As the human race starts to see the water sources deplete we look to new ways to keep our species alive. In the past the concept of water desalination has come into our minds as a new way of getting drinking water. But with everything that we as humans have done to the world is it a good plan to start relying on water desalination to survive?
Water desalination proves to have many environmental determinants but proves some social benefits so shall we continue down our path of bettering ourselves in spite of destroying our environment or shift our view on progress towards bettering the physical world we live in?
As water starts its journey out of the salty ocean and into these large plants it is followed by many costs and benefits through this process. Before water can even get into these plants we have to spend obscure amounts of money just to create these facilities. The cost of building a single plant can vary in cost depending on location anywhere from “$300 million to $2.9 billion. (US Dollars)” (Kwak). Even though this can put a strain on a government's budget it is hard to put a price on water, an essential to sustaining life. Though this process is very costly we can definitely see that it is needed.
Once water gets into these plants it must turn into fresh water that we can drink. Though it is hard to put a direct cost on exactly how much is used but we do know that “the power contributes to one-third to one half”(Kwak) of the total cost to maintain the plant. This with the cost just to construct these plants adds up to be lots of money. On top of this staggering amount paid for energy resources, the means of getting this energy is not the cleanest. Almost all of the world's industrial desalination plants use fossil fuels to create fresh water, meaning desalinating water does not only pollute the water but it also pollutes the air.
Now that this water has finally been cleaned from its contaminants it can finally start being consumed and used in daily life. This is a definite benefit for consumers residing in the countries that don't have access or enough fresh water to drink. Lots of Caribbean islands and nations in the middle east do not have the luxury of having fresh water sources at hand. Desalinating the water provides drinkable water in places where it is hard to be found. This also means places that before couldn't support human life to well now can and the area can thrive.
This graph shows the GDP of the United Arab Emirates, a nation who heavily depends on water desalination for drinking water. Its growth is measured over time from 1984 to present and the predicting the future. “In the mid-1990s, the government decided to reorganize the water and electricity sectors… Transmission of bulk water to Al Ain and Liwa oasis (two large desalination plants in the country.)” (Water Supply and Sanitation in Abu Dhabi). When the graph is looked at with closer inspection it can be seen that in the mid 1990’s where water desalination was used more or in ‘bulk’ the prosperity of the nation's wealth increased. There was a transition from a consistent GDP and the up to one that starts to increase. This shows a direct relation, an increase in fresh water supply lets economies flourish. This is exactly what happened with the UAE. “The demand for water in the UAE is estimated at 4.2 billion cubic metres per year. Since the UAE is located in the desert, it has a very small amount of underground water.” (Plecher) Again the ability to desalinate water has let places that don't have or have limited access to fresh drinkable water have let them to develop and thrive as they can now support larger populations of people. The advancement in water purification technology has been a benefit to consumers and economies
Another cost that has to be dealt with when it comes to desalinating water is the discharge that is put back into the water. Discharge is all the contaminants of fresh water after they have been taken out. It is a combination of: salt, sand, dirt, and grime. After this has been taken out it is almost always dumped back into the water polluting it even more. “This discharge, known as brine, can change the salinity and lower the amount of oxygen in the water at the disposal site, stressing or killing animals not used to the higher levels of salt” (Kwak) this damages ocean ecosystems around these plants and even though we might be helping ourselves sustain life with this process many other animals are dying from this modern and unnatural cause.
Hopefully now after learning more we can start answering these tough questions. We can now know that there is a direction to look in when considering future water sources. We are more knowledgeable and can make a more informed decision about where we should look to source water. As well as we can now look at the world through a new lens when deciding what we have to do to stay alive while keeping in mind our impact on the environment.
This said, keeping our eyes open and gaining more knowledge to create a concrete opinion on the efficacy of our drinking water is something we owe to ourselves and the rest of the world as we look towards maintaining a safe future.
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