This post is also available in: Español (Spanish) Français (French) Deutsch (German)
As much as 97 % of the world’s water is saltwater, which at a first glance could seem like an unlimited drinking water source tapped through desalination plants. However, seawater desalination has also its downsides as it is energy intensive and ample environmental challenges need to be faced. One of biggest environmental impacts caused by desalination plants is the highly saline brine emitted into the sea. This effluent may have a higher temperature than the receiving water body, contains residual chemicals from the pre-treatment process, heavy metals due to corrosion, or intermittently used cleaning agents. Therefore, the effluents of the process in fact highly affect the very resources they depend on. To learn more about the challenges of seawater desalination, have a look at the presentation below!
Seawater Desalination by Fuzhi Yao and Ruth Schaldach is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
