UAE | Environment

Experts call for reviewing green cost of desalination

Experts have called for a body to monitor the impact of desalination on the environment in light of the record growth the desalination industry has witnessed in the last year.

  • By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter, Gulf News
  • Published: 00:00 November 9, 2009
  • Gulf News

  • Image Credit: Guillermo Munro, Gulf News

Dubai: In the next four years the water desalination capacity in the Arabian Gulf will double, pumping twice as much waste-water concentrate, or brine, into coastal waters, according to water experts attending the International Desalination Association World Summit in Dubai.

Experts have called for a body to monitor the impact of desalination on the environment in light of the record growth the desalination industry has witnessed in the last year, with 700 new plants globally coming online that treat seawater, brackish water or river water.

Christopher Gasson, publisher of Global Water Intelligence which brings out the Worldwide Desalting Plant Inventory said the bigger environmental impact on the Gulf was not only the desalination process but the lack of fresh water feeding it.

"I would say that the more important impact on the Gulf is the Ilusu dam in Turkey which is blocking the Tigris river, which is stopping any fresh water from coming into the Gulf — and that's the point isn't it, there is a lack of fresh water in the region," said Gasson. "These methods of capturing water are just as detrimental to the environment as desalination."

The Ilusu dam is located on the Tigris River in Turkey. Construction started in 2006 and stopped in 2008 due to lack of funding but began again in July 2009.

The Worldwide Desalting Plant Inventory states that the installed capacity of sea-water desalination plants has expanded by 29.6 per cent to 35.9 million cubic metres per day, globally. "We project that by 2014 we will be adding more than the equivalent of a new River Thames each year to the world's renewable freshwater resources," he said.

Gasson added the Middle East has "probably already reached peak water", the stage where the amount of water pumped from underground aquifers is sharply decreasing.

"Subsidised water makes it very cheap and not good for discouraging demand… it is more difficult to change behaviour than to change technology," he said.

However water costs risk being affected by environmental monitoring of desalination plants, said Tom Pankratz, editor of Water Desalination Report and consultant at IDA.

"There are a lot of desalination plants in the Gulf. A lot of concentrate is being pumped back into it with a lot of potential for harming the environment. Other coastlines are going to look like [the Arabian Gulf] down the road," he said. Adding real-time monitoring could cost up to $3 million (Dh11 million), he added. "This should be reflected in the price of water."

Arabian Gulf: Monitoring vacuum

Very few, if any studies currently exist on the impact of desalination on the Arabian Gulf, which feeds at least 120 desalinations plants located in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.

A Gulf News investigation published earlier this year found that between them these plants flush nearly 24 tonnes of chlorine, 65 tonnes of algae-harming anti-scalants used to descale pipes, and around 300kg of copper into the Arabian Gulf every day.

Tom Pankratz, editor of the Water Desalination Report and consultant for the International Desalination Association (IDA) said improved monitoring is needed. "Very few studies exist to determine the impact of these quantities," he said.

Thermal desalination plants have more impact on the marine ecosystem than membrane plants as they have heavy metals that leach from pipes, he said.

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