ABSTRACT
16A rapid population growth and urbanization are two main drivers for over-abstraction of conventional freshwater resources in various parts of the world, which leads to the situation of water scarcity (per capita availability < 1,000 m3/year). The projection showed that by 2050, 44 countries (2 billion people) would likely suffer from water scarcity, of which 95 % may live in developing countries. Among them, the countries that would strongly hit by water scarcity by 2050 are Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, Somalia, Malawi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Tanzania, Niger, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Pakistan. Currently, these countries have not yet installed desalination to meet theirfreshwater demand. However, the current global trend showed that the desalination technology is finding new outlets as an alternative source for supplying water to meet growing water demand in most of the waterscarce countries. The projection showed that these countries would demand desalination capacity of 57 Mm3/day by 2050 to meet the standard of current water demand and to compensate the withdrawal of renewable resources. Case studies from India, China, and South Africa have highlighted that other countries may apply the strategy of using desalinated water to industrial users. Moreover, challenges to the widespread adoption of desalination exist such as expense, significant energy use, the need for specialized staff training, the large footprint of facilities, environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emission (GHGs), chemical discharge and operational problem such as membrane fouling.
