Is Water desalination a viable option to meet global water demands - Term Paper Example

Water scarcity has forced the scientific community to look for alternative water resources and one of the most popular options is using the water of the oceans that is vastly available. Desalinating the ocean water and making it fit for human consumptions is one of the most important solutions to the water issues that man faces today. the most remarkably true phenomena is that out of the 2.5% of the fresh water that is available moat of it is trapped in the polar ice caps while only less than 1% of this freshwater is found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and sub-surface aquifers and is thus available for direct human use.

The United Nations estimated that 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of water is present on the Earth and only 200,000 cubic kilometers of this represents fresh water. At the continental level America shares world’s total freshwater resources (45%).Surface water present is highly polluted while indiscriminate withdrawal of groundwater for agriculture and contamination of the water have depleted these resources and hence there is need for some technology to help with the water scarcity issues. Owing to the decreasing groundwater resources and water scarcity problems and the subsequent effect this might have on world food production there have been dramatic changes in the world’s resource management approaches (Gleick, p127).

Desalination activities are being done in the Arabian Gulf areas today but increasing number of countries are considering the pros and cons of adopting desalination technologies to meet the demands of the population. Desalination of water means using ocean or brackish water and removing salts and other minerals from the salty water to produce clean, drinking or potable water that is fit for human consumption and usage. Primarily Desalination is done by two different methods-thermal and membrane process.

Desalination facilities use one of the five basic technologies to “extract potable