Seawater desalination leads response to global water crisis, says report at IDA World Congress

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 10, 2009 -- The global desalination market is growing at a record rate, led by surging demand for seawater desalination, reported AMEinfo, a leading provider of Middle East business and financial news. The numbers from the 22nd GWI/IDA Worldwide Desalting Plant Inventory were released yesterday at a briefing on the "State of Desalination" hosted by the International Desalination Association (IDA) and Global Water Intelligence (GWI) at the IDA World Congress on Desalination & Water Reuse being held Nov. 7-12 here in Dubai.

The total capacity of plants now online is 59.9 million cubic meters per day (m³/d), a 6.6 million m³/d increase on last year. This represents the largest amount of desalination capacity brought on line in a single year. Seven hundred new plants were commissioned around the world during the year, including the largest in the world: the 880,000m³/d Shoaiba 3 project in Saudi Arabia. There are now 14,451 desalination plants on-line. A further 244 plants with a capacity of 9.1 million m³/d are known to be under contract or in construction.

The greatest increase has come from seawater desalination. Since the last IDA World Congress in November 2007 in Spain's Canary Islands, the installed capacity of seawater desalination plants has expanded by 29.6% to 35.9 million m³/d. To date in 2009, 4.6 million m³/d of seawater desalination capacity was added, and demand for seawater desalination is forecast to grow dramatically.

For comments of GWI publisher Christopher Gasson and IDA president and CH2M Hill global desalination director Lisa Henthorne, click here...

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