Essay On Water Desalination

The burden of contaminated drinking water disproportionately affects low-income settings. These areas may lack the finances to implement and maintain basic water treatment plants or lack a stable government to implement such measures (Coussens, 2009). As a result, 1 in 10 people lack access to safe drinking water (WHO, 2015).

Women and children are especially impacted by unsafe drinking water. In many regions of the world, collecting water is primarily the responsibility of women (WHO, 2015). Because women and young girls can spend up to 6 hours each day collecting water, this affects their ability to attend school (WHO, 2015). Additionally, many women do not have the resources to pay for water purchases, treatment, or new investments.

Desalination is the process of removing salts from seawater or brackish water to produce freshwater (Norling, 2004). Advantages of desalination plants include providing drinking water to areas with no natural supply of fresh water, supplying fresh water during drought seasons, increasing drinking water to accommodate for the increased population growth, and the reduction of waterborne disease and sanitation mortality (Norling, 2004). However, the implementation of a water desalination plant costs an estimated $15 billion USD (Norling, 2004). Therefore, desalination plants are not a suitable solution since the areas that would most benefit from these plants are low-income countries. Additionally, little research and development has been invested into improving this technology (Norling,

Water, sanitation, and hygiene has the potential to prevent at least 9.1% of the global disease burden and 6.3% of all deaths (CDC, 2016b). Additionally, improved drinking water quality would lead to a 45% reduction of diarrhea episodes and improved sanitation, reducing diarrhea morbidity by 37.5% (CDC, 2016b). Economically, universal access to safe water and sanitation would result in $18.5 billion in economic benefits each year from deaths avoided and $32 billion in economic benefits each year from reductions in health care costs and increased productivity from reduced illness (WHO,