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Environment
Jonathan Chenoweth, Senior Lecturer of Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey

Desalination could give the Middle East water without damaging marine life -- but it must be managed carefully

A saltier Red Sea could threaten its marine life. Dudarev Mikhail/Shutterstock

More than 2 billion people live in “water stressed” countries. These are territories where more than 25% of the available freshwater resources are withdrawn for human use each year.

Desalination - the process of removing salt from seawater - is increasingly being used to tackle water scarcity worldwide. Roughly 16,000 desalination plants now produce 35 trillion litres of freshwater annually. And Jordan, a country located north of the Red Sea, is planning a major desalination plant on the Gulf of Aqaba that will increase its desalination capacity from 4 billion to 350 billion litres each year.

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