From Tunisia to Morocco, sun-baked North Africa has embarked on a building spree of plants that purify sea and wastewater as climate change intensifies droughts in the water-scarce region. | AFP
The World Bank predicts that by 2030, the wider Middle East and North Africa region will fall below the absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters per person per year.
Scientists and environmentalists also warn of the impact on marine life as the plants dump the extracted salt back into the sea as concentrated sludge. Today, Tunisia’s 16 desalination plants provide six per cent of its potable water. The rest comes mostly from 37 dams, but now most reservoirs are only about one-third full.
“This technology is very expensive in terms of energy consumption and it is generally found in countries rich in oil or gas,” Radhia Essamin, a water management expert, told AFP.The cost is “colossal”, said Raoudha Gafrej, a hydraulic engineer. “We absolutely need technical support, financial support, assistance to be able to implement all this.”Energy cost is less of a problem for Algeria, which has huge oil and gas resources.
Although Libya dabbled in desalination in the 1950s, Kadhafi changed course to instead tap ancient aquifers below the Sahara.
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