Can desalination end wars? It may sound strange to think that something as seemingly insignificant as desalinating drinking water can end wars, but it may well be so. Water is vital to the survival of the human species and to all other living creatures too, but our planet is facing a water crisis within the next decade or two if we do not do something drastic.
Can Desalination End Wars?
By the looks of what is happening in Israel, I would have to say yes, it can. Israel faced dwindling water supplies and desertification due to dramatically fluctuating rainfall patterns, and in 1999 the National Infrastructures Ministry initiated an emergency plan to deal with the on-going water crisis.
Israel has been desalinating its drinking water since, starting with the construction of a 50 million/cm desalination plant in Ashkelon to supply drinking water and water for domestic consumption. This facility is the most advanced desalination facility in the world, and supplies around 15% of Israel’s total domestic water consumption.
Since the start of the desalination programme, Israel has built more desalination plants; Palmachim Desalination Plant and the Hadera Desalination Facility. Palmachim currently supplies approximately 30 million cubic meters of water but can be expanded in the future to potentially deliver 60 to 70 million cubic meters annually. Hadera operates by means of reverse osmosis, currently delivering around 127 million cubic meters of high quality water annually.
What is also important though is the fact that the desalination project is working so well in a region that historically suffers from water shortages that Israel can supply its neighbours with water, leading to a more peaceful collaboration between its neighbours.
Shlomo Wald, chief scientist at the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, said that he thinks Israel would be willing to assist Jordan, Egypt and the Gaza Strip with water, and that he hoped that in the future they could also be of assistance to Syria and Lebanon.
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian government in the West Bank signed an historic agreement in December 2013 to share water resources through desalination. This deal came at the end of 11 years of water negotiations, and would see water produced at a new desalination plant currently being constructed in Aqaba divided between Israel and Jordan. The capacity of the plant will be 200 million cubic meters of desalinated water from the Red Sea annually.
These deals to share desalinated water will go a long way to peaceful collaboration between the countries and will hopefully stave off the predicted water wars that could come in the next few decades.
Sources:
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