Desalination 351 (2014) 145–150

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Desalination
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

Comprehensive environmental assessment of seawater desalination

plants: Multistage flash distillation and reverse osmosis membrane types
in Saudi Arabia
Yusuke Tokui, Hitoshi Moriguchi, Yoshiki Nishi ⁎
Department of Systems Design for Ocean-Space, Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University, 79-5 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama 2408501, Japan

H I G H L I G H T S

• This study examines sustainability of desalination plants in Saudi Arabia.

• Environmental and economic aspects are comprehensively evaluated.
• Some parametric studies were conducted.
• Reduction of ecological footprint is a key to the achievement of sustainability.
• This study quantitatively shows a desired way to enhance the sustainability.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: We examine the sustainability of seawater desalination plants using Inclusive Impact Index light (Triple-I light).
Received 21 May 2014 This index quantifies the environmental and economic impact of a human activity through estimations of ecolog-
Received in revised form 23 July 2014 ical footprint, biocapacity, cost, and benefit. The seawater desalination plants we treated are a multistage flash
Accepted 24 July 2014
distillation (MSF) type and a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane type in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our calcula-
Available online 13 August 2014
tions demonstrate that the indexes for the two plants are raised mainly by large ecological footprints. By
Keywords:
conducting a sensitivity analysis with varying a few parameters, we reveal that the total amount of water supply
Environmental impact can largely change the sustainability of the plants, and propose that reductions in electric power consumption
Multistage flash distillation can be a feasible strategy to keep these plants in sustainable condition. We show that if we can supply about
Reverse osmosis 40–50% of the total power consumption for the desalination plants using renewable energy sources, the sustain-
Ecological footprint able operation is achievable. These percentages can be used as the target value of the introduction of renewable
Inclusive Impact Index energy.
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Global situation of revolving water resources has been recently be-
coming severer owing to global population growth and increases in
water consumption per person. A database published by Food and Agri-
culture Organization (FAO) [1] reports that in 2008 two billion people in
46 countries and regions were under water stress situations and about
330 million people in 29 countries and regions were under water short-
age situations, and those numbers are a couple of times larger than
those in 1997. The database also describes the concern that in 2025
half of the world population may face serious water shortages caused
by the population growth, economic development, and global warming.
Considering that a very tiny portion (0.007%) of fresh water existing
on the earth is available to our usage, we recognize that seawater which
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 45 339 4087; fax: +81 45 339 4099.
E-mail address: ynishi@ynu.ac.jp (Y. Nishi).
accounts for 97.5% [2] of the water existing on the earth can be an un-
limited resource if we are able to remove salt from seawater to artificial-
ly produce potable water. Many areas suffering from the severe water
shortage located in developing countries are also areas suffering from
severe food shortage, meaning that the adequate supply of water per-
mits us to improve living standard and yield amount there. This has
raised the demand for the seawater desalination 12 times in the past
30 years: the total capacity of desalination plants installed of 30 million
[m3/day] in 2001 exceeded 37 million [m3/day] in the end of 2003, con-
tinues to grow by 11% or more (more than 2 million [m3/day]) a year,
and will probably reach 58 million [m3/day] by 2080 [3,4].
Thus far, several previous studies have been done on the sustainabil-
ity of desalination plants. A life-cycle analysis was applied to a desalina-
tion plant in Bangladesh to examine technical, environmental, and
economic categories of infrastructure sustainability metrics [5]. The en-
ergy consumption and CO2 emissions of a multistage flash distillation
(MSF) plant in Kuwait were calculated to evaluate its sustainability

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2014.07.034
0011-9164/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
146 Y. Tokui et al. / Desalination 351 (2014) 145–150

[6]. To assess the sustainability of desalination plants in Kuwait, a proce- Table 2

dure for an assessment called Analysis and Synthesis of Parameters List of parameters common in the MSF and RO plants.

under Information Deficiency—3rd modification for Windows (ASPID- Symbol Value Unit Reference or year
3W) was used. In the ASPID-3W, resource, environmental, and econom- u 0.751 kg-CO2/kWh [11]
ic indicators are considered [7]. eforest 1.34 gha/ha [13]
This paper attempts to quantify an environmental impact due to the Ab 5.2 t-CO2/ha [9]
operation of seawater desalination plants that consume fossil fuel to ΔBKSA 4.00 US$/m3 [14]
∑EFKSA 1.27194 × 108 Gha 2007 [15]
generate heat or electric powers necessary for the water desalination.
∑GDPKSA 4.1596 × 1011 US$ 2007 [16]
As far as our search for literatures, no study has been done for the com-
prehensive evaluation of sustainability of desalination plants in
kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). We selected two representative desali- makes IIIl larger, thus lowering the sustainability of a human activity,
nation plants, a MSF plant and a reverse osmosis (RO) plant in KSA, to vice versa. A negative value of IIIl indicates that the activity is sustainable
evaluate their operations from both environmental and economic in the environmental and economic senses. We using Eq. (1) discuss the
standpoints. Using an index that quantifies in a common unit environ- sustainability of the two seawater desalination plants, principal particu-
mental impact and economic benefit made by human activities, we lars of which are listed in Table 1.
discuss the sustainability of these desalination plants and show a degree The parameters and calculated results that differ between MSF and
to which the index varies by human efforts to offer a way to utilize a de- RO are tabulated in Table 1 and the parameters common in MSF and
salination plant sustainably. The index we employ differs from the RO are tabulated in Table 2. We first calculate IIIl using the method de-
ASPID-3W in the respect that the index used in this study considers scribed below with the parameters listed in Tables 1 and 2, and call
the recovery of sustainability owing to CO2 absorption and economic this calculation “standard calculation” to distinguish it from other ones
benefit as well as the decline in sustainability while the ASPID-3W with a few parameters varied.
considers only the aspect of the environmental and economic loads.
The index used in this study can be used to quantify the recovery of sus- 2.2. Method for estimating EF and BC
tainability provided by efforts for the CO2 absorption and economic
development. The ecological footprint EF is estimated by converting the amount of
The next section (Section 2) describes the method for calculating the carbon dioxide emissions into the virtual area of land as follows:
index that quantifies the net environmental impact and economic
benefit, which is followed by Section 3 to show results computed and ΔEF  e f
EF ¼ ; ð2Þ
discuss them. Conclusions are made in Section 4. Ab

2. A method for quantifying environmental impact and economic where ΔEF is yearly carbon footprint [t-CO2/year], which represents
benefit the amount of CO2 emissions, ef is the equivalent factor of the
forest [gha/ha], and Ab is the quantity of the carbon dioxide absorption
2.1. Formulation and parameters [t-CO2/ha]. The carbon footprint that the operation of a seawater desali-
nation plant produces is expressed as follows:
This study adopts the Inclusive Impact Index light (called Triple-I
light); a formulation to estimate the environmental and economic influ- 1
ΔEF ¼ El  P r  u  365  ; ð3Þ
ences of a human activity on the society [8]. The Triple-I light denoted 1000
by IIIl [gha/year] is defined as follows:
where El is the electricity power consumption per unit volume of water
X production [kWh/m3], Pr is the daily water production volume [m3/day],
E F region and u is the CO2 emission intensity [kg-CO2/kWh]. Multiplying 365 is to
III l ¼ ðEF−BC Þ þ X ðCost−Benefit Þ; ð1Þ
GDPregion convert the unit into yearly and dividing by 1000 is to convert [kg-CO2]
into [t-CO2].
where EF is the ecological footprint [gha/year], and BC is the biocapacity The biocapacity BC is estimated by converting the amount of carbon
[gha/year]. The unit “global hectare (gha)” represents the extent to dioxide absorption into the virtual area of land as follows:
which a human activity influences the environment: one global hectare
ΔBC  e f
means an amount of biological productivity in terms of area that one BC ¼ ; ð4Þ
Ab
hectare of land with the globally averaged productivity is able to
provide [9]. The notations Cost and Benefit are yearly cost and benefit
where ΔBC, the quantity of CO2 absorption by soil [t-CO2/year], is
∑E F region
[US$/year] of a human activity, respectively. is the coeffi- computed as follows:
∑GDPregion
cient to convert the unit from [US$/year] to [gha/year], where 44
∑EFregion is the summation of ecological footprints in a region [gha], ΔBC ¼ ΔC  Sfarm  ; ð5Þ
12
and ∑GDPregion is the summation of gross domestic product in a region
[US$]. Eq. (1) expresses that a wider ecological footprint or a higher cost where ΔC is the quantity of the soil carbon absorption [t-CO2/year] and
Sfarm is the area of farmland provided by the operation of a desalination
Table 1 plant [ha]. Multiplying 44/12 is to convert the unit from the mass in
Principal particulars of desalination plants. terms of carbon into the mass in terms of carbon dioxide.
Yanbu II Medina–Yanbu Unit To determine the value of ΔC, this study employs the Rothamsted
Phase II Carbon Model (RothC) [17], which calculates the quantity of the soil car-
Desalination method Multi stage flash Reverse osmosis bon change with climatic, soil, and management conditions inputted.
(MSF) (RO) Those conditions and resulting value of ΔC are listed in Table 3.
Daily water production Pr 143600 [10] 127800 [11] m3/day In Eq. (5), Sfarm is calculated as follows:
Electricity consumption El 15.84 [10] 7.5 [11] kWh/m3
ΔCost 1.33 [12] 1.03 [12] US$/m3 Sfarm ¼ SKSA r D r S ; ð6Þ
 Y. Tokui et al. / Desalination 351 (2014) 145–150 147

Table 3
List of conditions for calculating ΔC using RothC model [17] and result of ΔC.

Conditions for calculation and Item Reference

results calculated

Climatology Riyadh, KSA [18]

Soil type Desert unripe soil
Farm product Wheat
Soil management Manure consumption in KSA [19]
ΔC 0.114 [t-C/ha/year]

where SKSA is the agricultural land area in KSA, and rD is the ratio of a de-
mand for agricultural water to the total demand for water in Saudi
Arabia. Denoting the yearly water supply from seawater desalination
in Saudi Arabia by PS and yearly total water supply in Saudi Arabia by
PT, the parameter rS is defined as rS ≡ PS/PT. This study referred to several
literatures for determining the parameters in Eq. (6), which are listed in
Table 4 together with the value of Sfarm obtained.
2.3. Method for estimating cost and benefit
The cost and benefit in Eq. (1) are calculated as follows:
Cost ¼ ΔCost  P r  365;
Fig. 1. Cumulative ratios of (a) rD, the ratio of demand for agricultural water to total de-
mand for water in Saudi Arabia, and (b) PT, the yearly water supply from seawater desali-
nation in Saudi Arabia against published data. The data referred to are plotted as triangles
[20], opened circles [21], and closed circles [22]. Solid lines are regression lines made by
least-square method with determination coefficients of 0.9135 for rD and 0.8335 for PT.
while in the standard calculation we adopted Eqs. (7) and (8) to com-
pute Benefit and Cost.
We calculated IIIl also by using different unit conversion factors
∑E F region
to investigate its effects on IIIl. The GDP and total ecological
∑GDP region
footprint differ from one country to another and temporally vary. To
know the degree of fluctuation in IIIl arising from the variations in
these factors, we compared results of IIIl using GDPs [16] and total eco-
logical footprints [15] in global and Asian averages, and those of five
ð7Þ countries adjacent to KSA: United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman,
and Yemen.

Benefit ¼ ΔBKSA  P r  365; ð8Þ

3. Results and discussion
3
where ΔCost is the water production cost per unit volume [US$/m ] and
3.1. Standard calculation
ΔBKSA is the water market price in KSA [US$/m3]. The multiplication of
365 is to convert the unit from per day into per year.
We first compare the ecological footprints (EF s) for the MSF and RO
plants in the standard calculation with those for some kinds of power
2.4. Sensitivity of IIIl against variations in some key parameters
plants reported by [24] to verify our calculation. The ecological foot-
prints referred to here are world averages of EF for each kind of power
To assess the confidence interval in the calculation involving many
plants. After transferring the unit of the data published into the ones
parameters, we evaluated the sensitivity of IIIl by changing the follow-
used in this study we plotted the EFs in Fig. 3. Fossil energy and nuclear
ing three quantities, rD, PT, and water sales revenue (Benefit − Cost),
energy plants have larger EFs than the plants utilizing biomass, wind,
which most significantly affect IIIl. The parameter rD varies due to
solar, and hydro energies. The EFs for the desalination plants estimated
changes in industrial structure, and PT varies in response to changes in
using Eq. (2) have the same order as those for the power plant; hence,
the water supply in an economic development. The data we used for de-
we can see that our estimation of EF was made adequately. Looking
termining rD and PT [20–22] temporally fluctuates; hence, we carried
more closely at the plots, we find that the EFs for the desalination plants
out additional calculations with rD and PT varied within the 99% confi-
are higher than those for the power plants. This results from the rela-
dence intervals other than the standard calculation using their averages.
tively large CO2 emission intensity (u) in KSA where the most energy
With a population of a stochastic variable normally distributed, the
consumed is supplied by fossil fuel combustion, which is twice as high
99% confidence interval of the population is written as follows:
as the CO2 emission intensity of the Tokyo Electric Power Company
averaged over 2008–2012 [25].
m−3σ ≤μ ≤m þ 3σ; ð9Þ The MSF has EF 2.37 times higher than the RO, principally because
the MSF consumes more electricity and accordingly has the larger car-
where m is sample mean, σ is standard deviation, and μ is population bon footprint. The calculation for the MSF has the biocapacity (BC)
mean. Fig. 1 depicts cumulative ratios of the data of rD and PT, and ex- 12% larger than that for the RO since the MSF daily produces more
hibits good fitting of the regression lines with the plots. This demon-
strates that the data plotted follows normal distributions, and allows
us to estimate the 99% confidence interval using Eq. (9).
The water sales revenue in KSA gradually grows [23] (Fig. 2); we
thus examined the sensitivity of IIIl against variations in the water
sales revenue, i.e. Benefit − Cost based on the published data [12,14]

Table 4
List of parameters for computing Sfarm and computed results of Sfarm.

Symbol MSF RO Unit Reference

SKSA 1.7336 × 108 1.7336 × 108 ha [19]

rD 0.879 0.879 – [20–22]
rS 2.98 × 10−3 2.66 × 10−3 – [20–22]
Fig. 2. Temporal evolution of water sale revenue in Saudi Arabia reported by [23]. An
Sfarm 4.55 × 105 4.05 × 105 ha
arrow indicates the value of water sales revenue used in the standard calculation.
148 Y. Tokui et al. / Desalination 351 (2014) 145–150
Fig. 3. Ecological footprints made by yearly electric power consumption by the MSF
(closed circle) and RO (opened circle) supplied by five kinds of power generation plants
[24]. Solid and dashed lines represent the yearly ecological footprints for MSF and RO, re-
spectively, used in the standard calculation.
amount of water than the RO does (Table 1). The difference in cost
comes from the daily amount of water production and the water pro-
duction cost per unit volume. The difference in benefit is derived from
the difference in the daily water production amount: the MSF is higher
in cost by 45% and in benefit by 12% than the RO.
Our calculation shows that the MSF and RO have a positive and neg-
ative IIIl, respectively, and the absolute value of IIIl for the MSF is about
four times as large as that for the RO (Fig. 4). The considerable difference
in IIIl between the two desalination plants stems mainly from the differ-
ence in the EFs mentioned above, and the little difference in the
biocapacity (Fig. 4). The MSF thus has an impact on the environment a
couple of times larger than the RO does. The MSF and RO plants have
mostly the same net revenue (Benefit − Cost), that is, the difference in
the economic aspect is hardly found.
3.2. Sensitivity of IIIl against variations in some key parameters
3.2.1. Unit conversion factor
Fig. 5 shows several conversion factors in Eq. (1). In Fig. 6 we show
IIIl computed using the conversion factors in Fig. 5 with keeping the
other parameters the same as those in the standard calculation. When
we use the conversion factor for the world and Asian averages, UAE,
and Oman, the outcomes of IIIl are mostly the same as that in the
standard calculation. In contrast, the computations using the conversion
factors for Qatar, Kuwait, and Yemen produce remarkably higher ones:
particularly, and IIIl for the RO becomes positive when the conversion
factors for Qatar and Yemen are employed. Among the countries and
areas considered, Yemen has the smallest ecological footprint and the
lowest GDP. It makes the conversion factor the smallest, thus lowers
the effect of economic effort to the largest degree, providing the largest
IIIl.
Regardless of a conversion factor employed, comparisons of IIIl be-
tween the MSF and RO give the same consequence as the standard cal-
culation, that is, the RO is more sustainable than the MSF; nevertheless,
Fig. 4. (a) Inclusive Impact Index light IIIl and (b) biocapacity for MSF and RO.
Fig. 5. Unit conversion factors included in Eq. (1) using ecological footprint and GDP in the
world, Asia, and five countries adjacent to Saudi Arabia: United Arab Emirates, Qatar,
Kuwait, Oman, and Yemen [15,16].
the above result shows that an outcome of IIIl largely depends on the
conversion factor which is governed by the GDP and total ecological
footprint in a country considered. The GDP in the country temporally
varies owing to a variety of economic factors and the total ecological
footprint also varies according to the country's land use and industrial
structure. We should keep in mind that many uncertainties remain
regarding the evaluation of the sustainability of the desalination plant
operation by a single calculation. Particular attention has to be paid to
the determination of the conversion factor.
3.2.2. rD and PT
Half width (3σ) of 99% confidence interval for rD is 7.3% of its mean
(m) and gives the fluctuations of IIIl whose half widths are 5.2% and
17.5% of the IIIl in the standard calculation for the MSF and RO, respec-
tively (Fig. 7). A larger (smaller) rD yields a lower (higher) IIIl through
the calculation of biocapacity (Eqs. (1), (5), and (6)). The center of IIIl
deviation agrees with the IIIl in the standard calculation since IIIl linearly
depends on rD.
Half width of 99% confidence interval for PT is 68.4% of its mean. A
larger (smaller) PT corresponds to a smaller (larger) biocapacity and
thus to a higher (lower) IIIl. The deviation in IIIl is biased in the decreas-
ing direction of IIIl because of the dependency of IIIl on the inverse of PT
(Eq. (6)). The upward and downward deviations from the IIIl in the
standard calculation are 28.9% and 154% for the MSF, and 97.0% and
517.0% for the RO, respectively. Those very wide and biased widths of
IIIl deviations result from the reverse proportion of IIIl to PT as men-
tioned above. The downward biased deviation in IIIl is seemingly a de-
sired tendency; however, the decrease in IIIl is provided by the
reduction in the total water supply PT, which is unrealistic considering
the current growth of water demand. If little environmental attention
Fig. 6. Comparison of the Inclusive Impact Index light IIIl calculated using several unit con-
version factors depicted in Fig. 5.
 Y. Tokui et al. / Desalination 351 (2014) 145–150
Fig. 7. Inclusive Impact Index light IIIl in the standard calculation (column charts) and its
variations owing to variations in three parameters: rD, PT, and Benefit − Cost for (a) MSF
and (b) RO.
is paid to the growth of fresh water demand, it will lead to the decline of
the sustainability of such plant operation; we thus need a feasible strat-
egy to maintain the desalination plant operation.
3.2.3. Water sales revenue
Water sales revenue in KSA has gradually grown and will continue to
grow as reported by [23], which predicts that the revenue will have
grown 1.23 times higher in 2020 than that in 2010. Supposing that
Benefit − Cost in Eq. (1) also grows in a way similar to the revenue
(Fig. 2), we calculated IIIl after the revenue becomes greater by 1.23
times (Fig. 7). The computation demonstrated the decreases in IIIl by
12.5% (MSF) and 53.1% (RO). It indicates that the revenue growth can
bring the operations of desalination plant a beneficial situation. If the
trend of the revenue continues, even the MSF possibly can be sustain-
able in both the environmental and economic senses.
3.3. Strategy toward a more sustainable operation
The above results show a necessity to build and implement a strate-
gy for reducing ecological footprint EF, which dominantly raises IIIl and
causes the noticeable difference in IIIl between the RO and MSF. One of
the most straightforward and realistic ways to decrease EF is the reduc-
tion of CO2 emissions involved in desalination plant operations. In
Eq. (1) IIIl is in proportion to EF, and one of the factors that determine
EF is the electricity consumption El. Fig. 8 shows the relationship of IIIl
with El. Here we consider the reduction in El through efforts of enhanc-
ing the efficiency of electric power generations or replacing fossil fuels
by renewable energy sources. As to the RO, an energy recovery system
for reusing drainage pressure is hopeful to reduce the electricity con-
sumption. Although these efforts will be accompanied by a decrease in
CO2 emissions intensity u, in this study those reductions are represented
just by the change in El for the simplicity of discussion. A decrease in the
daily water production Pr reduces BC besides EF, having no net effect of
reducing IIIl; it cannot be a sensible choice under the current society
with growing demand for fresh water.
The inclinations of the lines in Fig. 8 are so steep that the reduction in
El provides the amplified reduction of IIIl: the reduction of El by 25%
Fig. 8. Relationships of the Inclusive Impact Index light IIIl with electricity consumption per unit volume of water production El for (a) MSF and (b) RO. Arrows indicate the coordinate
points in the standard calculation.
149
Fig. 9. Inclusive Impact Index light IIIl against the ratio of power supply by photovoltaics to
the total power supply for operating the desalination plants (PV ratio). (a) MSF and (b) RO.
In (b), an arrow indicates the PV ratio that provides zero of EF − BC.
reduces EF by 25% and accordingly leads to the reductions in IIIl by
58% for the MSF and by 93% for the RO from the IIIl in the standard
case. For the MSF, IIIl that is positive in the standard calculation becomes
negative: starting from IIIl in the standard calculation we can achieve IIIl
of zero by 42.9% reduction in El.
It is worthwhile estimating the extent to which the introduction of
renewable energy reduces IIIl. This study focuses on photovoltaics (PV)
as an electric power generator, because the PV is presently one of the
most promising technologies to generate the power consumed in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Giving parameters for
the averaged power generation of photovoltaic panel of 5.67 KWh/m2
[26] and for the CO2 emissions intensity associated with photovoltaic
power generation of 0.049 kg-CO2/kWh [27], we computed IIIl against
the ratio of the power supplied by the PV to the total power supply,
called hereafter PV ratio (Fig. 9). The value of IIIl for the MSF plant be-
comes zero when the PV ratio is 0.46, which corresponds to 27.7 km2
of the land area on which PV panels are placed. As to the RO plants,
when the PV ratio is 0.38 which corresponds to the land area for the
PV panels of 9.64 km2, the EF balances the BC, giving the environmentally
sustainable condition of the RO. Those areas of the PV panels are 412 and
143 times for MSF and RO, respectively, as large as the area of the Solar
Village 50 km to northwest of Riyadh [28], 6.72 × 10−2 km2. It is thus
currently difficult to achieve the zeros of IIIl or EF − BC; however, the
above estimations can be used as the desired value of the power gener-
ation share that the renewable energy source has. Those can be useful
to build a strategy to operate more sustainably desalination plants
through the transformation of power generation from fossil fuel to
renewable energy sources.
4. Conclusion
Using the Inclusive Impact Index light (IIIl) we have evaluated the
sustainability of two kinds of desalination plants, multistage flash
(MSF) and reverse osmosis (RO) operating in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia (KSA). This index quantifies in environmental and economic
senses the influence of human activity such as a desalination plant
150 Y. Tokui et al. / Desalination 351 (2014) 145–150
operation. In the formulation used in this study the lower the index is,
the more sustainable the plant operation is. Our estimation shows that
an increase in the index arises mainly from relatively high values of eco-
logical footprint common in the MSF and RO types. The RO plant has
lower IIIl than the MSF plant, which is due to the smaller electricity
power consumption of the RO.
We have examined the sensitivity of IIIl in response to uncertainty in
a couple of important parameters: the ratio of agricultural water de-
mand to total water demand in KSA (rD), total water supply in KSA
(PT), and water sales revenue (Benefit − Cost). While the variations in
rD and Benefit − Cost yield little changes in IIIl, the variation in PT consid-
erably widens IIIl deviation, suggesting that just raising water produc-
tion amount can deteriorate the sustainability of the desalination
plant operation.
To build a strategy to make a desalination plant operation more sus-
tainable, we examined how IIIl changes against the reduction in the
electricity power consumption, which is one of the principal factors
that heighten the ecological footprint. We have consequently found
that the reduction in the electricity power consumption can be an effec-
tive strategy to decrease IIIl, and that if about 40 to 50% of the total
power consumption for the operation of the desalination plant can be
supplied by the renewable energy, we can realize the sustainable plants.
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