Enabling climate resilient water systems with distributed desalination and water reuse: Key barriers and opportunities
Abstract
Our 20th century water systems are built on a linear model of fresh water extraction, centralized treatment, use and wastewater discharge. This model is increasingly vulnerable due to drought-induced disruption of fresh water supplies, degradation of fresh water quality, infrastructural investments concentrated next to water bodies and vulnerable to storms and inundation, and distribution systems threatened by ground subsidence. While investment to harden our existing water infrastructure can reduce the frequency and severity of climate-induced disruptions, these costs are compounded by the legacy deficit in maintenance of our current water infrastructure.
Distributed desalination and reuse using non-traditional water sources could provide a critical element of resilience and flexibility for our current legacy water systems by enabling localized fit-for-purpose treatment and reuse of locally-generated wastewater and other non-traditional water sources. For example, localized desalination of brackish groundwater could supplement municipal and agricultural water supplies and would be invariant to climate change. Recycling of water used in residential and industrial operations would both relax the reliance on freshwater sources and lower the energy demands of conveying water long distances from source to treatment and treatment to use. Distributed desalination and localized reuse will require new water treatment technologies and systems that lower the cost and energy of water treatment. Small systems will require increased automation, precise and flexible treatment methods that can adapt to different source water qualities, and inherently modular, process-intensified and electrically-driven unit processes. We will outline an early-stage applied research strategy to enable the proliferation of distributed desalination and localized water reuse to secure a resilient 21st century water supply for U.S. communities and industries.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMGC13C..02F
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1807 Climate impacts;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1817 Extreme events;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 6344 System operation and management;
- POLICY SCIENCES