Desalination, Water And Climate Change
Desalination refers to the process of separating water from salt in sea water and brackish water. In essence, it is used to obtain freshwater from the vast resources of the sea. The global ocean covers 70% of all land on Earth and constitutes 97% of all water resources. That’s quite a big figure which makes oceans a viable source of water. With climate change, the impacts on water are quite significant. Climate change caused droughts are expected to increase water scarcity in many places, by drying out the land. This will affect surface water, because of high evaporation rates caused by consistent rising temperatures. Again, climate change causes changes in precipitation with rainfall quantity, distribution and seasonality affected. All this means that rainfall is no longer a very reliable source of freshwater. Climate change affects snowpack, with lesser amounts of snow in the cold months, which also melts earlier in the hot months of spring and summer. Snowpack is what feeds ri