DESALINATION, TRENDS AND TECHNOLOGIES
The sustainability and prosperity of the ancient civilizations of China, Egypt, Babylonia,
Phoenicia, Persia and Roma were based on the extensive use of water for human
consumption, crop irrigation, canal navigation and energy generation. Today, the
worldwide scarcity of water and clean energy constitutes a central and critical problem
for the whole humankind. This situation is aggravated as industrial, agricultural
and municipal effl uents reach the water bodies, or the coastal seawater that is used as
feed for desalination plants. All these problems are linked to the actual, natural and
anthropogenic changes of climate, global warming and greenhouse-gas emissions, all
interrelated phenomena that aff ect our planet....
