Understanding the Environmental Impacts of Desalination

Do you ever wonder how people in the driest parts of the world survive? Where does their water come from, and how do they grow their plants? They cannot rely on rain because it is so rare. Maybe they use underground water wells, but wells often dry up and are not sustainable for a large population. How do these people stay alive? The answer is desalination, a process that turns salty seawater into clean drinking water. But this life-saving process uses a lot of energy and creates lots of bad emissions that can harm the environment. Fortunately, by using a special tool called life cycle assessment, we can understand how bad desalination is for the environment and learn how to reduce its effects. This article will talk about desalination, its environmental side effects, and how we use life cycle assessments to make desalination more environmentally friendly.