Reasons for the Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria

Abstract

Seawater/brackish water desalination has been widely adopted by the Algerian Government in the last few years to supply potable water to municipality for various purposes mainly for domestic and industrial uses especially in areas where demand is high due to shortage of fresh water resources, rapid population growth and development of industry and tourism. Ten years ago, desalination was confined to the industrial use only especially in oil and gas industry as the country was relying on rain water and other available sources to supply fresh water to municipalities. Due to chronic drought conditions, the Ministry of Water Resources reviewed the national water strategy and a strong option for desalination was adopted where an ambitious program was thus put into action. Sixteen mega-plants, with capacities ranging from 100,000 to 500,000 m³ per day, primarily based on Reverse Osmosis technology, were launched in the last few years making the Algerian desalination program one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Five desalination plants, including the Africa’s largest seawater reverse osmosis project with a total capacity of 200,000 m³ per day, are already in operation and the remaining projects are either under construction or in commissioning. An integrated water resources management was also adopted as additional option to cuter the increasing water demand as there is also a great potential for water reuse and conventional water treatment. An additional benefit of this would be reducing the volume of treated wastewater disposed into the environment.