Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem, says UN
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Government
Saudi Arabia isn’t just the world’s top crude oil exporter. It’s also the biggest producer of a toxic effluent that’s the byproduct of slaking the desert kingdom’s thirst for water.
By Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg
Representative Image Source: Pixabay, labeled for reuse
Saudi Arabia isn’t just the world’s top crude oil exporter. It’s also the biggest producer of a toxic effluent that’s the byproduct of slaking the desert kingdom’s thirst for water.
United Nations scientists warned Tuesday that desalination in Saudi Arabia and other countries is creating huge volumes of chemical-laced brine that risks contaminating food chains if left untreated. The problem is most acute in the Middle East and North Africa, which account for two-thirds of the world’s water contaminated by energy-intensive desalination plants.
“We have to address potentially severe downsides of desalination -- the harm of brine and chemical pollution to the marine environment and human health,” said Vladimir Smakhtin, the director for the Hamilton, Canada-based UN Institute for Water Environment and Health.
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Taxonomy
- Pollutants
- Water Pollution
- Pollution
- Desalination
- Thermal Desalination
- Solar Desalination
- Brine Discharge Modeling & Analysis
- Sea Water Desalinisation
- Sustainable Desalination
- Desalination Pre-treatment
- Water Pollution Control
- Desalination
- Pollution
- Desalination plant operations coordinator