Expert: Desalination the way to go in water-scarce South Africa
- Kim Cloete
- Jun 6, 2017
- 1 min read
With South Africa facing even more dire water shortages than expected, the need for desalination is vital and should be at the forefront of government plans, according to local water expert and University of the Free State professor Dr Anthony Turton.
“Desalination is a critical component. It is probably more important than nuclear. Everyone is talking about nuclearbut, frankly, that is a secondary issue,” Turton told the yearly conference of the Southern African Asset Management Association, Saama.
He argued that desalination technologies should be used in cities like Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East Londonand Richards Bay, also suggesting that this could cascade into recycling sewage, which he considers a game changer.
“If we can recycle our sewage we can recover five-billion litres of water a day. If you take 100 ℓ of sewage effluent that each South African produces, and multiply that by 50-million people, that's the volume of water that we can recover.”
Ro Plant