A mobile desalination unit will be launched in Abadan, Khuzestan Province, to help address the pressing water problems in the southwestern oil city, said the director of Abadan Water and Wastewater Company.
“The unit, with a capacity to produce 350 cubic meters of potable water per day, will be operational by June,” IRNA reported Alireza Khalilinia as saying.
Mobile Telecommunication Company of Iran will invest in the project.
“The mobile unit will be installed at Shahid Bavi Water Treatment Plant. It can be moved to other locations if and when necessary,” he added.
Two decades of drought has had dire consequences on Ian’s water resources.
To tackle the worsening water crisis, desalination is becoming a viable option in most countries to produce water from the sea. In the coastal regions where salt water is in abundance, large and semi-large desalination plants are preferred.
Water desalination plants provide significant volumes of potable water in the northern and southern regions in Iran.
Tapping into the sea to produce clean water is on the Energy Ministry agenda as it is seen as viable for sustainable supplies rather than depleting the rapidly dwindling underground tables, most of which are on the verge of drying up.
At present, there are 73 desalination plants in the country with a capacity to produce 420,000 cubic meters of freshwater per day, or 148 million cubic meters a year. The ministry has said it wants to increase daily desalination capacity to 600,000 cubic meters a day by 2022.
