Without A Pinch Of Salt: A Business Model For Mobile Small Scale Desalination Units For Water-Scarce Areas

Afsal Najeeb () and Mohammed Shahid Abdulla ()
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Afsal Najeeb: Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
Mohammed Shahid Abdulla: Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

No 387, Working papers from Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

Abstract: The rapid decline of per capita water availability in India necessitates technology enabled solutions for provision of water for drinking, domestic uses and irrigation. The problem is particularly severe in urban centres with rapidly increasing population, depleting ground water resources and residents are forced to pay a premium for water. The paper proposes a novel mobile desalination business model that can be used to provide drinking water to communities with access to sea or brackish water sources. A need-based mobile system, it can provide up to 35 kL of drinking quality water per day at the rate of ? 0.25 per litre. It can also service alternate uses such as gardening and commercial-grade horticulture where necessary during the nonsummer months. The economic viability of the system has been analysed by considering the Return on Investment (ROI) and the Levelised Cost of Water (LOW) per litre that can be provided by the system. Environmentally sustainable operation would be ensured by conducting a Local Environmental Assessment (LEA) to quantify quality of feed and discharge streams. The model provides could provide an economic local alternative to water transported through tankers, which depletes water-table, and is a suitable small scale entrepreneurship opportunity

Keywords: Business model; Desalination units; Water scarcity; Local Environmental Assessment (LEA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 3 pages
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
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