To desalinate or divert? A comparative supply cost analysis for north coastal China

Fei Li and Eran Feitelson

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2017, vol. 33, issue 1, 93-110

Abstract: Seawater desalination is largely presented as a last resort to address water scarcity in closed basins. The question of whether seawater desalination can substitute for other costly measures, specifically large-scale diversion, has not been adequately assessed. To this end the full unit cost of supplying water to Beijing from the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the largest in the world, is compared to desalination. Desalination appears to be much more cost-efficient than diversion, even when the diversion’s environmental externalities are excluded. By implementing desalination and water management options, China could substantially reduce water costs; this suggests that desalination should not be viewed only as a last resort.

Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07900627.2016.1143349 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cijwxx:v:33:y:2017:i:1:p:93-110

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cijw20

DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2016.1143349

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Water Resources Development is currently edited by Cecilia Tortajada

More articles in International Journal of Water Resources Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().