Renewable water

Foresight

Desalination only provides 1% of the world's drinking water via 18,000 desalination plants using either thermal evaporation or membrane separation. New technologies create lower cost, less energy-intensive and more efficient desalination possibilities.
| Related Megatrend: Technology
About 500 million people live in areas where water consumption is double of the locally renewable water resources. Many countries in arid and semi-arid regions (e.g., central and west Asia, north Africa) are already close to or below the threshold for water scarcity of an annual 1,000 cubic metres per person. | Related Megatrend: Climate and environment; Migration; Urbanisation; Security

Originally Published \| Last Updated	01 Oct 2018 \| 10 Dec 2020
Knowledge service \| Metadata	Foresight \| The Megatrends Hub \| Aggravating resource scarcity
Digital Europa Thesaurus (DET)	degradation of the environment health risk management of resources natural resources nutrition water policy renewable energy