2. Desalination of seawater and brackish water

According to UNESCO, around 40% of the world's population is experiencing water stress, and demographic trends are set to increase this figure to 47% by 2030. Yet seas and oceans cover ¾ of the planet, and 80% of the world's population lives less than 80 km from a coastline. Seawater desalination is therefore one of the options for supplying fresh water. The first installations appeared in the 1980s, with significant growth from the 2000s onwards (figure 4 ). At the end of 2014, the United Nations counted nearly 16,000 desalination plants,...