Navin Singh Khadka, BBC World Service
A few years ago, Muhammad Yaqub Baloch and his family almost abandoned their home in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, southern Pakistan, because rivers and wells dried up.
It was difficult to find drinking water, and crops failed several times.
"People from New Delhi, Mumbai and China came to buy our rice, wheat and vegetables," says farmer Baloch.
"But more than 50.000 hectares of our land have become uncultivable."
Many left the land of their ancestors.
Baloch thought about it too, until the authorities opened a desalination plant, which began producing drinking water from the Arabian Sea.
Today, many who remain in the area survive by raising crabs in irrigation canals, now filled with salt water, while trying to grow whatever they can.
Pakistan is one of many countries in the world that has increased its seawater desalination capacity as global warming causes a shortage of freshwater.
Until recently, desalination technology was mainly applied in the rich, arid countries of the Middle East, but global warming has changed that.
Today, about four-fifths of countries have facilities to desalinize seawater for drinking and other needs, according to data from the organization. Global Water Intelligence (GWI), which conducts market analyses in the water sector.
And that number is constantly growing.
In Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia, more than 80 percent of the water supply comes from desalination plants, either seawater or brackish/brackish groundwater (which is formed by mixing fresh and salt water, usually at the mouths of rivers into seas and oceans).
During the Israeli and United States (US) attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, Qatari officials expressed concern about the possible pollution of the Persian Gulf, which is today the main source of water for Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait.
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Why isn't there enough fresh water?
Here's the problem.
Almost two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water.
However, the United Nations (UN) says that usable freshwater accounts for only 0,5 percent, and even that amount is rapidly decreasing due to rising temperatures and frequent droughts.
In a 2023 report, the World Commission on Water Economics warned that by 2030, there could be a shortage of as much as 40 percent of water supply.
It is expected that by 2050, 9,7 billion people will live on the planet.
Corruption and poor water management have also contributed to acute water shortages in many countries.
Given that the oceans contain 95 percent of the planet's total water supplies, many argue that seawater is a possible solution, even though its share of total world water consumption is currently negligible.
Expansion of desalination plants worldwide
Desalination plants have been built in more than 20.000 locations around the world, and their number is almost double what it was ten years ago, research shows.
"The desalination market will accelerate significantly over the next five years, driven primarily by the Middle East and North Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and some European countries," says Estelle Braszlanoff, CEO of Veolia, one of the leading international desalination companies.
The data he collected GWI extension show that around 160 countries today have seawater desalination plants.
On average, 60 percent of the water produced is used for public drinking water supply, the report said.
"Desalination is already helping many countries deal with chronic water shortages," says Rachel McDonnell, deputy director general of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a research organization dedicated to the security of water resources.
"While desalination is not a miracle solution for all drought-prone areas, it is already key to strengthening water security in many countries facing droughts and growing demand."
GWI extension estimates that this sector is recording annual growth of more than ten percent.
The report states that in the last 15 years, the production of desalinated drinking water has increased significantly in more than 60 countries, in all parts of the world.
Some countries have seen a double, triple or even quadruple increase in production (in Singapore, for example, the growth is 467 percent), and some have achieved incredible growth of 1 to even 50 times.
Saudi Arabia produces the most desalinated seawater - 13 billion liters per day, which is equivalent to the amount of water in 5.200 Olympic swimming pools, according to the report. GWI extension.
Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are using desalination technology not only for seawater but also for purifying brackish/brackish water in areas where seawater has infiltrated groundwater.
Afghanistan is using the technology to desalinize groundwater that is naturally salty for other reasons.
How is desalination done?
Desalination is mainly done in two ways.
The first, most common and most energy-efficient is reverse osmosis, a process in which water is passed under high pressure through a semi-permeable membrane that retains salt and other chemicals and impurities.
Another method is thermal desalination, which uses heat to evaporate seawater, and then the condensed vapor is collected as freshwater.
Price and cost-effectiveness
Desalination is traditionally an expensive technology, but thanks to cheaper renewable energy sources and improved energy efficiency, the cost of this process has dropped significantly in recent years.
Experts say that the cost of producing desalinated water has fallen by up to 90 percent since 1970.
Research by the International Water Management Institute shows that if solar energy were used for desalination, the process would be even more cost-effective in many coastal areas by 2040.
However, a large desalination plant, producing 500 million liters of water per day, requires investments of about $500 million, according to data from Veolia.
An additional major cost that needs to be taken into account is the transportation of desalinated seawater to dry areas inland.
"For developing countries, high costs remain a barrier," says Shakil Hayat, an expert on climate change, water, sanitation and hygiene at the organization. WaterAid, an international charity that has helped build around 100 small desalination plants in South Asia.
"For many of these countries, smaller solar-powered brackish/brackish water desalination plants are more cost-effective than large seawater desalination plants."
Disposal of salty waste
One of the biggest challenges in the desalination process is the disposal of saline waste, the highly concentrated salt water that remains after the fresh water is extracted.
The discharge of this salty waste into the sea increases the salinity and temperature of seawater, which can seriously affect marine ecosystems and even create so-called dead zones near the discharge site.
"In most desalination processes, for every liter of drinking water produced, about 1,5 liters of liquid contaminated with chlorine and copper are created," according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
"If saline waste is not properly diluted and dispersed, it can form a dense column of toxic saline waste that can degrade coastal and marine ecosystems."
Scientists have recorded significant negative impacts on corals and algae in the Arabian Gulf that separates Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Yet this environmental impact does not seem to be slowing the expansion of desalination plants in almost all parts of the rapidly warming and thirsty world.
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