Navigating Future Waterways

Introduction: Interest in desalination is high in California, where increasing populations and limitations to existing water supplies have spurred development of alternative sources derived from seawater desalination and reclamation of wastewater and groundwater. A few seawater desalination facilities are currently in operation in California (Table 1-1), but proposals for over 20 additional coastal facilities are under consideration (Cooley et al. 2006) with a potential total capacity approaching 500 mgd in 2030 (Bleninger and Jirka 2010). These include plants in Carlsbad, Camp Pendleton, Huntington Beach, Dana Point, Long Beach, El Segundo, Playa Del Rey, Oceano, Cambria, Marina, Sand City, Ocean View Plaza, Santa Cruz, Moss Landing, Montara, San Rafael, East Bay, and Crockett, with the largest of these proposed plants located in Southern California. The development and operation of these additional facilities will greatly increase the amount of desalination capacity and associated concentrate production in California.

• Most water challenges are political,economic,andsocial. If we can improve water governance using the integrated approach, we will get closer to a water-secure world. • The purpose of the IWRM tools is to provide assistance in overcoming the largest obstacles to good water governance. • In an effort to encourage a move towards more sustainable approaches to water development and management, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002 called for all countries to craft the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and water efficiency strategies by the end of 2005. • This was emphasized again by the UN-world summit in 2015.