Population growth has increased in the last two centuries. In the driest countries, water supply alternatives are scarce, and desalination is an alternative to guarantee water supply. The question is what conditions must be met by the new desalination plants to achieve the objectives of sustainability. The present study is an analysis of the social, economic, and environmental variables that are critical in the development of desalination plants: technology used, energy sources, correction of the generated environmental impacts, and the most appropriate contractual model for its development. These attributes justify at the time of writing why reverse osmosis is the safest and most efficient technology among those available and those that are under investigation. It is proposed to incorporate renewable energy production sources, although it is still necessary to continue depending on the significant contribution of the traditional energy sources. The need will also be demonstrated to adopt corrective measures to mitigate against the impact produced on the environment by energy production and to implement monitoring plans to confirm the validity of these corrective measures. Finally, turnkey contracts are proposed because osmosis technology is complex, although technology should be justified by means of a decision support system. One of the determining factors is proposed in this present analysis.
Population growth has increased over the past two centuries. In the driest countries, water supply alternatives are scarce, with desalination being an alternative to ensure water supply to the population. Desalination plants have increased in size and efficiency, and require large investments, large infrastructures, and complex technology, besides they also need sophisticated contractual formulas to successfully build them. Various contract models are tools that should be used by taking into consideration the characteristics of the project, the parties involved, and who is responsible for each of the risks involved. To help choose the most suitable type of contract for a particular project, so-called decision support systems have been developed over the past thirty years. In this paper, a new decision support system is presented and applied to a case study of two desalination plants built under the design and build and turnkey modes of contract. The objective was to determine the most suitable contract model for these types of projects which had very ambitious objectives and decisive social, economic, and environmental implications.
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