Desalination technology is finding new outlets in supplying water to meet growing municipal domestic consumption needs in water scarce countries with a per capita availability below 1,000 m(3)/y. An expansion of the current municipal water desalination market was related to the population growth and the groundwater scarcity in the coming 25 years in various regions of the world: Europe, The Caribbean, South East and Western Asia, GCC States and North Africa. First, the current impact of desalination on the renewable groundwater resources in these selected areas was determined. Results indicated, that the desalination capacity exceeds 2-10 times the renewable groundwater resources in Qatar, Kuwait, Malta and Saudi Arabia, 10-50% in Libya and Barbados, and less than 0.5% in Jordan, Yemen and Singapore. In the future, a population growth from 51-116 million, 1995-2025, was assumed to be the driving force determining the need for desalination in order to maintain the current urban municipal domestic water consumption (an average of 0.265 m(3)/cap/d) in these countries. By 2000, a total sea and brackish water desalination capacity of 7.3 million m(3)/d was installed for municipal purposes in these countries. This indicated a growth in the desalination capacity of 1.9 million m(3)/d, 35%, between 1995 and 2000. By 2025, the growth in the municipal water desalination market will need to reach 14.8 million m(3)/d, 200%, to maintain the current urban municipal domestic water needs and to prevent any decline in renewable groundwater resources in the 10 water scarce countries selected in this study.
