Water desalination

People living in Punta Chueca, home to the Comcáac, have struggled with a lack of fresh water for generations.

Desalination brings fresh water — and concern — to an Indigenous village in northern Mexico

Environment

A lack of fresh water has plagued the Comcáac people of northern Mexico for generations. There’s new hope in desalination plants, but some worry about its impact on marine life.

Poseidon Water employees stand between rows of reverse osmosis filters at the Western Hemisphere's largest seawater desalination plant, currently under construction in Carlsbad, California.

Desalination is an expensive energy hog, but improvements are on the way

Environment

Mexicans are dealing with the same drought as their northern neighbors, but with less water

Environment
An artist’'s rendering of a full-scale commercial low-input desert agriculture facility. Project’s designers say the concept should work in any low-altitude desert area near a large source of salt water.

Desert lunch: Coaxing climate-friendly food from the world’s driest places

Environment
The World

Low Salt Water with Low Energy Technology

The World

Low Salt Water with Low Energy Technology

A chemical engineering team from Yale has come up with a low-energy way to remove salt from seawater. This new desalination technology uses little electricity and could provide drinking water at a fraction of the cost of current methods.

The World

Filtering Seawater

Shrinking supplies of fresh water combined with new advances in technology are making California officials take another look at seawater desalination. Eric Anderson reports from KPBS in San Diego.

The World

Filtering Seawater

Shrinking supplies of fresh water combined with new advances in technology are making California officials take another look at seawater desalination. Erik Anderson reports from KPBS in San Diego.

The World

Desalinization Plant Proposed in Florida

The area around Tampa, Florida is running out of water. So authorities are turning to an unconventional solution: they want to build a seawater desalination plant on the edge of Tampa Bay. As Tanya Ott reports, critics of the plan say it substitutes one environmental problem for another.