Perspectives of sea water desalination in algeria The Oran desalination project

摘要

An analysis is made of the water resources, requirements and supplies in Algeria, with emphasis placed on Oran and its surrounding area. Large quantities of water are required in many regions of the country, mainly for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes. The growth in population and in industrial and agricultural development has created an ever increasing need for potable water, which cannot be covered by Algeria's natural water resources. In the past, the specific cost of product water, the capital investment cost and the competitiveness of interregional water transfers have been the main barriers to implementing any large scale desalination programme to counteract the approaching water crisis in Algeria. To face the water deficit situation, Algeria has decided to carry out feasibility studies within the framework of a planned sea water desalination programme based on a desalination potential estimated to be as high as 600 000 m~3/d for the northern coast by the year 2005. A description is given of the Oran area from the point of view of its geographical location, meteorology, rainfall, sea water quality, water demand, availability or lack of resources, and the daily water requirements. This information is given in terms of current data and forecasts up to the year 2020 for the entire Oran area. The capacity of the desalination plant was calculated to the difference (which cannot be satisifed by dams, drilling, water transfers, water springs and other natural resources) between the available resources and the demand in the year 1997. Of the nine coastal locations in the Oran area identified as being possible candidate sites for the desalination plant, Bethioua (Port-aux-Poules) was selected as the reference site, and a complete feasibility study was carried out. Some of the output data related to this feasibility study are presented, including the criteria that led to the selection of MSF technology as the suitable desalination process.