Researchers test new water-filtering technology.

The Earth’s population has doubled since 1950, but the amount of available fresh water has stayed the same. While the statistic alone might be enough to cause concern about a water shortage, it’s compounded by the fact that water use has tripled in the same amount of time, and the freshwater supply is increasingly at risk of contamination by pollution, water-borne disease and shifting rain patterns caused by global warming, according to a recent report released by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report indicates that 40 percent of the world’s population could suffer water shortages by 2050.

In 2000, Scientists at the International Water Management Institute predicted a third of the world’s population would suffer from water shortages by 2025. In a report compiled by the institute over a five-year period and presented in April 2006 at World Water Week in Stockholm, the same scientists reported the one-third threshold has already been crossed.

Where there is scarcity and demand, there is money to be made — and water is no exception. At an April 2007 water conference in Barcelona, Jean Louis Chaussade, CEO of French utility Suez, said China, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, where water shortages have become acute, are already spending billions of dollars looking for ways to increase the water supply. He also noted that China plans to provide water services for an additional 100 cities by 2010.

Only 2 percent of the world’s water is fresh, and those looking to cash in on the pending shortage are either pursuing ways to make the most of the 2 percent or technologies that tap into the other 98 percent.

Desalination, a process that uses either pressure (reverse osmosis) or heat (thermal distillation) to turn saltwater into freshwater, has become an increasingly popular idea in the United States over the past five years. The processes have been proven successful in Israel and throughout the Middle East, and — due to recent technological advances — it is more economically feasible than it has ever been. Now, the first of 17 proposed desalination plants in California is one permit away from starting construction. But as water runs short from one source, is grabbing it from another really so easy?

The water rush

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