Egypt’s population has topped 100 million and is increasingly spreading beyond the country’s key source of fresh water, the Nile River. This has expedited plans to increase desalination capacity at coastal cities around the country.

Nameplate desalination capacity has risen sixfold from 144,060 m³/d at end-2016 to stand at 831,690 m³/d via 76 different plants. But this is still just a fraction of 1% of the country’s 100bn m³ (274mn m³/d) 2019 water consumption. And operational desalination capacity is lower still with many of the older plants in a decrepit state. (CONTINUED - 734 WORDS)