Today's water systems are enabled by ample fresh water sources, low-cost centralized treatment, and facile wastewater disposal. Climatic change, aging infrastructure, and source water contamination have exposed the vulnerabilities of this linear water paradigm. While seawater desalination enables coastal communities to augment their supply, more broadly securing water systems for municipal, industrial, and agricultural water users will require distributed desalination and fit-for-purpose reuse of nontraditional water sources. Our linear water economy must evolve into a resilient circular water economy, where water is continuously reused and “contaminants” become the feedstocks for other economically valuable processes. Technology innovation is needed to deliver autonomous, precise, resilient, intensified, modular, and electrified desalination systems that reduce the cost, improve the performance, and enhance the resilience of nontraditional water reuse systems. Meanwhile, strong federal leadership and coordination is needed to accelerate desalination research, promote information gathering efforts to direct technology development, and create an expanded role for non-profit organizations in knowledge dissemination.

中文翻译：

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循环水经济脱盐

当今的供水系统有充足的淡水源，低成本的集中处理和便捷的废水处理能力。气候变化，基础设施老化和水源污染已暴露出这种线性水范式的脆弱性。海水淡化使沿海社区能够增加其供应量，而更广泛地确保市政，工业和农业用水者的供水系统将需要分布式淡化和适合非传统用途的水源再利用。我们的线性水经济必须演变为具有弹性的循环水经济，在这种经济中，水会不断重复利用，“污染物”成为其他具有经济价值的过程的原料。需要技术创新来实现自主，精确，弹性，强化，模块化，电气化淡化系统可以降低成本，提高性能并增强非传统中水回用系统的弹性。同时，需要强有力的联邦领导和协调，以加快海水淡化研究，促进信息收集工作以指导技术发展，并扩大非营利组织在知识传播中的作用。