Session: DAC-12-01-Engineering for Global Development

Paper Number: 89713

89713 - The Need for Desalination in Humanitarian Emergencies 

Humanitarian crises ranging from political unrest to natural disasters are becoming increasingly prevalent with global climate change. Correspondingly, there are an increasing number of regions that consist both of high crises risk and saline groundwater contamination. Such regions have been identified to include the Middle East, Subsaharan Africa (particularly along the Great Rift Valley), Southeast Asia (including the Mekong Delta and Pacific Islands), and general coastal regions. However, there are a lack of robust, deployable desalination technologies for humanitarian crises. This is attributed to the highly-constrained environment within disasters which include important design requirements such as: minimization of consumables, rapid speed of deployment and simplification of operation and maintenance. Such requirements are often secondary thoughts, are difficult to traditionally quantify, and differ from stable commercial situations where operations are supported by an accessible supply chain and network of technicians. These barriers have particularly hindered the adoption of membrane technology and thus, high volume desalination and chemical contaminant removal. This work justifies the need for desalination technology in humanitarian crises via saline groundwater databases and exploration of regional case studies, formulates design requirements for an emergency-use desalination system based on needs extracted from open-interviews of stakeholders, and evaluates some of the gaps and potential viability of currently employed deployable desalination systems.

Presenting Author: Jonathan Bessette Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Presenting Author Biography: Jonathan Bessette is a PhD candidate in the Global Engineering and Research Laboratory at MIT. His background is in machine design, design theory and methodology, optimization, machine learning, control & mechatronics, and water treatment. His current work is in controls and design framework for a deployable direct-drive photovoltaic electrodialysis desalination system, with applications in humanitarian emergencies.

Authors:

Jonathan Bessette Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Amos Winter Massachusetts Institute of Technology