Advanced Water Treatment Research

Advanced water treatment is one of our few opportunties to create new water supplies for both inland and coastal areas.  Research and innovation are needed to bring these new water supplies to the American West to help fulfill Reclamation's mission. Research and Development is part of Reclamation's overall activities for advanced water treatment.

News:

Scientists from the University of Arizona and Reclamation are working on the Navajo Nation Solar Desalination Demonstration Project-- a project innovative enough to have inspired a documentary: Seeking Water from the Sun. The full documentary is available at:  http://originals.azpm.org/seekingwater/

Meeting the Nation's Need for Water

Our Advanced Water Treatment research focuses on meeting the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS)
challenges for desalination. The NAS found that:

• Water scarcity will intensify in the coming decades.
  
  
• A strategic research effort can help make desalination a more practical option for
  communities facing water shortages.

The National Research Council's overarching goals for advanced water treatment research are to:

• Understand the environmental impacts of desalination and develop approaches to minimize these impacts relative to other water supply alternatives
  
  
• Develop approaches to lower the costs of desalination to make it an attractive alternative to water importation or transfer in locations where traditional sources of water are inadequate

Our Research Program

Desalination and Water Purification Research Program

The Desalination and Water Purification Research program was established to facilitate partnerships with academia, private industry, and local communities to develop more cost-effective, technologically efficient means to desalinate water.

Reclamation’s AWT research, development, and implementation is providing innovative solutions our nation needs to help address droughts, uncertainty, and water needs for increasing population.  AWT allows communities to develop a diverse portfolio of water supplies from non-traditional sources.

Our research priorities are based on our collaborations with the National Research Council, the NWRI, and others:

National Research Council Final Desalination: A National Perspective (15 mb pdf)

Desalination Implementation Roadmap (1 mb pdf)

Videos for Desalination in Reclamation:

• Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project
  
  
• Completion of Successful Pilot Run of the Yuma Desalting Plant
  
  
• Colorado River Basin Study Overview