Avaliação dos impactos da dessalinização da água do mar para fins de abastecimento humano

Abstract

Ceará constantly suffers from water shortages and, as a way of minimizing the consequences of the drought, one of the measures planned is the diversification of the state's water matrix. And the desalination of seawater has been an important alternative for this purpose. The Fortaleza desalination plant will be located in the Praia do Futuro neighborhood in Fortaleza and will be the largest seawater desalination plant in Brazil with capacity to produce 1 m3/s of fresh water. The project received. in 2023, the approval of the State Environmental Council (COEMA) for the issuance of the preliminary license, which allows the location and design of the same. Therefore, this work aims to present a discussion on the environmental impacts of seawater desalination for human supply, presenting, through a bibliographical review, the main methods and current legislation, in addition to comparing the methods of assessing impacts of the Fortaleza desalination plant with studies of plants in Moncofar in Spain, the Atacama region in Chile and Alkimos in Australia, as well as the most significant impacts of these studies. In total, there were 20 significant impacts, 14 in the construction phase and 6 in the implementation phase, consisting of 2 common to all studies, 3 common to three studies, 3 impacts common to two studies and 12 impacts found in just one study.