Question

Desalination has no known negative impacts on the environment.


Please select the best answer from the choices provided

True or False

Answer 1

False.

Desalination can harm the environment — main issues include:
- Brine discharge: concentrated, often warmer and chemically altered effluent can increase local salinity and temperature and harm marine life.
- Intake effects: organisms (plankton, larvae, fish) can be impinged on screens or entrained through intakes and killed.
- Energy use and emissions: many desalination plants are energy‑intensive, raising greenhouse gas emissions unless powered by renewables.
- Chemical and waste disposal: pretreatment and cleaning use chemicals whose residues can be toxic if not managed.
- Land, noise and biodiversity impacts from plant construction and pipelines.

Impacts vary by technology, scale and siting and can be reduced with proper design and mitigation.