Techno-economic assessment in integrated water resources management

Jordan and Palestine are confronted with high freshwater scarcity, which is to be covered by seawater desalination at the Mediterranean and Red Sea. The infrastructure concepts required for this area transboundary and integrate desalination plants, pipelines, and pumping stations to transport freshwater to points of demand. A techno-economic assessment is conducted to provide implications for design and economic viability at an early planning stage. The cost of providing one cubic meter of water is determined by looking at the water infrastructure components in an integrated way and used to judge economic viability of a project. Results highlight substantial cost differences between alternatives. Cost differences are mainly caused by different energy requirements for water transport. Furthermore, incorporation of a hydropower plant into the water infrastructure network may be economically advantageous given the large amounts of transferred water. © 2022, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.