*Corresponding author. Presented at the 2nd joint workshop between the Center for Seawater Desalination Plant and the European Desalination Society, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, October 8–9, 2008. 0011-9164/09/$– See front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi: 10.1016/j.desal.0000.00.000 Desalination 249 (2009) 1–14 Desalination plants in Australia, review and facts I. El Saliby a , Y. Okour a , H.K. Shon a, *, J. Kandasamy a , In S. Kim b a School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology, Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia Tel. +61-2-9514 2629; Fax: +61-2-9514 2633; email:hkshon@eng.uts.edu.au b Center for Seawater Desalination Plant, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, Korea Received 13 November 2008; revised 17 December 2008; accepted 24 December 2008 Abstract Australia is the driest continent on earth and despite this the installed desalination capacity is still around 1% of the total world’s desalination capacity. This paper reviews the main seawater issues considered in every desalination project—the history, the present situation and the future of desalination in Australia, the suitability of applying reverse osmosis (RO) and the project details of two desalination plants (Sydney and Perth). Ocean currents, seawater temperature and salinity are signifcant indicators in the assessment of the feasibility of desalination as they afect the production costs, the maintenance frequency and the quality of the product water. Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) is the only type of desalination technology currently used or proposed for future large-scale desalination plants in Australia. Every capital city except Darwin has considered building at least one desalination plant as a means of providing water security after several years of unprecedented drought that has signifcantly reduced dam storage levels. Perth was the frst major city to use desalinated water for drinking water supply and by early 2009 Sydney will be the second city. Thirteen other large-scale SWRO plants are being planned or proposed at several locations for the purpose of supplying drinking water. Keywords: Australia; Desalination plant; Perth; Reverse osmosis; Review; Sydney 1. Introduction Australia’s natural water resources until several decades ago were meeting the water requirement of the Australian population. Dams constructed on streams and water catchments are the main source of fresh pota- ble water [1]. According to ICOLD [2] there are a total of 499 dams in Australia with a total capacity of 93.7 billion m 3 . The last dec- ade has seen a signifcant drop in water stored in water reservoirs in almost every state due