Economic Feasibility Evaluation of Water Increasing Adaptations by Using Cost and Benefit Analysis: A Case Study of Seawater Desalination on a Global Scale until 2050

Abstract

With more and more regions in the world are facing water scarcity due to the climate change and human activities, various technologies to increase the water supply such as seawater desalination have been promptly developed by the projects with huge investment cost, thus it is crucially necessary to assess their costs and benefits to determine whether or not the projects are financially feasible. In this study, it chooses to develop an empirical methodology to assess the cost and benefit of seawater desalination within three socioeconomics scenarios, i.e. SSP1, SSP2 and SPP3 and furtherly estimate the optimal time to apply (OTA) of such technology basing on their different income levels of those scenarios countries.