\u201cWe’re looking at a population of about 1.5 to 1.7 million in Dublin and that’s growing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe eastern boundary of Ireland has just got this massive population and climate change is then leading to drier spells and more frequent drought conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, even though we’ve got a wet country, we don’t actually have the storage capacity to hold the water when we get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/P77EXH.jpg\")
Low water levels in a Northern Ireland Reservoir. Picture by: Alamy.com.<\/p>\n
At present, 85% of water used by the Greater Dublin Area is extracted from the River Liffey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To diversify their supply, Uisce \u00c9irean has submitted a planning application for the Water Supply Project Eastern and Midlands Region; if approved, it would see a pipeline built that links the capital with the River Shannon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is we’ve been debating the Shannon-Dublin pipeline and saying this is going to be a solution to it,\u201d Mr Davis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that solution is only a short-term solution; it’s going to take 2% from the Shannon without any environmental impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we don’t know what the environmental impact is with climate change; so, in other words, drought conditions are going to have on the Shannon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The solution, Mr Davis believes is desalination, which is when sea water is filtered to remove salt and other minerals to make it drinkable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is traditionally more expensive than treating freshwater; however, Mr Davis believes desalination would give Ireland more security of supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe rely on a fresh water source for water all of the time – we don’t use the sea at all,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that the ability is there, but what it would do is give us that resilience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhereby, if we are having drought conditions, such as what we’re experiencing in Dublin, we have an opportunity rather than dragging a pipeline from the Shannon, which we don’t know the environmental impact on because of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Main image: An old road emerges in a reservoir reduced by drought. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government should consider building desalination facilities to tackle more frequent droughts in the years ahead, a lecturer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-549809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}