China has achieved success in sub-seawater desalination for the first time, noted Tan Yongwen, deputy director with Hangzhou Development Center of Water Treatment Technology under State Oceanic Administration (SOA).

Various indexes of the desalinated sub-seawater are in conformity with or even better than the quality as required for running water and drinking water, which means it can be used for drinking water.

Tan also said that Zhejiang province has the richest sub-seawater resources in China. There are 16 beach reservoirs with a storage volume of over 1 million cubic meters and the total storage capacity reaches 200 million cubic meters.

The desalination cost for per ton of seawater is around 5 yuan, but that of sub-seawater is only around 2 yuan. If the project supplies the society with desalinated water, the water price will be about the same with that of the current running water even with the pipeline leakage and management expense taken into consideration.

By People's Daily Online