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Abstract
This study aims to make the economic assessment of five Desalination
Systems by Reverse Osmosis (RO) that are used to generate fresh
water for human consumption in rural communities in the Ceará State.
The data was gathered from primary source by questionnaire applied to
governmental organizations. The method used was the analysis of investment
taking into account shadow prices. We concluded that due to the
inexistence of any good practices for the desalination management some
equipment resulted in negative financing return when considering the effective
consumption, particularly those of 400 and 600 liter/hour. In addition,
they generated inefficiency regarding to technical support, turning
impossible better improvement of the system performance, thus leading
to insecure water supplies and unsatisfied demand. Given the limitations
imposed by the managers, low production and system failures, which resulted
in constant systems’ interruption, the effective demand of fresh
water was restricted to the half of the working capacity of the system.