美国海水淡化环境管理政策初探

Study on Environmental Management for the Desalination Industry in the USA

海水淡化被公认为是解决水资源危机的有效途径之一,在很多国家和地区已得到广泛应用。淡化厂运行过程中的取、排水环节涉及与周边水体的交互作用,为了避免潜在的环境影响,需制定相关环境管理条例对淡化厂的建设、运营进行规定。美国的淡化经历了数十年的发展,已经成为世界淡化产业的重要组成部分,特别是在淡化产业环境管理方面已形成了联邦、州和地方三个层面较为完备的管理体系,囊括淡化项目的立项、实施、环境影响以及淡化水的安全饮用等各个方面。文章就美国淡化产业发展现状及其环境管理政策体系进行了介绍和梳理,以期对我国刚刚起步的淡化产业发展提供一定的借鉴。

Seawater desalination has been generally recognized as an effective way to resolve freshwater crisis and widely adopted across many economies. The intake and discharge processes of a desalination plant are necessarily related to interactions with surrounding waters. In order to avoid potential adverse environmental impact, it is of great significance to draw up desalination-related environmental management regulations, thus effectively administrating the construction and operation activities of desalination plants. Through decades of development, the USA desalination sector has become part of the world desalination industry. Especially, in the field of environmental management on the desalination industry, a management system of three levels has been established, consisting of the federal, state and local responsibilities, and covering all aspects of a desalination project： approval, implementation, environmental impacts as well as the safety of potable desalinated water. The desalination industry in the USA and its environmental management policies are presented and studied in this paper, so as to provide some reference experience for the healthy development of China＇s newly-emerging desalination industry.