The government of Tunisia inaugurated the Zarat water desalination plant. The country’s President Kaïs Saïed launched the project which aims to alleviate the overexploitation of groundwater resources, which has been a significant issue due to prolonged droughts and the depletion of surface water sources.
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The water plant was developed by the Indian company Va Tech Wabag. It has a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters of drinking water per day, with plans to double this capacity to 100,000 cubic meters by 2027. The seawater is sourced from a pumping station and transported through a network of 1,800 mm diameter pipes to storage tanks, each holding 10,000 cubic meters of water.
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The facility includes a brine discharge system connected to the existing network through 1,400 mm diameter pipes. Va Tech Wabag, based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, provided the engineering, procurement, and construction services for the project under an agreement with Tunisia’s National Agency for Operations and Water Distribution (SONEDE) signed in 2019.
Zarat water desalination plant will provide drinking water to around one million people across the governorates of Gabes, Médenine, and Tataouine by 2035. The Tunisian government, in partnership with the German development agency Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), co-financed the plant’s construction with an investment of US $105M.
The Zarat plant will begin operations at the end of July 2024. Additionally, this plant is the first of three seawater desalination plants planned to be operational by the end of 2024, with the other two located in the cities of Sfax and Sousse.