Publication: L.A. Times

UCLA Expert: Yoram Cohen: Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Professor, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability; Director, UCLA Water Technology Research; Member, UCLA Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology; Member, UCLA/National Science Foundation

Synopsis: Preoccupation with water has now become critical as severe drought grips California and its Channel Islands — a rugged, eight-isle archipelago that hosts several human outposts and a handful of species that exist nowhere else on Earth. But desalination has helped keep them out of similarly severe water restrictions so far this year.

UCLA News: Cohen, a desalination expert, said size can be a factor when it comes to the impact of the brine. “If you discharge 20, 25 million gallons a day, that’s a lot more than 200,000 gallons a day, so the impact on the environment, the local impact, is going to be very different. It may be easier to disperse a small volume, or a small volumetric flow, than it is a huge one,” he said.

Read more at L.A. Times.