Istanbul to convert seawater to drinking water

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) has pressed the button for converting seawater to drinking water, as the environmental impact assessment phase of the project started.

The 600-million-lira project will be constructed on a 160,000-meter-square area 1.5 km away from Terkos Lake of Istanbul and 900 meters from Durugöl Stream.

A purifier and reverse osmosis systems will be established as a part of the project.

With the solution pumped under high pressure, salts and impurities will be filtered.

With the project, 400,000 cubic meters of seawater will be converted to 200-000 cubic meters of drinking water and rest of the water will be sent to Black Sea by deep discharge method.

After the environmental impact assessment report approval, the project will be completed in 180 days by 200 workers.

Seawater treatment is not new in Turkey. Avşa, an island in the Marmara Sea off the coast of Istanbul, has had a facility supplying water to a small population since 2010.

Nevertheless, Istanbul will likely become the first major city to have this system.