Results: One of the driest countries on Earth now makes more freshwater than it needs

The new Sorek desalination plant is the largest reverse-osmosis desal facility in the world. It's located in Israel. Just a few years ago, in the depths of its worst drought in at least 900 years, Israel was running out of water. Now it has a surplus. That remarkable turnaround was accomplished through national campaigns to conserve and reuse Israel's meager water resources, but the biggest impact came from a new wave of desalination plants. Did you hear about this project before?

Desal works by pushing saltwater into membranes containing microscopic pores. The water gets through, while the larger salt molecules are left behind. But microorganisms in seawater quickly colonize the membranes and block the pores, and controlling them requires periodic costly and chemical-intensive cleaning. As far as you know, is this process used in the US and/or Canada?

Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world's driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants. Would this system be helpful in other very dry areas which are now having serious water issues?

In 2008, Israel teetered on the edge of catastrophe. A decade-long drought had scorched the Fertile Crescent, and Israel's largest source of freshwater, the Sea of Galilee, had dropped to within inches of the "black line" at which irreversible salt infiltration would flood the lake and ruin it forever. Water restrictions were imposed, and many farmers lost a year's crops. Are there any water restrictions where you live?