Page 325 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

324 15. Barriers identification and prioritization

(ii) the introduction of foreign investment and the collaboration with some foreign
companies with advanced desalination technologies; and
(iii) establish a professional talent team for China’s desalination industry.
(2) Enhancing the awareness and perceptions of the stakeholders of seawater desalination:
the awareness and perceptions of the stakeholders of seawater desalination for mitigating
water supply crises and solving environmental problems should be enhanced. The low
awareness and perceptions lead to the lack of advanced technologies, high energy
consumption, the lack of funds for R&D on desalination technologies, the negative
environmental impacts, and the lack of governmental supporting policies and
regulations. The most important ways are education, popular science, and publicity for
making more citizens in China.
(3) Setting more governmental industry-supporting policies and regulations: the
administration in China should set more industry-supporting policies and regulations for
China’s desalination industry. The lack of governmental supporting policies leads to the
lack of advanced desalination technologies, high energy consumption, high capital cost,
lack of R&D funds for desalination technologies, and low social acceptability of
desalination technologies for water supply. There are three suggestions for supporting
China’s desalination industry:
(i) set low or even zero interest loans for China’s desalination companies;
(ii) set special subsidies for China’s desalination companies; and
(iii) set priority strategy for desalted water supply in the coastal cities of China.
(4) Establishing a special governmental sector responsible for desalination: the
responsibilities of different governmental sectors for desalination industry are unclear.
The unclear responsibility between different governmental sectors can lead to high capital
cost, high operations cost, lack of R&D funds, negative environmental impacts, low social
acceptability, and lack of governmental support.

15.6 Conclusions

This study aims to develop a generic method for identifying the barriers influencing the
sustainable development of the desalination industry in China and investigating the
interdependent cause-effect relationships among these barriers. A total of nine key barriers
in four categories were identified. Subsequently, an improved DEMATEL method was
developed to investigate the cause-effect relationships among the barriers. Different from
the traditional DEMATEL method, the developed DEMATEL method can assure the
accurate determination of the relative influences of the influential factors on each factor.
After determining the cause-effect relationships among these barriers, some policy impli-
cations were provided for promoting the sustainable development of the desalination
industry in China.