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© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Global water resources are under pressure due to increasing population and diminishing conventional water resources caused by global warming. Water scarcity is a daunting global problem which has prompted efforts to find unconventional resources as an appealing substitute for conventional water, particularly in arid and semiarid regions. Ice is one such unconventional water resource, which is available mainly in the Arctic and Antarctic. In this study, opportunities and challenges in iceberg utilization as a source of freshwater were investigated on the basis of a systematic literature review (SLR). A search in three databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest) yielded 47 separate studies from 1974 to 2019. The SLR indicated that harvesting iceberg water, one of the purest sources of water, offers benefits ranging from supplying freshwater and creating new jobs to avoiding iceberg damage to offshore structures. Economic considerations and risks associated with iceberg towing were identified as the main limitations to iceberg harvesting, while environmental impacts were identified as the main challenge to exploiting this resource. Assessment of trends in ice sheets in Arctic and Antarctic across different spatiotemporal scales indicated that the main sources of icebergs showed a statistically significant (p < 0.01) decreasing trend for all months and seasons during 2005–2019.

Details

Title
Polar Ice as an Unconventional Water Resource: Opportunities and Challenges
Author
Karimidastenaei, Zahra 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Klöve, Björn 1 ; Sadegh, Mojtaba 2 ; Ali Torabi Haghighi 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Water, Energy and Environmental Engineering Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4300, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland; [email protected] (B.K.); [email protected] (A.T.H.) 
 Department of Civil Engineering, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725, USA; [email protected] 
First page
3220
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
20734441
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2602206374
Copyright
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.