'Worse Than Anything Seen in 2,000 Years' as Megadrought Threatens Western States

[NickB79]

13. Even Saudi Arabia doesn't rely heavily on desal. to exist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Saudi_Arabia#Desalination

Total municipal water use in Saudi Arabia has been estimated at 2.1 cubic kilometers per year in 2004, or 9% of total water use. Agriculture accounts for 88% of water use and industry for only 3%. Demand has been growing at the rate of 4.3% per annum (average for the period 1999-2004), in tandem with urban population growth (around 3%). Water supply is usually not metered, neither at the source nor the distribution point. It is tentatively estimated that average water consumption for those connected to the network is about 235 liters per capita per day, a level lower than in the United States.[2]

snip

Saudi Arabia is one of the driest regions in the world, with no perennial rivers. Water is obtained from four distinct sources:

non-renewable groundwater from the deep fossil aquifers
desalinated water
surface water
renewable groundwater from shallow alluvial aquifers
Only the last two sources are renewable. Their volume, however, is minimal. Desalination plants provide about half the country’s drinking water. About 40% comes from groundwater. The remainder comes from surface water (about 10%). Desalinated water is prevalent along the coasts, surface water in the southwest region and groundwater elsewhere. The capital Riyadh, however, is supplied to a great extent with desalinated water pumped from the Persian Gulf over 467 km to the city located in the heart of the country.

It states that desal. provides half the municipal water, which means only 4.5% of all water used there is from desal. plants.

And that's in an insanely wealthy country in prime solar territory to boot.