According to estimations of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the arable land available worldwide will significantly be reduced by 2025 ([UNCCD]), where desertification has to be understood as the degradation of land in arid and semi-arid regions and not as the expansion of existing deserts. One reason for this reality is the scarcity of freshwater resources in these areas, which are continuously being reduced. Thus, it is expected that the world reserve of freshwater will be in 2025 around 650 m3 per capita (today is 1,300 m3 per capita).

In order to combat the water scarcity, intensive desalination and water-reuse activities are being carried out particularly in the Mediterranean countries, where remote arid regions are suffering the desertification process. However, desalination requires intensive energy consumption and according to the United Nations, depletion of non-renewable resources is considerably increasing and traditional energy resources will become very expensive, even though the time for complete depletion is expected to be still very long. Thus, the water production must be drastically increased on the one hand and, on the other hand, energy is becoming more expensive and limited. Moreover, very large desalination plants at coast seems to be inadequate for remote areas because of an expensive infrastructure and high distribution costs including important pipe losses. Because energy has to be generated to supply the desalination plant is logical to think in a cogenerating system for water and electricity, which has the potential to not only improve the conditions of life but also to make a very significant economic contribution.