Supporting a More Resilient Water Future at the International Desalination Association World Congress 2022

The International Desalination Association (IDA) World Congress returns to Australia for the first time since 2011 at the ICC in Sydney from 9-13 October 2022. The event attracts global attendance from public and private sector professionals, researchers and academics in desalination, water reuse, energy, environment and project finance. This year’s theme is Charting Resilient Water Solutions.

Jacobs is a proud sponsor of the event with several of our global industry-leading experts attending and presenting across the program which consists of panel discussions, a peer-reviewed technical program, keynote presentations, a public and private sector driven exhibition and Leaders’ Summit.

Jacobs’ history in delivering desalination projects worldwide is extensive. For more than 40 years we’ve been actively involved in academic and practical research, pilot-testing of desalination technologies as well as delivering the design, construction and operation of desalination systems around the world.

Participating as a sponsor at the IDA World Congress gives us an opportunity to engage with the industry while contributing our knowledge and experience to the technical program sessions. Here are some of the highlights of our participation at IDA this year:

Visit our booth

We invite you to visit our booth No. 80 to network with our team, meet our presenters and discover more about our long history of providing leading water resilience solutions through our desalination plant design and purified recycled water innovation.

Members of our local and international water teams at our booth will include Mary Kanavoutsos, Bradley Allpike, Jim Lozier, Erin Vais, Dennis Cho, Constanze Simmermacher, Francois Neser and Andrew Layson.

Technical Program Presentations

Jacobs also has several presentations in the technical program streams.

01 Seawater and Brackish Water Desalination

1.1. Seawater Plant Cases Studies and Process Improvements

Monday, October 10, 4:25 p.m. AEDT

Our presentations kick off with Jacobs Portfolio Manager Treatment Plants ESEA, Process Engineering Lead, Constanze Simmermacher who travels from Singapore to present her paper titled Tuas Desalination Plant in this session. The paper focusses on the compact design of Singapore’s third municipal desalination plant – Tuas Desalination Plant (TDP) – and how Singapore’s high land value means developments must use as little land as possible to fit in with the land use masterplan. Constanze will talk about how the design of TDP responded to these constraints and the design and construction challenges these constraints presented.

1.5. Planning for Major City, State and Country Desalination Upgrades



Tuesday, October 11, 2:55 p.m. AEDT

Then on Day Two, Jacobs Senior Associate Project Manager, Francois Neser will present on Desalination Responses for Greater Sydney Planned During the 2017-2020 Drought. In 2019, Jacobs and GHD as joint venture partners were engaged by WaterNSW to provide technical and environmental services for the Greater Sydney Desalination Program (GSDP) to advise the NSW Government of options to augment Greater Sydney’s water supplies with desalinated seawater. This presentation conveys the steps taken, key considerations and the lessons learnt by the GSDP in planning major desalinated water supply augmentation during Greater Sydney’s 2017-2020 drought.



Tuesday, October 11, 4:00 p.m. AEDT

Next, Jacobs Principal Process Engineer/ANZ Technical Director (Water Reuse), Dennis Cho will talk about Jacobs’ role in developing a drought resilience strategy using a deterministic analysis versus stochastic (probabilistic) modelling. Traditional drought management plans rely on an adaptive approach, defining storage triggers for implementation of contingent drought response supplies. In his presentation titled Greater Sydney Water Strategy – Toward Greater Drought Resilience, Dennis will talk about the work undertaken to quantify the additional rainfall independent supply (RFIS) required to improve resilience against severe and prolonged drought by slowing storage depletion rates. His paper will show that the next augmentation of the supply system required for long-term water supply should be RFIS to provide the dual benefit of drought resilience.

02 Water Reuse, Potable and Non-Potable including Public Outreach.

Jacobs Vice President and Global Technology Leader for Desalination, Jim Lozier joins us all the way from Phoenix, Arizona to be the Topic Chair of this session 02 Water Reuse, Potable and Non-Potable including Public Outreach.

2.1. Potable Water Reuse Studies and Projects



Tuesday, October 11, 12:15 p.m. AEDT

Rounding out the Jacobs technical presentations is Jacobs Senior Principal Water Engineer, Andrew Layson with his paper on Satisfying Purified Recycled Water Stakeholder Expectations – Lessons for Engineers and Project Leaders. Andrew will talk about how the successful implementation of Purified Recycled Water (PRW) schemes isn’t only about the technology but also includes timely engagement with the right stakeholders. His paper examines the less tangible factors and their implications for engineers using experiences from PRW schemes in various stages of development reviewed through consultation with the engineers involved in those projects.

Download a full program overview here and to register or find out more about IDA 2022 World Congress, visit https://wc.idadesal.org/

We look forward to seeing you there.