The sustainability and prosperity of the ancient civilizations of China, Egypt, Babylonia, Phoenicia, Persia and Roma were based on the extensive use of water for human consumption, crop irrigation, canal navigation and energy generation. Today, the worldwide scarcity of water and clean energy constitutes a central and critical problem for the whole humankind. This situation is aggravated as industrial, agricultural and municipal effl uents reach the water bodies, or the coastal seawater that is used as feed for desalination plants. All these problems are linked to the actual, natural and anthropogenic changes of climate, global warming and greenhouse-gas emissions, all interrelated phenomena that aff ect our planet
