The pipes work like powerful straws, sucking in seawater and sending it through a series of tanks and filters. The Barka 4 desalination plant is Oman’s newest and largest.

Powered by natural gas, the plant went online last year and at full capacity can churn out 74 million gallons of potable water in a day — enough to fill 112 Olympic-size swimming pools.  

Oman relies on desalination because its extreme scarcity of water leaves few other options. In this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, there isn’t a single river that flows year-round, and pumping from wells has led to depleted aquifers and allowed saltwater to seep into groundwater along the coast.

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