Water supply through economically and environmentally friendly approaches, especially in areas facing a water crisis, is
one of the most pressing global challenges. The present study proposes a highly efficient reverse osmosis (RO) system for
desalinating Persian Gulf water and explores its environmental impacts, energy efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and operational consistency. The designed RO system significantly decreased ionic concentration (90%), total dissolved solids
(99.6%), electrical conductivity (99.4%), and NaCl (>95%). The life cycle assessment was conducted by using the production of 1 m3 of potable water via RO desalination of Persian Gulf seawater as the functional unit. The highest environmental burdens appeared to be human carcinogenic toxicity (48%) and freshwater ecotoxicity (19%), mainly from Mg2þ, NO3 ,
and Cl releases. The RO system adversely affected human health (96.33%) and ecosystems (2.35%) because of effluent
and energy consumption, whereas fossil fuels dominated the resource category. Fossil fuels supplied 93.7% of the system’s energy requirements, leading to 99.8% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions, specifically CO2 (70.65%) and CH4
(10.8%). Sensitivity analysis revealed that a 20% reduction in Mg2þ and NO3 inputs alleviated impacts by 43.81% to
95.21% across all categories. Furthermore, the Monte Carlo simulation revealed a coefficient of variation <10% for all environmental categories, confirming the credibility and reliability of the results. The water production, capital, and operating expenses were calculated as $0.10/m3, $74,908.2/m3, and $409,687,014.2, respectively. Over a 20-year period, the net present value obtained was $1,984,510,642 with an 11-year payback period. Collectively, implementing an appropriate pretreatment and using renewable energy sources notably reduces the carbon footprint of an RO system (>60%). The current investigation highlights the role of management strategies in mitigating the environmental imp