China's seawater desalination capacity has surpassed 3 million metric tons per day, equivalent to the daily household water needs of about 15 million people, providing a reliable water supply for coastal communities, according to a report released Monday by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

The 2025 report on national seawater utilization, released to mark the 18th World Oceans Day, showed that China had 167 seawater desalination projects in operation last year, with a combined daily capacity of 3.077 million tons, an increase of 221,000 tons compared with 2024.

The projects were distributed across 10 coastal regions, including Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan provinces, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Tianjin municipality, the report said.

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Last year, national seawater cooling water use reached 193.36 billion tons, up 5.02 billion tons from 2024. Coastal regions of Liaoning, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi each exceeded 10 billion tons in cooling water consumption.

The report noted that the National Seawater Desalination Industry Alliance was established in Tianjin last year. It also said new desalination projects at coastal industrial parks supplied water for steel, metallurgy and other industries, while projects on water-scarce islands met rising demand from residents and tourism.

Advances in mineral extraction from seawater were also highlighted. Several coastal provinces have pushed forward large-scale potassium and bromine extraction projects, alongside technical upgrades to processing methods. Breakthroughs were reported in extracting lithium, uranium and deuterium from seawater, including the extraction of kilogram-scale uranium products in real marine environments.

The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–30) calls for strengthened protection, development and utilization of marine resources and accelerated efforts to build China into a maritime power. In line with the plan, the ministry said it will continue advancing the seawater utilization industry to support both water security and strategic mineral supply chains along the coast.