More generally, desalination may also refer to the removal of salts and minerals, as in soil desalination, which also happens to be a major issue for agricultural production. Salt water is desalinated to produce fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation.One potential by-product of desalination is salt.ater there and at Queensland's Gold Coast Desalination Plant and Sydney's Kurnell Desalination Plant is withdrawn at only 0.1 m/s (0.33 ft/s), which is slow enough to let fish escape. The plant provides nearly 140,000 m 3 (4,900,000 cu ft) of clean water per day.