Impact of Brine Discharge from Seawater Desalination Plants on Persian/Arabian Gulf Salinity
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 145, Issue 12
Abstract
The Persian Gulf (also known as Arabian Gulf) is surrounded by desalination plants with about 50% of worldwide capacity to desalinate seawater. Most of these plants dispose of hypersaline effluent (brine) via surface and nearshore outfall into the Gulf. Because energy for desalination increases with seawater salinity, buildup of salt in brine endangers potable water supply there. Brine also contains metals and chemicals (foreign to the marine environment) that have adverse effects on marine ecosystems. Here, for the first time, brine is introduced into Gulf evaporation-driven residual circulation, which controls subbasin flushing, to quantify brine impact on salinity at basin and regional scales. Salt buildup increased mean annual basin salinity () by only , which confirms that basin salinity is insensitive to brine. But regional sensitivity to brine is significant, especially in the southwestern Gulf region near the Arabian coast, where the largest salt buildup raised salinity by about . The results of this study suggests a significant role for brine outfall position in determining brine impact on regional salt levels.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code used during the study were provided by a third party.
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Gulf-Atmosphere Regional Model (GARM).
Direct requests for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Dr. Pengfei Xue for providing the numerical model (GARM) used for this study (Xue and Eltahir 2015). Also, thank you to Dr. Yunfang Sun for invaluable technical assistance and constructive discussions during model setup. This work was achieved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for H. I.’s Ph.D. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering (hydrology), defended on August 7, 2017, at MIT. Partial funding was provided by the Center for Complex Engineering Systems (CCES) at MIT and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).
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Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 145 • Issue 12 • December 2019
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©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: May 18, 2018
Accepted: Apr 11, 2019
Published online: Sep 28, 2019
Published in print: Dec 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Feb 28, 2020
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