Brine discharges from two coastal desalination plants

Desalinated water is becoming a valuable commercial resource in sustaining growth and to allow further development in the arid climate countries. The standard disposal method for a large-scale seawater desalination plant is to continuously discharge brine waste stream into the sea via an outfall. When two or more sea brine outfalls are discharging into shallow coastal waters, the potential adverse impacts are strongly interdependent. Modeling studies of the interaction of two brine discharged plumes is presented. The results are found to be influenced by the outfall lengths, distance between the two outfalls, and the concentration factor at the discharge point. The model application to the combined power generation and seawater desalination plant is illustrated.