Environmental Quality Standards for Brine Discharge from Desalination Plants

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

When many desalination plants are operated closely together along coastal areas, the continuous brine discharges through marine outfall systems from these cluster plants can have a significant impact on the coastal marine environment. The potential impact can be minimized and regulated by treatment and recycling technologies, by limiting the concentration values of brine at the discharge point and also by imposing concentration values within a prescribed circular mixing zone in the coastal waters via the outfall design. The maximum concentration values for monitoring the coastal water quality standard are formulated using analytical solutions of the far-field mathematical model for single and two outfall discharges based on a flat seabed, developed to incorporate the effect of a tidally oscillating flow. The results for a single outfall model show that a smaller mixing zone is suitable only for a stronger ambient current condition at the discharge site. If a second outfall is allowed to discharge close to an existing outfall, the results show that the radius of the mixing zone should be increased to accommodate the compounded impacts.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRecent Progress in Desalination, Environmental and Marine Outfall Systems
EditorsMahad Baawain
PublisherSpringer International Publishing
Pages257-267
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-319-19123-2
ISBN (Print)978-3-319-19122-5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 31 2015

Keywords

  • Effluent discharge
  • Minimum dilution
  • Mixing zone
  • Two sea outfalls
  • Water quality model

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering
  • General Environmental Science
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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