Environmental Impacts of Seawater Desalination on the Marine Environment in the Kingdom of Bahrain

The main water planning and management challenge facing Bahrain is in how to balance water availability and water use on a long-term basis in the face of increasing demands under the least economic and environmental costs and without endangering socio-economic development. To meet escalating municipal water demands desalination is becoming inevitable, which is associated with substantial financial, economic, and environmental costs. In this research, the environmental impact of seawater desalination on the surrounding marine environment is assessed at a government-owned MSF desalination plant (Sitra Power and Water Station (SPWS)). The assessment used a number of environmental indicators, namely temperature and salinity (TDS) at the desalination plant outfall area, and included a field survey to characterize the outfall area of the desalination plant, simulation modeling of the outfall area using CORMIX hydrodynamic model after its calibration by field data, and investigating mitigation scenarios. Characterization and simulation of elevated temperature and salinity of brine discharge was made for the winter season, where the maximum thermal impact occurs. The simulation indicated that the brine temperature is within Bahrain Mixing Zone Standards. The brine plume elevated temperature drops to ambient temperature within 37 minutes after traveling a distance of 350 meters downstream. The brine plume elevated salinity drops to the ambient seawater salinity within 41 minutes and a distance of about 390 m downstream. The effectiveness of a technical mitigation option of mixing of power cooling water with brine during the winter season was assessed and was found to have the potential of reducing the impact of the temperature by 30% and salinity by 38% in comparison to the current conditions. It is recommended that other quantifiable environmental indicators to characterize and assess desalination impacts on the marine environment, such as brine chemicals, air pollution, and biological communities, are used in assessing the environmental impacts of desalination; a regular monitoring program of seawater quality in the Near Field Region (NFR) and the Regulatory Mixing Zone (RMZ) is designed and implemented, and similar investigative and assessment studies are conducted on all the other desalination plants in Bahrain

Spatial Optimization of the Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Groundwater resource development, management, and planning essentially rely on their quantitative and qualitative monitoring. The information obtained from the monitoring networks of a given groundwater resource is used as a significant indicator for the status of that resource, and management schemes are subsequently made in order to develop and utilize this resource on a sustainable basis. In this study, the performance of the existing monitoring network of the quality of groundwater in Bahrain was evaluated and was spatially optimized using the geostatistical method of kriging. The estimation variance was used as a criterium in the design process, and variance reduction was used to measure the network performance. The process resulted in an increase in the number of observation points from 15 currently monitored wells to 91 wells, with 74% of these being augmented industrial and commercial wells that were to be self-reported to internalize the cost of groundwater management in their users. It is recommended that temporal optimization procedures for the groundwater level are conducted and that monitored groundwater quality data are stored in a dedicated groundwater management information system (MIS) along with the monitored data of groundwater levels and abstraction to effectively support the process of decision making for groundwater planning and management

Impacts of climate change on the municipal water management system in the Kingdom of Bahrain: Vulnerability assessment and adaptation options

An assessment of the vulnerability of the municipal water management system to the impacts of climate change in the Kingdom of Bahrain, manifested by the increase in demands due to increase in temperatures, is conducted using a dynamic mathematical model representing the water sector in the kingdom. The model is developed using WEAP software and was calibrated and validated by historical matching utilizing data for the period 2000–2012. The model is used in the evaluation of the municipal water sector performance in terms of municipal water demands and their associated cost without and with climate change impacts scenarios for the period 2012–2030. The impact of climate change on the municipal water system is quantified as the difference between the two scenarios in three selected cost indicators: financial (production, conveyance and distribution costs), economic (natural gas asset consumption by desalination plants), and environmental (CO2 emissions by desalination plants). The vulnerability assessment indicated that the current municipal water management system in Bahrain is generally inefficient and associated with relatively high costs, which are expected to increase with time under the current policies and management approach focusing on supply-side management. The increase in temperature will increase these already high costs, and would exacerbate the water management challenges in Bahrain. However, these mounting challenges also present an opportune moment for Bahrain to review its current water resources management approaches and practices and to integrate climate change adaptation measures into its water planning and policies. In order to build an adaptive management capacity of the municipal water management system in Bahrain, a number of management interventions are proposed and evaluated, individually and combined, for their effectiveness in enhancing the efficiency of the management system using the developed dynamic model. These are: reduction of the leakage percentage in the municipal water distributions network and reducing per capita water consumption by raising water awareness among consumers and installing water saving devices in residential units. The evaluation results indicate that there is a large potential for reducing the municipal water demand and its associated cost, especially when all the three are combined; by the year 2030 it is estimated that the cumulative financial saving would be about US$ 2.9 Billion, the cumulative reduction in CO2 emission would be about 19.7 Million tons, and the preservation of the kingdom’s limited natural gas reserves would be about 4 Billion m3. In addition, a major reduction in desalination brine discharge to the marine environment and reduction of generated wastewater and their associated collection and treatment cost could be achieved from the implementation of these interventions. Adopting such management interventions will not only enhance the efficiency of the municipal water management system, but it will also help the Kingdom in its efforts in reducing its greenhouse gasses emissions. It is recommended that similar climate change vulnerability and adaptation analysis is extended to the whole water sector in Bahrain to include other major water consuming sectors (i.e., agricultural, industrial, and tourism sectors) and their sources of water (i.e., groundwater and wastewater) in Bahrain. Keywords: Desalination, CO2 emissions, Natural gas consumption, WEAP modeling, Awareness, Water saving devices, Distribution network leakag