Effectiveness of using palm fronds in reducing water evaporation

Abstract

One of the major problems in water resource planning and management is controlling of high evaporation from reservoirs, especially in arid countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Evaporation reduction can help in increasing water saving and thus reducing stress on water demand. Many types of water covers are internationally used to reduce evaporation from open water surfaces. Due to the large number of date palm trees in the Kingdom, a massive waste from these trees is disposed annually. Palm leaves as an agricultural waste can be converted to fronds and then used as a floating cover on the water surface to reduce evaporation. This paper presents feasibility results of testing palm fronds as covers in reducing evaporation from open reservoirs. Three pools were constructed at a selected site at King Saud University, Riyadh to prove the effectiveness of the proposed fronds. Data collected from the study site showed that evaporation reduction from the fully covered pool was about 55%, while that from ...