Impact Assessment of Inland Desalination Units on Groundwater Quality and Levels in Kuwait

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Agricultural activities in arid regions, like Kuwait, require large volume of water for irrigation purposes. Saline groundwater quality, shortage in treated wastewater supply, and expensive freshwater force farmers to use on-site brackish groundwater reverse osmosis (RO) units to treat brackish to saline groundwater. One of RO units’ primary limitations is the large volume of concentrated brine (reject water) that is generated from these units. Due to the absence of proper policies and regulations to handle reject water from RO units, it is often disposed of illegally over open land surface or unlined pits. Concentrated reject water could have negative impacts on groundwater quality, and uncontrolled pumping of groundwater could affect groundwater levels. Soil salinization due to brine disposal has negative impacts on crops, threatening partial food security attempts of the authorities. The study presented here has been conducted with the objective to assess the impact of RO reject brine on groundwater quality and levels in agricultural farms of Kuwait. This paper presents the initial activities and results of the study to evaluate impacts of RO reject water on groundwater quality and levels and recommend rational utilization of available water reserves for agricultural purposes. Groundwater levels and salinity were measured, and first round of sample collection was carried out from groundwater wells serving the feed water for RO units, product water and reject water from RO units. Samples are analyzed for major ions, trace metals and nutrients. Groundwater levels are regularly monitored to evaluate their fluctuations. Initial results indicate the decline in groundwater table and quality deterioration over the period of time. Preliminary data of this ongoing study and future plans is discussed in this paper.