Marine monitoring surveys for desalination plants—a critical review

Abstract

Abstract Environmental impact assessment (EIA) studies are standard practice and a regulatory requirement for most new desalination projects today. However, most of the EIA studies are limited to predictive information; that is, they gather information on the project and the project’s environment before project implementation to make predictions about likely impacts. The EIAs may involve comprehensive studies, such as field monitoring, laboratory toxicity testing, and modeling studies. Consequently, the “surprising paucity of useful experimental data, either from laboratory tests or from field monitoring studies”, which was observed by the US National Research Council in 2008, has been gradually decreasing. However, there is still a long-term research need on the site-specific effects of desalination plants after project commissioning has taken place. A main challenge of field research is the adequate design of the monitoring studies, which have to adequately distinguish the effects of the desalination pr...