Mixing of Dead Sea and Red Sea waters and changes in their physical properties

Jamal Amira,Mufeed Batarseh,Khalid Nawayseh,Emad Talafeha,Abdelaziz Khlaifat

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05444

Abstract

The present work emphasizes on the changes in the Red Sea and Dead Sea mixed waters physical properties including: temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, density, salinity and viscosity. It focuses on the impacts of changes in mixed water quality on the Dead Sea ecosystem and the current industrial activities. The pilot project site consisted of six water ponds (tanks) located next to Arab Potash Company point of intake about 100 m south of the Dead Sea shores. The Red Sea - Dead Sea water mixing was controlled and done based on the expected mixing ratios between Red Sea and Dead Sea waters to mimic the potential actual situation associated with Red Sea – Dead Sea project conduit.All measured properties of mixed water bodies in tanks 1 to 5 tend to behave differently from similar Dead Sea water (tank 6) properties. The properties variations depend on the rate of diluting the Dead Sea water by Red Sea water and rejected brine. The least altered physical properties were observed when the Red Sea concentrated brine was added to the Dead Sea water (tank 5). The obtained results show that transferring Red Sea water to Dead Sea would lead to dilution of Dead Sea brine and affects significantly the investigated mixed water physical properties. Water mixing project is expected to cease the halite precipitation phenomenon due to the development of stratification in the Dead Sea and halite dissolution.Based on the industrial needs for the Dead Sea brine with its current physical properties, it is recommended to add rejected brine only to the Dead Sea due to its minimal effect on physical properties variations.

Highlights

The Dead Sea is a closed lake and the riparian countries are Jordan, Palestine and Israel [1, 2, 3]
Red Sea water was added to the top of tanks 1–4, concentrated Red-Sea water was added to the top of tank 5, and tank 6 surface level was kept constact by adding Dead Sea water
This study presents the first experimental efforts in establishing a database for the physical properties of mixed Dead Sea and Red Sea waters that were conducted on the southern shore of the Dead Sea throughout 12 months to monitor all changes induced by seasonal variations

Summary

Introduction

The Dead Sea is a closed lake and the riparian countries are Jordan, Palestine and Israel [1, 2, 3]. During the filling period of the project, to raise the Dead Sea level, the salinity of the upper water layer will decrease. Recent studies showed that Dead Sea evaporation rate varied from 1.05 to 2.0 m/year for the current salinity (Stanhill [31]; Alpert et al [32]; Salameh and El-Naser [16] and Lensky et al [33]). The study described throughout the nine years the changes in both temperature and salinity in Dead Sea water body. In the present work the physical properties of the mixing water scenarios were carried out for one year

Experimental site

Sampling

Measurements and analyses

Mixture density

Viscosity

Conclusion