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New bilateral projects in the host country

Surface brine disposal on slope of sand dunesThe United Arab Emirates Ministry of Environment and Water (MOEW) and the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) signed an agreement on the 7th August 2008 to work together for two years on two research projects:

  1. Irrigation planning and management.
  2. The safe disposal of brine from the reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants used for irrigation in the UAE.
In project 1, fifteen sites (three from each five agro-climatic zones of the UAE) have been selected. All of these sites have small-scale reverse osmosis salt-water treatment units. Saline groundwater is being used as the feed water in these units. Data from three additional sites where groundwater is applied directly to crop production will also be collected.

Small RO units in the Eastern regionThe combined information on soils, crops, irrigation and management practices, will be used in crop water use predictions by modeling, and also in irrigation planning and demand management for selected crops. Wastewater use guidelines for agriculture will also be developed for safe utilization of available reclaimed municipal wastewater.

In project 2, data from the RO units will be used to assess current brine disposal practices. The current brine disposal practices include:
  • Surface disposal (to excavated and non-excavated pits where both evaporation and groundwater recharge occurs, and/or to the mountain terrain, or the steep edge of sand dunes where primarily groundwater recharge occurs).
  • Deep well injection to aquifer. 
  • Discharge directly to aquifer via dug well.
  • Irrigation to high salt-tolerant plant.
  • Blending or mixing with groundwater for date palm irrigation. 
  • Sea beach disposal.
  • Use in cooling pads of green houses.  
  • Dumping into wadi channel beds.
Use of brine in cooling pads of green house
Both economical and environmental impact analyses will be conducted in addition to the simulation of salt transport through soil profile. An important output of the project will be the formulation of guidelines for managing RO plants in the UAE agriculture industry, in order to avoid groundwater contamination and other environmental hazards resulting from brine disposal practices.

For more information, contact Dr Nurul Akhand: n.akhand@biosaline.org.ae
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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