Desalination: a viable supplemental source of water for the arid states of North Africa

The main environmental problem of the industries dedicated to the desalination of seawater is the brine discharge coming from the processes of desalination of seawater by means of reverse osmosis. Ionics Ibérica S. A. develops its industrial activity around the desalination of sea and brackish water to obtain potable water and the brine effluents produced by this activity are discharged into the sea. The necessity to carry out these discharges in a way that respects the environment led to in the month of August 2.000 that the Department of Quality, Industrial Security and Environment of Ionics Ibérica, S.A., designed a campaign with the objective of determining what are the effects of the brine discharge in the marine environment. That is to say: pursuit of the brine volume once it is discharged into the coastal environment; quantification of the mixing processes of these brine discharges; identification of the effects produced by the discharge on the fauna and flora of the area, with special attention to the presence of seagrass prairies on the sandy seabeds, "cebadales" (generally associations of two species: Cymodocea nodosa and Caulerpa prolifera) of great biological importance on the sandy seabeds of the coasts of the Canary Islands.