Evaluation of Small and Large Scale Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plants Performance in the Gaza Strip During 2013

摘要

Gaza Strip is mostly in a catastrophic situation that needs urgent and serious action to improve the water status on the conditions of both quality and quantity. The desalination of brackish and seawater is at present a global motivation that has concerned overall government and public awareness, not only in arid areas, but also in other regions of the world. Desalination offers the only rational option for meeting the rising demand of potable water for the people of Gaza Strip. This paper presents the assessment of small and large scale desalination plants in the Gaza Strip during 2013 in terms of feed and product water quality and desalination capacity to estimate the needed improvements and their performance status. The study was conducted to determine the level of water quality parameters, including pH, electrical conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved solids, hardness, calcium, magnesium, chloride and nitrate. The quality of feed water was found to be noncompliant with WHO and Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) guidelines in most cases except pH and turbidity and some dissimilar results in all plants in case of total hardness. On the other hand the quality of product water was found to be compliant with WHO and PWA guidelines for all plants except one case which found to be higher levels in nitrate concentration. The evaluation made in this study may be helpful for understanding the current status of the plants' performance and recommending the essential improvement required to enhance the performance of desalination plants in the Gaza Strip.