Bioindicators as metrics for environmental monitoring of desalination plant discharges

Biological and Physical Effects of Brine Discharge from the Carlsbad Desalination Plant and Implications for Future Desalination Plant Constructions

“…It is likely that the focused discharge of cooling water from the power plant for the past~65 years has resulted in sand winnowing and extensive local disturbance of the sediment and benthos, and the addition of brine from the desalination plant does not induce any measurable acute toxicity for either epifaunal or infaunal organisms within the plume. In fact, the increase in polychaetes abundance at the outfall channel may be due to differential survival of organisms in the salinity plume, perhaps due to reduction of predation by larger organisms that may avoid the salinity plume [31,52]. While the lower abundance of epifauna in sandy areas away from the outfall zone supports this idea, we cannot rule out possible effects of natural seasonal variability or differential species recruitment.…”

“…Relative abundances and growth rates of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and benthic bacteria also do not seem to be significantly impacted at salinities of 10% above ambient, but community structure often changes [16,17,25,26]. The Benthic Opportunistic Polychaetes and Amphipods index (BOPA-index) is commonly used as an indicator of the level of "disturbance" to benthic communities in areas impacted by pollution [27][28][29][30], or other stressors such as changes in salinity [31]. This index is based on an inverse relationship between the abundances of sensitive amphipods and opportunistic polychaetes [27,29,30,32].…”

Evaluating environmental requirements for the management of brine discharges in Spain

“…These include: i-ii) the analysis of the quantity and quality of the effluent and marine environment including, at least, salinity and nutrients but also substances that come from the pre-treatment and cleaning of membranes and filters, as coagulants and antifouling or organic matter [5,10,29,30]; iii) the control of the saline plume to determine the area potentially affected by the brine discharge [9]. For this, it is necessary that the implementation of salinity profiles which reach the bottom are used to determine salinity and temperature in a grid of points that cover the potential area of influence, and with seasonal replication to include different oceanographic conditions [9]; iv) to monitor key and protected species if they are present in the area to ensure they are not affected by the discharge [12,15] [13,14,29,32]; vi) the use of salinity-sensitive species of benthic fauna as bioindicators has proven to be useful as sentinel species in order to prevent possible impacts on benthic habitats [20,33] and to discriminate between the effects of desalination and other impacts that may coincide in space [32,34]; vii) it is necessary to carry out a structural monitoring of the submerged outfall for the early detection of possible fractures [8]; viii) in the case of a possible rupture of the outfall (or if the discharge is close to key habitats), the existence of a protocol of action with mitigation measures is convenient, given that this may include the increase of dilution, or the reduction of production [15]. Table 2 summarizes the requirements considered in the analysis of the EMPs.…”

How to Close the Gap of Desalinated Seawater for Agricultural Irrigation? Confronting Attitudes between Managers and Farmers in Alicante and Murcia (Spain)

“…Furthermore, perception is directly influenced by environmental impacts of desalination, because desalination has great potential to change the physical, chemical, and ecological characteristics of the marine environments. For example, the salinity of brine discharges from reverse osmosis plants is up to double that of seawater, and these discharges often contain chemicals that may be toxic or induce stress responses to marine organisms [25][26][27].…”