Physico-Chemical and Microbiological Assessment of Desalination Plants in Gaza City, Palestine

Abstract

Gaza Strip is an area suffers from sharp deterioration in the water situation (both in terms of quality & quantity) due to high growth of population, rain shortage, sea water intrusion, industrial and agricultural activities. The bad situation leads to establish many commercial desalination plants, in order to contribute in the solution of water problems.The goal of this study is to assess the effects of desalination plants by analyzing the desalinated water chemically, bacteriology and physically.The results indicated that there is growth in the number of desalination plants in the last seven years, about half of the desalination plants located in the west of Gaza City. All of these plants depend on private wells as water source but there were large number of these wells not closed and also not protected well.It was found that 70 % of the desalination plants located in inappropriate sites (near facilities like schools, factories...). The pipe of discharge was fixed well in 72% of the trucks and the location of the generator was suitable in 76% of the trucks. Brine water disposal in 63% of the plants was in sewage. Most of the desalination plants were not disinfect the tanks, while 40.7% of the plants add chlorine to the water tanks.

There is no any problem in the physiochemical parameters of the desalinated water where all the samples were according to the WHO standards. The problems were present in the brackish water, where all the samples have physiochemical parameters higher than the WHO standards. There was bacteriological contamination in 27% of the plants with FC, while 28.3% were contaminated of E coli bacteria because of the absence of disinfection.

Keywords: Water, contamination, desalination, Palestine