Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink!

Cyprus has been in drought for 2-3 years, with dry reservoirs, but we have had massive rainfalls in the last week or so. Even where we live, I’ve measured 124 mm in a week but, in the mountains, 3 or 4 times this amount, plus nearly a m of snow. The reservoirs are filling nicely but we still depend on desalinated water until the mud settles a bit.

Parts of the country have now been placed into water rationing, despite all this rain. Industry is hit and households have been asked to cut their consumption by 50%. Why on earth is this necessary? Because the amount of mud washed into the sea has clogged the filters of the desalination plants!!! :roll: :roll: :roll:

I read this article recently apparently based on a paper from the United Nations University

The Mediterranean and Red Seas have a salinity of about 38 g per kilogram. The effluent from the desalination in this country and, presumably, elsewhere is limited to 50 g per kilogram. I can hardly imagine that the 12 g per kilogram difference, rapidly diluted, would make a scrap of difference in the vast amount of water of the seas, except within a short distance of the exit. For me, much more worrying is the amount of CO2 produced to run the desalination plants.

That having been said, I can well imagine problems of increased salinity in inland seas and brackish water due to desalination plants. For example, to desalinate salt lakes could possibly cause problems with the shrimp population that many birds feed on. I believe natural salinity can vary, even in the oceans, due to precipitation and evaporation in the respective seasons.

50g seems low, I thought it was usually about 2x the salinity of the intake water?

Today’s paper:
https://cyprus-mail.com/2019/01/20/as-reservoirs-fill-desalination-plants-go-into-overdrive/

Interesting. Quotes the same study that I linked.

Here in qld we build two desalination plants for billions… never used I believe…

Having said that, we rely on tank water and the town nearby (Dayboro) relies on bore water (aquafier). Last year was very very dry and currently, we had no rainfall this year as yet. Very unusual as summer being the “wet season”.

Fortunately, I saw this weather change a few yrs ago and prepared the property so we have extra drink water and spring/dam water for the animals. I wonder how long it will take for the government to start taxing those who have tank water and dams on their property.

Talking to the locals, looking at nature etc I do not think we get any serious rainfall before march/april.