Investigation of the effect of dredging activity on surface intake seawater use for RO desalination plants: Shahid Beheshti, Chabahar Bay, Iran

Surface seawater intakes are popular method in most of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants which pose fouling-sensitive membranes. Seawater characteristics, especially those near ports, and residential and commercial areas, can be strongly affected by climatic conditions, topology, and human activities such as dredging, fishing, sea traffic, and sewage discharge and consequently are related to the designed pretreatment method and its cost. Therefore, choosing the right location for a SWRO desalination plants is essential to use feed water of appropriate quality and with minimum risk of change. In this research, influence of the dredging process in the Shahid Beheshti port (phase 2) on the characteristics of surface seawater has been investigated as intake water of SWRO desalination plant. Parameters such as temperature, TDS, silt density index (SDI), pH, and chlorophyll a were studied. The results indicate significant changes in some water characteristics in locations very close to the dredging activity, and this is not good news mainly for membrane processes. High amount of SDI and chlorophyll a (as fouling and biofouling indicator) will imply the high fouling possibility near the dredging activity places.