Assessing the sustainability of non-renewable brackish groundwater in feeding an RO desalination plant in Bahrain

The Rus-Umm Er Radhuma aquifer in Bahrain is a non-renewable source of brackish water (8-15 g/L), which forms a lens underlain everywhere with brines of over 100 g/L. Aquifer utilization has started in 1984 to feed a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant, with an economic life of 25 years (2010). Future plant upgrade strategy is formulated around boosting the plant production, which will require increasing the we llfield abstraction, in addition to a possible future rehabilitation program to extend the plant life by another 15 years (2025). The limiting factor in expanding the RO plant and its rehabilitation is the future feed water salinity, which have to be assessed before any investments are made to expand the RO plant and commission additional abstraction wells and implement the rehabilitation program. The aquifer management is based on mining a one-time brackish water reserve stored in the aquifer, the main management objective is stated as to sustain the aquifer future availability in feeding the desalination plant with a specified salinity limit of 20 g/L over the economic life of the plant of 25 years (1985-2010), and also over the plant extension period by rehabilitation (2010-2025). The stochastic analysis methodology utilizing conditional simulation is applied to conduct a risk assessment of violating these two pre-specified sustainability constraints under the proposed abstraction increase; and provided a tool to aid the decision-making process in the development and management of the aquifer under large uncertainties. Simulation results indicated that the risk of having the salinity of the wellfi eld produced water to increase due to the proposed increase in the wellfield abstraction to reach 20 g/L over the economic life of the plant (2010) is very small and minimal. However, it is questionable that the feed water salinity will be maintained under the proposed rehabilitation program to extend the plant economic life by another 15 years (2011-2025). For this option, it is recommended that model post-auditing be performed, and new updated predictions should be made as more data of potentiometry. salinity. and hydraulic parameters become available.