Water quality evaluation of small scale desalination plants in the Gaza Strip, Palestine

Abstract

The Gaza Strip is a highly populated, small area in which the groundwater is the main water source. During the last few decades, groundwater quality has deteriorated to a limit that the municipal tap water became brackish and unsuitable for human consumption in most parts of the Strip. To overcome this serious situation, the reverse osmosis (RO) technology is used to replace the tap water or to improve its quality. Several privet Palestinian water investing companies established a small-scale reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants to cover the shortage of the good quality of drinking water in the whole Gaza Strip. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the chemical and bacteriological water qualities of different small scale of (RO) desalination companies in the Gaza Strip. The results of the chemical and bacteriological parameters were compared with World Health Organization (WHO) standard. It was concluded that all chemical analyses of RO produced water are within the allowable WHO limits. Bacteriological analyses indicate that 25% of produced water samples exceeded the maximum allowable value of the total coliform bacteria.

Microbiological Quality of Drinking Water and Prevalence of Waterborne Diseases in the Gaza Strip, Palestine: A Narrative Review

“…Consistent high level of contamination found in households drinking water storage tanks, since 76% and 40% of water samples were contaminated with total coliforms and fecal coliforms, respectively (Aish, 2013). The same situation was found by (Aish, 2011) where 10% and 5% out of 20 water samples from inlet to small-scale water desalination plants in Gaza strip were contaminated with total coliforms and fecal coliforms, respectively, whereas 25% and 15% out of 20 water samples from outlet to small-scale water desalination plants were contaminated with total coliforms and fecal coliforms, respectively. The contamination percent of water samples from outlet to small-scale water desalination plants was more than that of the water samples from the inlet to small-scale water desalination plants, which may be attributed to the poor operational condones in the plants as well as bad quality of filters that may play a significant role in the formation of bacterial biofilms inside the filters.…”

“…Unfortunately, less than half of small-scale desalination plants are licensed and subject to regular monitoring by the ministry of health. In addition, disinfection of drinking water in Gaza strip in most of the cases is not adequate and most of the population do not like chlorine taste in water which increases the odds of biofilm bacteria growth (Roeder et al, 2010;Aish, 2011;Mogheir et al, 2013).…”

“…Nowadays, the vast majority of Gaza's population relies on the desalinated water for drinking purpose since more than 150 small-scale desalination plants are spread along the Gaza strip as commercial projects. However, the lack of surveillance and monitoring programs for desalinated water production and storage processes and also transportation by tanker trucks might expose desalinated water to contaminants which pose a genuine health hazard (Al-Agha & Mortaja, 2005;Amr & Yassin, 2008;Al-Khatib & Arafat, 2009;Aish, 2011;Abudaya et al, 2014). On the other hand, as a consequence of poor economic conditions of Gaza's households, almost 17.3% of Gaza's households cannot afford the average price of improved water of 3.0 NIS/m 3 (Al-Ghuraiz & Enshassi, 2005;UNICEF, 2017).…”

Comprehensive Risk Assessment of Health-Related Hazardous Events in the Drinking Water Supply System from Source to Tap in Gaza Strip, Palestine

“…e results of this study highlighted the most hazardous events in the drinking water supply system in the Gaza strip, which are mainly related to the high levels of groundwater salinity, the low level of disinfection, the growth of biofilm bacteria inside water storage tanks, the effect of electricity outages on the efficiency of the desalination process, and leakage of water from the tanker truck reservoirs. Several studies have been conducted to assess chemical, biological, and physical hazardous events individually in Gaza's water supply systems [29][30][31]. e high level of aquifer salinity was attributable to the mobilization of deep brines and seawater intrusion due to overabstraction of groundwater [32][33][34].…”

Water scenarios in the Gaza Strip, Palestine: thirst, hunger and disease

“…Many neighbouring countries (e.g. Kuwait) successfully use desalinated seawater for drinking purposes [85][86][87]. There have been several modest attempts to implement seawater desalination operations, but these have not succeeded because of administrative, logistical, financial and technical barriers [84].…”