Proposed treatment to reduce salinity intrusion into the Shatt Al-Arab estuary by using temporary storage in a convergent of channel in the context of tide

ABSTRACT

The Shatt Al-Arab estuary is the lifeline of the Basrah city, as it is the source of water for various uses of irrigation, industry, agriculture and human use, in addition to being the navigational passage towards the Arabian Gulf throughout history. Nowadays, the estuary suffers from the deterioration of its water quality due to the increase in salinity values as a result of the intrusion of salinity from the Arabian Gulf due to the lack of freshwater flows from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. To reduce the risks of water quality deterioration and the lack of natural solutions represented in the provision of freshwater, the idea of building an artificial structure to narrow the channel came to give the ability to resist the impact of the tide and the intrusion of marine salinity. Two hypothetical sites were chosen to build the structure: i.e. in Dweeb and Faw sites, to test the feasibility of this artificial estuary structure. A one-dimensional mathematical model was adopted, which is the Mike 11 software package. The model was run according to a set of scenarios using the critical water discharge values of 10 and 20 m³/s. The results showed through simulation of the model for a period of six months that the structure is useful on improving the water quality by reducing salinity in the river, in addition, there is a delay in the time of arrival of the intrusion of salts.

KEYWORDS:

• Convergent of channel
• Shatt Al-Arab estuary
• temporary storage
• salinity intrusion

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) to allow us to use MIKE 11 software package.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).