Science of the Total Environment 651 (2019) 807–812

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Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Short Communication

Experimental equations of seawater salinity and desalination capacity to

assess seawater irrigation
Yuanhong Hu a, David Lindo-Atichati a,b,c,⁎
a
Department of Engineering and Environmental Science, The City University of New York, Staten Island, NY, USA
b
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
c
Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Increments of irrigation water salinity

affect the salinity of drainage water.
• Salinities N7.1 dS m−1 did not change
leaching fractions.
• Mathematical equations of production
capacity and the concentration were
derived.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A central question in science and technology of desalting is, can we predict optimal coastal sites to implement
Received 10 July 2018 seawater irrigation? Freshwater only makes up 2.5% of all water on Earth but crop irrigation is responsible for
Received in revised form 16 September 2018 70% of freshwater demand. First, we compared the growth rates and the dehydration rates of 5 alternative sea-
Accepted 17 September 2018
water irrigation experiments of wheatgrass over 3 weeks' periods. The average salt tolerance threshold of wheat-
Available online 20 September 2018
grass is 6 dS m−1. When seawater salinity is increased N10.50 dS m−1, the growth, drainage volumes, leaching,
Editor: Charlotte Poschenrieder and drainage salinities of wheatgrass did not show significant variations. When seawater salinity is increased
to 12.25 dS m−1, grass leaves gradually turned light green, bent, and fell. Notably, pH in soil remained nearly con-
Keywords: stant in all experiments with mean pH of 6.05 ± 0.25 (mean ± SD). Next, we derived experimental equations to
Seawater irrigation define a mechanistic link between salinity and desalination capacity in a Modified Saline Adjustable Desalination
Crops System (MSADS). A cost-benefit analysis for a MSADS in a coastal location of southern California indicated that
Coastal ocean this system is $0.84 m−3 more expensive than using water from a natural reservoir, but $0.08 m−3 less expensive
Desalination than importing water. This study provides a general framework to assess the implementation of a desalination
Wheatgrass
system in coastal locations.
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Engineering Science and Physics, The City
Water treatment technologies for desalination can be modified or
University of New York, Staten Island, NY, USA. combined into many different systems for various conditions in differ-
E-mail address: david.lindo@csi.cuny.edu (D. Lindo-Atichati). ent regions (Rhoades, 1992; Singh, 2008; J. Park et al., 2018). In most

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.221
0048-9697/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
808 Y. Hu, D. Lindo-Atichati / Science of the Total Environment 651 (2019) 807–812
cases, choosing the implementation of one of these technologies de-
pends on the region's energy cost and its available natural water supply
and demand (Aliku, 2017; Vanham et al., 2018; Voutchkov, 2017;
Gómez-Gotor et al., 2018). Remarkably, there are novel capabilities en-
abled by innovative materials and physical concepts that have pro-
foundly improved the desalination methods with membrane
technology (Politano et al., 2018; Politano et al., 2017; Gugliuzza et al.,
2017; Politano et al., 2016). Most of the commercial desalination plants
require a pretreatment system to adjust the conditions of the feedwater
intake. The quality of the feedwater intake can have great influence on
production costs. For example, a typical commercial reverse osmosis
(RO) membrane often operates in a warm water environment, usually
at temperatures of 25 °C or higher (Dreizin, 2006). Operations below
preferred temperatures and pressures can reduce the quality of the out-
put water and increase the usage of power. Conversely, if we could
lower the salinity of the output water required for crop irrigation, we
can potentially decrease the costs of production (Munns and Gilliham,
2015). The success of operating a large desalination plant relies not
only on advanced technologies, but also on an adequate cost and benefit
analysis (Shahabi et al., 2017). It is important to understand the variabil-
ity of seawater salinity in the region where the plant is going to be im-
plemented, and the levels of salinity that the irrigated crops can tolerate.
Many studies have shown that while salt does not affect the growth
of crops directly, an excess amount of salt can threaten their germina-
tion (e.g., Tchiadje, 2007; Martínez-Alvarez et al., 2017; Qader et al.,
2018). Plants rely on osmosis to absorb water from the soil, germinate,
and grow. When the cells of the plant are hypertonic compared to the
surrounding soil, the tissues of the roots allow water to pass through.
Conversely, if the cells of the plant are hypotonic compared to the sur-
rounding soil, the flow of water towards the plant will slow down,
and the plant can eventually die of dehydration (Perri et al., 2018).
In contrast to what is known about desalination plants and the pro-
duction of crops, little is known about the growth variability and dehy-
dration rates of crops when they are irrigated with seawater. Also, there
is an incomplete understanding of how that variability can affect the de-
salination capacity of desalination plants. The main goal of the present
work is to prescribe a framework to assess the implementation of a de-
salination system in coastal locations. To this end, we conducted five ex-
periments with wheatgrass (A. elongatum) and a soil separation
irrigation system, tested statistically the effect of increasing the salinity
of the input water on four independent output variables, derived exper-
imental equations of seawater salinity and desalination capacity of a de-
salination system, and finally discussed possible dynamic mechanisms
and potential implications for the assessment of seawater irrigation in
coastal sites.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Seawater water irrigation and soil testing
The detailed steps to irrigate crops with seawater and test the salin-
ity of soil were as follows:
1) Seed selection: We selected wheatgrass as our study system. Wheat-
grass is a very tractable system because it is easy to grow and has a
moderate tolerance to saline water with a threshold of saline toler-
ance of 6–8 dS m−1 (Rhoades, 1992; Chhabra, 2017; Qadir and
Oster, 2004; Y. Park et al., 2018; Shtull-Trauring and Bernstein,
2018). This saline tolerance range is only a guideline and salt toler-
ance can vary depending upon climate, soil conditions, and cultural
practices.
2) Seed germination: Wheatgrass seeds were germinated in water dur-
ing two weeks before they were transported into the soil.
3) Soil container preparation: Wheatgrass seeds were planted in 10
self-made recyclable nursery bottles of 500 ml. Then we filled the
bottles with 400 ml of dry soil and we left the bottom cap open for
water leaching purposes. Here we define leaching as the loss of
water-soluble plant nutrients from the soil, due to rain and
irrigation.
4) Saline water preparation: We conducted five experiments of seawa-
ter irrigation of the ten bottles (replicates hereafter). In the first ex-
periment we used fresh tap-water with a 2.14 dS m−1 salinity level
that was the reference experiment for comparison between saline
and non-saline irrigation. In the second to fifth experiments we
used seawater with salinities of 7.14 dS m−1, 10.50 dS m−1,
12.25 dS m−1, and 14.29 dS m−1, respectively.
5) Irrigation routine: We used 5 spray bottles of 1000 ml, one for each
experiment. A total of ten sprays were applied to each replicate
every night during 15 days. Two soil leachings were performed dur-
ing each experiment. The first leaching occurred on the 7th day, and
the second occurred on the 14th day. The leaching water used on
each sample was in the same salinity level as the irrigation water
within ±0.02% off in instrument error.
6) Temperature and light control: The entire experiment was carried
out under a closed nursery with a temperature between 75–77 F
and a light of 10 W and 430–450 nm.
The leaching fraction was calculated for each experiment as the ratio
between the amount of water leached through a volume of soil and the
amount of water irrigated using the following equation:
W in −W abs W out
LF ¼ ¼ ; ð2:1Þ
W in W in
where Win is the volume of water input for irrigation [ml], Wout is the
volume of water leaching through the soil [ml], and Wabs is the water
absorbed by crops during evapotranspiration [ml] (Fig. 1).
The salinity of soil was determined using the following equation:
EC iw
EC soil ¼ ; ð2:2Þ
LF
where ECsoil is the salinity of soil, ECiw is the salinity of the irrigation
water, and LF is the leaching fraction. ECiw was measured at five differ-
ent depths: surface, 2.5 cm, 5 cm, 7.5 cm and 10 cm. Since salinity varies
in different depths of root zone - depending on the density of soil - the
average soil salinity was calculated using the following equation:
1Xi¼n
EC avg−soil ¼ ðEC iw Þi ; ð2:3Þ
n i¼1
where (ECiw)i is the salinity of the irrigation water at each of the five dif-
ferent depths n.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the leaching process.
 Y. Hu, D. Lindo-Atichati / Science of the Total Environment 651 (2019) 807–812
2.2. Modified saline adjustable desalination system
Generally, a RO desalination system considers the seawater as the
initial feedwater intake. We used a Modified Saline Adjustable Desalina-
tion System (MSADS, Fig. 2).
Seawater usually goes through multiple filters and pretreatment
processes before entering the membranes of the RO system. Soon after
the saline feed water exits the filter and pretreatment process, the
water loops divide into two paths. One path enters the high-pressure
pump into the next stage of the RO membrane process for saline re-
moval. The other path enters a treated seawater storage tank and
flows into a mixing tank, where it blends with the freshwater that
exits the RO membrane process. The permeated fresh water that exits
the RO process become our final output, and the brine disposal exits
the system back to the ocean. Since our goal is to reduce the production
cost by increasing the salinity requirement of the output freshwater, the
three additional processes needed for our modified system are: 1) a
treated seawater storage tank, 2) a treated seawater feedback loop,
and 3) a mixing tank. The salinity of final output is controlled by the
amount of treated seawater input into the mixing tank.
2.3. Salinity balances in the MSADS
We generated experimental equations to determine the relationship
between the concentration of the treated water and the increase in de-
salination capacity. The relationship between the final output mixed sa-
linity and the capacity increment of the plant without a feedback of
treated seawater is determined using the following equations:
CsV s ¼ C f V f ;
V f ¼ V s þ V w;
CsV s
Cf ¼ ; ð2:6Þ
Vs þ Vw
V s ¼ ρV w ;
Cf ρ ity of drained water (Table 1). To test for differences among replicates
¼ ;
C s ð1 þ ρÞ
where Cs is the salinity of seawater entering the mixing tank, Vs is the
volume of seawater entering the mixing tank, Cf is the total salinity of
water exiting the mixing tank, Vf is the total volume of water exiting
the mixing tank, VW is the volume of permeated freshwater from the
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the Modified Saline Adjustable Desalination System.
809
output of the RO system, and ρ is the percentage of production in-
creased after mixing.
The experimental equations were used to test two different initial
seawater salinities. Notably, the increase of desalination capacity is not
only affected by the output freshwater salinity but also by the input sea-
water salinity. The desalination system does not have control over the
input seawater salinities, and the crops' tolerance to different salinities
is governed by the output salinity. The input seawater salinity becomes
particularly important in order to select the location of the desalination
plant, because it determines the desalination capacity and the required
output salinity. The following assumptions were made:
1) The initial seawater salinity Cs was constant in each equation.
2) The salinity concentration of the permeated freshwater at the output
of the RO was negligible.
3) Equations of Cf were calculated by plotting different values of desa-
lination capacity ranging from 10% to 300%.
One-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVAs) was used to test
differences in the volume of drained water, leaching fraction, pH of
drained water, and salinity of drained water among the 10 different rep-
licates of each experiment.
We used a repeated measures permutational multivariate analysis of
variance (RM-PERMANOVAs) (Anderson, 2001) to test for differences in
distributions of volume of drained water, leaching fraction, pH of
drained water, and salinity of drained water among the 5 experiments.
All multivariate statistical analyses were carried out in the R environ-
ment (www.r-project.org), using the vegan package (https://github.
com/vegandevs/vegan). One-way ANOVAs and RM-PERMANOVAs are
ð2:4Þ robust tests for our work since the variances of the residuals of our
datasets are independent, normal and homogeneous (Underwood,
ð2:5Þ 1997; Mead, 2017).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Tolerance of wheatgrass to seawater
ð2:7Þ
We quantified the effect of the salinity of irrigation water on the vol-
ume of drained water, leaching fraction, pH of drained water, and salin-
ð2:8Þ
we used one-way ANOVAs. There were no significant differences in
the volume of drained water (one-way ANOVAs: p = 0.80), leaching
fraction (one-way ANOVAs: p = 0.77), pH of drained water (one-way
ANOVAs: p = 0.75), and salinity of drained water (one-way ANOVAs:
p = 0.78) among the 10 different replicates of each experiment.
To test for differences among experiments we used RM-PERMANOVA.
Considering the effect of salinity of irrigation water on the volume of
drained water, we found that distributions of volumes of drained water
were significantly different among all experiments (RM-PERMANOVA:
global test: p b 0.05). Pairwise tests showed that the distributions of vol-
ume of drained water were not different between experiment 4 and ex-
periment 5 (RM-PERMANOVA: pairwise test: p N 0.05). Conversely,
distributions of leaching fractions were not significantly different among
all experiments (RM-PERMANOVA: global test: p N 0.05), although
pairwise tests showed that the distributions of leaching fractions were
significantly different between experiment 1 and experiment 2 at p b
0.05. The salinity of irrigation water did not have a significant effect on
the pH of the drained water (RM-PERMANOVA: global test: p N 0.05). Fi-
nally, distributions of salinities of drained water were significantly differ-
ent among all experiments (RM-PERMANOVA: global test: p b 0.05, all
pairwise tests: p b 0.05). Most importantly, the salinity of irrigation
water had a significant effect on the salinity of drainage water for all ex-
periments (RM-PERMANOVA: global test: p ≪ 0.05).
The measured salinity of drainage water was 5 ± 3 dS m−1 (mean ±
SD) lower than the predicted salinity of drainage water for each sample.
There was a significant difference between the predicted and measured
810 Y. Hu, D. Lindo-Atichati / Science of the Total Environment 651 (2019) 807–812

Table 1
Effect of salinity of irrigation water on the mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) of the volume of drained water, leaching fraction, pH of drained water, and salinity of drained water.

Experiment (replicates) Salinity irrigation [ds m−1] Volume irrigation [ml] Volume drainage [ml] Leaching fraction pH drainage Salinity drainage [ds m−1]

1 (10) M 2.14 350 300 0.85 5.95 2.14

SD 0.01 0 4 0.02 0.01 0.01
2 (10) M 7.14 350 260 0.70 5.95 5.25
SD 0.05 0 4 0.04 0.01 0.05
3 (10) M 10.50 350 250 0.68 5.95 7.10
SD 0.35 0 4 0.05 0.01 0.25
4 (10) M 12.25 350 245 0.65 5.95 10.60
SD 0.05 0 3 0.05 0.01 0.05
5 (10) M 14.29 350 245 0.65 5.95 12.75
SD 0.05 0 3 0.01 0.01 0.05

salinity (one-way ANOVAs: p = 0.005). One possible reason for the dif-
ference between the predicted and measured salinity is that the amount
of soil in the bottle was not large enough for salt to accumulate before it
was washed away.
Over the three weeks of the experiment, the average tolerance of
wheatgrass to salt was 6 dS m−1 (0.42%) of soil salinity. Wheatgrass struc-
ture did not show a significant difference between the reference samples
when the salinity of water was increased up to the 10.50 dS m−1 of exper-
iment 3. However, when water salinity was higher than the 12.25 dS m−1
of experiment 4, leaves gradually turned light green, lost their structure,
and bended. The threshold values of irrigation salinities that did not
lead to significant changes in the volume drained water and leaching frac-
tions were 12.25 dS m−1 and 7.14 dS m−1, respectively. Noteworthy,
stepwise increments of irrigation salinities did not have a significant effect
on pH. Conversely, all irrigation salinities tested here had a significant ef-
fect on the salinity of the drainage water.
We did not further conduct any soil leaching during the fourth week.
The salinity and pH level of the drainage water were very similar to
those of the irrigated water salinity. As a result, the drainage water
can be recycled to the MSADS model as long as there is soil leaching.

Fig. 3. Concentration of the final output water as an equation of desalination capacity in the modified Saline Adjustable Desalination System at salinity of treated seawater of Cs = 3.5%
(a) and Cs = 3.0% (b).
 Y. Hu, D. Lindo-Atichati / Science of the Total Environment 651 (2019) 807–812
The same idea can also be used in any coastal land that experiences high
water salinities and land limitation issues. By introducing low-salinity
water for soil leaching, we can flush away the existing concentrate sa-
line in the soil and recover the land for farming.
3.2. Seawater salinity and desalination capacity
The system that used seawater with a salinity of 3.5% (3%) achieved
an increase of 70% (100%) in desalination capacity at an output salinity
of 1.5%. Remarkably, the system achieved an increase of 110% (140%) in
desalination capacity at an output salinity of 1.8% (Fig. 3).
From Fig. 3, the optimal mathematical equation that fitted the values
of Cf was a logarithmic equation. This equation was derived assuming
that the treated seawater salinity Cs was 3.5%.
C f ðρÞ ¼ 0:0075 lnρ þ 0:00179;
From Fig. 3, the optimal mathematical equation that fit the values of
Cf was also a logarithmic equation. This equation was derived assuming
that the treated seawater salinity Cs is 3.0%.
C f ðρÞ ¼ 0:64 lnρ þ 1:53;
A small decrease of 0.5% in the salinity of the input seawater led to a
30% increase in production. That indicates that desalination capacity is
extremely sensitive to small variations in salinity of the input seawater.
3.3. Case study for San Diego County
To better understand and predict the production benefit and cost
when MSADS is applied to a desalination plant, we visited the Carlsbad
desalination plant located in San Diego County in southern California
(Fig. 4). The region is known as one of the drought regions in California
with an average annual precipitation of 10.3 in. (San Diego County
Water Authority, n.d.) and seasonal cycle of seawater salinity that
ranges from 33.5 PSU to 36 PSU (Largier et al., 1997).
The plant required $1.83 to produce every 100 m3 of water. This cost
was $0.84 ± 0.02 m−3 (mean ± SD) more expensive than obtaining
Fig. 4. Sea surface salinity for San Diego County for winter (a), spring (b), summer (c), and fall (d) of 2017. Data was retrieved from the NASA JPL Soil Moisture Active Passive observatory.
Purple cross depicts the location of salinity plant (MSADS).
811
water from the nearest natural reservoir, but from $0.08 ± 0.01 m−3
(mean ± SD) less expensive than importing water from abroad. An
80% of water in San Diego County came from other counties; 30% from
northern California and 50% from the Colorado River (Dang, 2014).
Therefore, a MSADS desalination plant is suitable for a region similar
to San Diego County in terms of water availability and in terms of vari-
ability of seawater salinity.
Simulations of crop growth under climate variability are subject to
uncertainties (Asseng et al., 2013). We provide a framework that will
allow us to quantify such uncertainties and to improve the effective de-
sign of a desalination plant with seawater irrigation purposes. To im-
prove accuracy and consistency in simulating wheatgrass growth
dynamics under a changing climate, experimental equations of seawa-
ter salinity and desalination capacity can be coupled in the future to a
multimodel ensemble approach (Ahmed et al., 2017).
ð2:9Þ
4. Conclusions
We achieved five major conclusions regarding the design and oper-
ation of a Modified Saline Adjustable Desalination System for seawater
ð2:10Þ irrigation of wheatgrass:
(1) Stepwise increments of irrigation salinity from 2.14 to
14.29 dS m−1 had a significant effect on drainage water salinity,
yet it did not have a significant effect on its pH.
(2) Irrigation salinities N7.14 dS m−1 and N12.25 dS m−1 did not lead
to significant changes in the leaching fractions and the volume of
drained water, respectively.
(3) We derived two mathematical equations that relate the desalina-
tion capacity in a Modified Saline Adjustable Desalination System
with the concentration of the final output water at salinity of
treated seawater of Cs = 3.5% and Cs = 3.0%.
(4) In order to bring Modified Saline Adjustable Desalination Sys-
tems into a next level, we suggest conducting further studies
on the saline accumulation with a different combination of
crops, soil types, leaching, irrigation methods and considering a
wide spectrum of climate conditions.
812 Y. Hu, D. Lindo-Atichati / Science of the Total Environment 651 (2019) 807–812
(5) This study lays solid foundations for future studies on ensembles
modeling approaches to study climate change impact on crops.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by The City University of New York, Profes-
sional Staff Congress grant number TRADA-48-581. This work used
the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE),
which is supported by the National Science Foundation grant number
NSF-OCE170005.
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