Alternatives for Sea Water Intake at Shores with Low Slope

Supplying sea water with proper quality is the main concern for the desalination intake system, especially in RO desalination plant. The presented paper is focused on the seawater intake alternatives for desalination plants with the main aim to introduce the best selection at shores with a low slope. Supplying feed water and selecting the proper intake system at site locations with low costal gradient are very important due to providing required water quality and capacity, minimum environmental impact, geotechnical limitation's prolongation of intake route and increasing dredging volumes. By attention to the hydrography and topography conditions of each site, it is necessary to investigate all the intake alternatives. The various seawater intake methods are introduced in this paper and for a case study in Bandar Abbas city, according to their special site condition, six alternatives, independent pipeline, existing break water plus pipeline, piled jetty, existing breakwater plus piled jetty, beach wells and tidal sea water, are chosen to future investigation and selection the best lternative. These alternatives are evaluated and compared from the technical, construction, environmental and capital cost aspects, finally by grading and ranking of each alternative, the best intake method, existing break water plus pipeline, is the system that achieved higher scores.