Integrated Agri-Aquaculture for Enhanced Food and Water Security

In arid and semi-arid regions like the Arabian Peninsula, water is a scarce natural resource affected by salinity and other contaminants. In many of these marginal environments, improving water supply for human consumption and irrigation purposes requires desalination of groundwater. To date, approximately 15% of farmers in the Arabian Peninsula install small-scale reverse osmosis (RO) plants to desalinate groundwater for field crop irrigation. These plants produce highly concentrated brine which can be an environmental hazard if not disposed of safely.