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Variation of the Chemistry of the Dead Sea Brine as Consequence of the Decreasing Water Level

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Abstract

For many years, the Dead Sea suffers from an annual inflow deficiency of about one billion cubic meters, flood and baseflow. The water level changes are related to the majority of surface water inflows diverted for irrigation purposes, in addition to intensive loss of water by the high rate of evaporation and industrial water use. This causes the Dead Sea water level to decline about 35 m within the last 50 years for a long-term average of about 0.79 m per year. The changes in the hydrochemical composition were simulated experimentally to determine the changes that take place as a function of brine water evaporation level and its density. The Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and the density of the Dead Sea water varies as a function of its water evaporation level changes. It was found that the density variation is not following a linear function with respect to water volume changes. But it follows the total amount of precipitate that occurred at different water levels. The electrical conductivity (EC) changes with respect to time and the prevailing temperature. There was no formula to calculate the high salinity of brine water above the normal ocean water. Consequently, the EC measurements were adopted to represent the Dead Sea water salinity. But in this research a converging factor (0.80971) has been found to convert the TDS values into salinity values. On contrary, the pH values revealed an inverse relationship with respect to the evaporation levels.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Amman, Jordan

    Jamal Abu-Qubu

  2. TU Bergaakademie Freiberg, Freiberg, Germany

    Broder Merkel & Volkmar Dunger

  3. The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan

    Omar Rimawi

Authors
  1. Jamal Abu-Qubu
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  2. Broder Merkel
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  3. Volkmar Dunger
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  4. Omar Rimawi
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Correspondence to Jamal Abu-Qubu.

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Abu-Qubu, J., Merkel, B., Dunger, V. et al. Variation of the Chemistry of the Dead Sea Brine as Consequence of the Decreasing Water Level. Aquat Geochem 24, 121–135 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-018-9336-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-018-9336-z

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