Publication Date

6-2025

Publisher

State of Western Australia (Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development)

City

Perth

Abstract

A drying climate means traditional water supply resources of farms in southern Western Australia are frequently unable to meet agricultural production demands. However, extensive, untapped sources of brackish or moderately saline water ( <   20,000mg/L total dissolved solids (TDS) are present in nearly all agricultural areas experiencing water shortages. In response, a small, yet increasing, number of farms have privately financed and installed small-scale desalination units to treat locally sourced, salt-impaired water. This approach not only provides a new source of freshwater to the farm portfolio, but is unaffected by changing climatic and weather conditions. Since the majority of the early adopters of on-farm desalination draw the salt-impaired water from groundwater bores, the technology implementation also mitigates local salinization of agricultural land due to groundwater rise, while decreasing reliance on the heavily subsidized, centralized water supply schemes operated by Water Corporation (WC).

The WaterSmart Farms Desalination (WSFD) project was undertaken to assess the nature and performance of existing, small-scale, on-farm desalination systems, including their economics, sustainability, availability, and weaknesses; and to assess these decentralized systems’ applicability and uncertainties for broader application on farms throughout southern Western Australia. The project was undertaken by three major partners, WA Department of Primary Industries and Region Development (DPIRD), WC, and the Harry Butler Institute of Murdoch University (MU). The WSFD project depended on the involvement of numerous other national and state agencies, local governments, farmers, grower groups and technology providers. The project scope was limited to desalinisation technology as it’s applied on farms and regional communities in the Wheatbelt, Great Southern and Esperance/Goldfields regions of WA.

This document reports on the assessment of 35 desalination units, selected from the 47 on farm and 4 rural community units. The inventory details information gathered between 2019 and 20240 F 1 on units installed between 2005 and 2024. The farm units treated salt-impacted water drawn from dams or groundwater into a suitable resource for livestock, cropping and other on-site, agribusiness activities. Additional, in-depth, technical evaluation of the desalination system’s operability and economics was conducted on 17 of the units visited. Supplemental information was gathered on these units from the equipment suppliers. In all cases, the desalination units were small-scale; meaning designed to daily produce less than 100kL of product (permeate) water, with the largest rated units at 60kL/d and the smallest at 7kL/d. Additionally, all of the units surveyed employed reverse osmosis (RO) technology for desalination of salt-impaired feedwater.

Number of Pages

99

Keywords

desalination, waste-stream management, brine management, best available technology (BAT), reverse osmosis, waste management

Disciplines

Natural Resources Management and Policy | Water Resource Management

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