Environmental impact assessment of brackish water desalination: a case study of Taft city, Yazd province

Abstract

Background and Objective: The implementation of desalination projects is not without challenges and can have adverse environmental consequences on the environment. The present study was conducted with the aim of assessing the environmental impacts of the desalination of brackish groundwater in the villages of Taft city. Materials and Methods: Based on field visits to the study area and the prevailing environmental conditions in the region, as well as considering the specific conditions of implementing desalination facilities, questionnaire checklists were used to examine the spatial sensitivity of the project. The Wooten and Rao matrix was used to analyze the relevant environmental activities and consequences. Results: The results showed that the project overall has a predominance of positive effects, which is confirmed by obtaining a final score of +29. The highest positive scores belong to social and economic dimensions such as income parameters (+27), welfare (+24), and employment (+24). However, the results emphasize the focus of negative impacts on the physical environment, with the most severe impacts being noise pollution (-9) and groundwater resources (-16). Conclusion: In the present study, the positive impacts outweigh the negative impacts; therefore, implementing this project is deemed appropriate based on the Wooten and Rao matrix criteria, and it does not have any major adverse effects on the region's environment. In addition, the transfer of wastewater to this location has no impact on erosion, compaction, and soil structure degradation, as well as the quality of the aquifers in the region. Copyright © 2026 Iranian Association of Environmental Health and Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Published by Tehran University of Medical Sciences. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Noncommercial uses of the work are permitted, provided the original work is properly cited.