Saline groundwater opportunities

• Halophile ecosystems: Saline groundwater may have a role in maintaining habitats for halophiles, aerobic microorganisms that live and grow in high saline environments. The saline content in halophilic environments is usually 10 times the salt content of normal ocean water. Some known examples of halophilic environments are the Great Salt Lake in Utah, Owens Lake in California, Lake Natron in Tanzania and the Dead Sea in the Middle East.
• Health and wellness: Thermo-mineralized groundwater is used for health and wellness purposes. Groundwater with high concentrations of certain elements is (perceived as) curative for various diseases. Numerous brands of bottled mineral water, health centres (spas and sanatoria) and tourist industries are based on this relationship.
• Salt Production: In many ancient and modern cultures, salt is being traded as a commodity and salt production is one of the oldest chemical industries in human history.. Already more than 170 years ago, the Chinese constructed a well more than 1000 meters deep to extract brines. The gas that was struck during this abstraction was used to fuel the fire to evaporate the brine. CSIRO estimated that a salt industry could be developed from the dryland salinity in the Murray-Darling basin with a value of 200 million $/yr (Davidson, 2002). .
• Use of saline groundwater as alternative water source: There is increasing interest in water-scarce areas to exploit and desalinize saline groundwater as an additional water resource to complement the meagre fresh water resources. For example in the town of Merredin in Western Australia, desalinization of locally pumped brackish groundwater is economically more attractive than transport fresh groundwater from distant aquifers.

Halophile bacteria in Lake Natron, Tanzania