Authors : Saleh A. Al-Hassoun, Thamer Ahmed Mohammed and Janwar Nurdin
Abstract: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia experiencing water shortage due to limited water resources, high evaporation rate and stress on water demand. Evaporation reduction can help in increasing water saving. Due to the large number of date palm trees in the Kingdom, a massive waste from these trees is disposed annually. Palm leaves as an agricultural waste can be converted to mats and then used as a floating cover on water surface to reduce evaporation. In this study, three pools were constructed at a selected site at King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in order to test the affectivity of the proposed mat. Data collected from the study site shows that evaporation from fully concealed pool area is about 63%, while that form half concealed pool area is about 26%. This result confirms the affectivity of the mats in evaporation reduction. A proposed parabolic relationship between evaporation reduction and concealed area by the mats is presented. Water quality analysis shows that the mats have no serious affect on water quality.
Saleh A. Al-Hassoun, Thamer Ahmed Mohammed and Janwar Nurdin, 2009. Evaporation Reduction from Impounding Reservoirs in Arid Areas Using Palm Leaves. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 4: 247-250.