Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Oil Produced Water on the Groundwater and the Agricultural Crops in Al-Wafra Area

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Wafra area, located at the extreme southern part of Kuwait, is one of the major farming areas of the country. This area also hosts an oil production field where oil production efforts are undertaken. Water that is produced during such production, often termed produced water, is discharged away from the oil fields to be stored in especially designed evaporation ponds located at selected strategic locations. Under favorable conditions, the storing of produced water may infiltrate the soil strata to reach the groundwater reserves that are used by local farmers for irrigation purposes. This process may potentially affect the groundwater reserves, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The chemical constituents of the produced water may potentially pollute the groundwater reserves. Additionally, the water influx that is introduced to the groundwater system may lead to a marked rise in the groundwater table which may have shortand long-term hydrological and geotechnical repercussions. It is highly expected that the contaminated groundwater may affect some of the agricultural crops. This study is aimed at investigating the potential impacts of the produced water stored in the evaporation ponds on the groundwater quantity and quality in Al-Wafra and the surrounding areas. The study will attempt to identify the hydrogeochemical characteristics of the groundwater reserves underneath these ponds and correlate them with the characteristics of the produced water to establish the relationship between the two. The study will involve intensive field work (collecting soil, water, natural plants, vegetable, and fish samples and conduct on-site analysis), laboratory analysis of the collected soil, water, natural plants, vegetable, and fish samples as well as modeling of the aquifer characteristics. The existing monitoring wells will be used to collect groundwater samples. Additional multi-level wells will be drilled during the course of the study to fill in the information gap in the study area.