Reservoir main

Water is increasingly becoming a valuable commodity and there is a good possibility that the climate change predictions may mean more severe droughts.

The above picture shows a very similar and already proven oil containment booms that have been employed in various parts of the world. Though my reservoir would be round and enclose an area of fresh water.

Applications of the technology.
Once in operation the water contained in the off shore reservoir can be very cheaply pumped to nearby farm land for irrigation, or industrial plants that use large quantities of water, also to outdoor recreation centres, golf courses for irrigation.

It is considered ideal for may parts of the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern Gulf states and Gulf of Mexico.

Below the boom is a tough but flexible curtain wall that can be 20 to 30M deep and is kept vertical by the use of heavy chain round the bottom of the curtain. The perimeter wall has negligible pressure against it as both fresh and sea water will be virtually equal in pressure. The curtain wall would use very similar materials to that in use in the oil containment industry.

The boom is kept in shape by a circular pattern of anchor lines, as shown below.

The boom itself would be approximately 2m in diameter to prevent sea water waves going over the top and contaminating the fresh water.

During severe storms the whole reservoir can be submerged by 5 to 10meters to avoid damage. This would be done by reducing the air pressure in the boom segments which reduces their buoyancy.

The whole system would not touch the sea bed as weights placed at 5 m intervals around the bottom of the curtain wall and 3 M below the bottom of the curtain wall would be allowed to touch the bottom . If the depth of water is greater than 50m then these extra weights would not be required.

A natural but important occurrence is important in the design - fresh water floats on to of sea water(halocline effect) .
Thus the reservoir needs no bottom, meaning the containment boom can be immense in size, typical diameter of the ring could be 1 to 10km, see calculations on how much fresh water this would store.

This shows the full diameter of the boom, a 5Km diameter reservoir would
hold 295 million litres of fresh water when using a 15m curtain wall.

Siting of the reservoir.

To allow for vertical tidal range the bottom of the curtain wall should be 5M above the sea bed at low tide. Thus a minimum 30M depth at low water is advisable.

To allow for tidal currents, the reservoir should be placed away from currents in excess of 3 knots.