A Review of Evaporation Reduction Methods from Water Surfaces

Abstract

Many methods have been tested and developed all over the world to save water from evaporation process. This paper presents a state-of-art review of published research work in the last 14 years (from 2014 to 2018) in which it was focused on the physical, chemical and biological methods of evaporation reduction from water surfaces. The main characteristics, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each method are indicated. Among these used techniques for reducing evaporation are physical methods that use floating or suspended covers and can save a large percentage of water (between 70 and 95%). The use of thermal mixing by compressed air seems to be very important for evaporation suppression on deep reservoirs (greater than +18 m). Moreover, currently chemicals are widely used to reduce water evaporation, such as WaterSavr, and can save relatively a small percentage of water (between 20 - 40%). Biological methods such as floating plants, wind breakers and palm fronds can provide a significant decrease in the volume of evaporation but they have some restrictions on their uses.