What is brackish water?
Q: What is brackish water?
A: Brackish water is a mix of both salt water and fresh water.
Q: Is brackish water saltier than fresh water?
A: Yes, brackish water is saltier than fresh water but not as salty as seawater.
Q: How does brackish water occur?
A: Brackish water can occur from the mixing of seawater with fresh water in estuaries or can be found in brackish fossil aquifers.
Q: Can human activities produce brackish water?
A: Yes, certain civil engineering projects such as dikes and the flooding of coastal marshland to produce brackish pools for freshwater prawns can produce brackish water.
Q: What is the salt concentration of brackish water?
A: Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 and 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand (ppt or ‰).
Q: Is brackish water a precisely defined condition?
A: No, brackish water covers a range of salinity regimes and is not considered a precisely defined condition.
Q: Can the salinity of brackish surface waters vary?
A: Yes, it is characteristic of many brackish surface waters that their salinity can vary considerably over space and/or time.
