Talk:Brackish water

Latest comment: 5 years ago by Beyondfubar in topic Opening sentence seems poorly written

Bhitarkanika Mangroves edit

Bhitarkaniak Manroves is considered as second largest mangroves after Sundarbans.So I placed its name in place of Pichavaram which with above mentioned reason is justifiable.diptiprakashpalai —Preceding undated comment added 18:00, 9 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Untitled edit

"that is more salty than fresh water, but not as much as salt water" - this is my change (from "that is less salty than fresh water") - I'm no expert but that sure didn't seem right. Hope I was right here... -- OlofE

Yeah, you're right -- it's in between fresh water and seawater; I don't know how I managed to write it backwards. Thanks!  :-) -- Marj 23:39 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)


I see a source of confusion: the list of brackish water lakes in this article includes and links to an article on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. The Pontchartrain article says it is a salt water lake but never uses the word brackish. LA RoeDoe 18:18, 28 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

I see the problem has been fixed very nicely -- nothing like becoming a current event to add interest to an article 69.231.81.93 04:07, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

can brackish water be drunk safely?

No. The traditional definition of brackish water is that it is water less salty than the sea, but still too salty to drink. I have no idea what this minimum value is in terms of human physiology, but freshwater fish and plants stop being common in water with about 1/5 the salinity of normal seawater, so I'd imagine that the baseline is somewhere close to that. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 19:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
The table states brackish water is defined as 0.5 to 30 per mil (that's 0.05 to 3.0 percent) salt. That's w/v, by the way. Gatorade is 127 mg/L K+ and 464 mg/L Na+ which adds up to .591% cations w/v. I'm too lazy to do the calc but the anions (Cl-) would drive the total salt percentage even higher. So I think it's clear 0.05% salt water would be safe to drink. On the other extreme, we know 3.0% salt w/v is close to seawater and is definitely not safe to drink. So the answer is that it really depends; the cutoff from "safe to drink" to "not safe" takes place somewhere in the brackish water spectrum. --Ginkgo100 talk · contribs · e@ 20:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Brackish habitats and examples edit

I've added a substantial bit on brackish water habitats, giving examples of the different types and the way the faunas change as you go along them. More can/should be added. It seemed silly to me that the brackish water aquarium bit I added was the biggest part of the text after the intro. I've demoted it.

Also re-did the examples: they were a jumble. I've arranged them by type and then alphabetically, and then by the proper name (excluding "lake" or "river"). This makes it a bit easier to read the list, and more logical for people who want to add to it.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 19:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why Caspian Sea is mentioned in seas? Author points that this is largest lake, and that no mather what he puts it in seas category. (?????????) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.231.52.2 (talk) 12:25, 21 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Brackish or brack water? edit

Is the "ish" suffix necessary? I thought it was more common to refer to "brack water" rather than "brackish water". "Brackish" makes it sound as if one is not sure whether it really is salty enough to be considered brack or not. Perhaps this is only a feature of South African English where the word is often spelt "brak" (the C is superfluous and alien in Afrikaans orthography). Booshank 13:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

In British English and American English, brackish water is the usual usage. Can't speak for other nations though! Perhaps worth putting a point about this somewhere in the introduction? Neale Monks 17:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary lists brack as a synonym of brackish. I see someone has added it to the introduction. Booshank 16:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Rewording Brackish water habits section edit

I don't know enough about brackish water to re-write the article myself, but some lines need to be re-written to reach that encyclopedia tone. Such as:

"The most important brackish water habitats are estuaries, where a river meets the sea. The River Thames flowing through London is one of the most familiar of all river estuaries."

Why is it the most important? Don't say it's important, write why it is important. Is it really important, or was that an easy way to introduce that section? And for the second line, how about: A familiar example of an estuary is the River Thames, which flows through London. It sounds less personal. 16:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)16:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)~~ryanpm

Percentage vs Parts Per Million edit

I don't get this. The brackish water article is different from the other related articles (freshwater, saline, etc). They have parts per million and apparently this article uses percentage. Either way it makes it confusing because it almost reads like brackish water is 5% or something like that and the other articles say 50%. I am a bit confused on this and am voting for use of standardization. Sorry if I am not fully clear. Just look yourself and see what I mean. --Marsbound2024 05:31, 22 June 2007 UTC

It is parts per million (milligrams in 1000000 mg water) = ppm . Example - 3.5 % salinity is 3.5 gram in 100 gram of water. It is 35 gram per 1000 g water = 35000 milligram in million mg water. Million milligram of water or 35000 parts per one million milligram water = ppm. 1 mg per million mg is 1 ppm

That makes 35000 parts per million or 35000 ppm

Have a look on salinity. jmak (talk)

Total dissolved solids edit

To be added?

1500 mg/L TDS < brackish water < 5000 mg/L TDS

Source: ISBN 0-13-148193-2, page 188

--Saippuakauppias 17:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

salt/saline content edit

i have just purchesd land with brack water on the existing bore holes ,is there anyway to get the waters salt/saline levels lower than it is so one can drink use it as drink water ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.241.21.187 (talk) 15:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

salt/saline content edit

i have just purchased land with brack water on the existing bore holes ,is there anyway to get the waters salt/saline levels lower than it is so one can drink use it as drink water ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.241.21.187 (talk) 15:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Google for "reverse osmosis". Without " —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmak (talkcontribs) 10:03, 21 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Salinity edit

The salinity table shows just the american/british definiton. Neither there is also the other def (0,1%-1%->fresh etc.) or its written that there are also other defs.--84.161.78.62 (talk) 13:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Largest pool of brackish water? edit

The article currently states that Baltic Sea is "(the world’s largest pool of brackish water)", but according to the individual Wikipedia pages for Baltic Sea and Black Sea, Black sea is both bigger in surface area and in total water volume. Correspondingly, in the Finnish Wikipedia page about Baltic Sea it is mentioned that the Baltic Sea is the second to biggest brackish sea, Black Sea being the largest one.

Is there a conflict of information here? 217.24.106.170 (talk) 18:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

I can see there is a conflict. I will correct it, because this question has been here for three years and nobody told otherwise. Nelisormimangusti (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

External links modified edit

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Brackish water. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 10:45, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

revert minor vandalism edit

pretty simple. don't know if necessary for me to write on the talk page for that.Junkshoe (talk) 16:48, 11 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

"Brackish water or briny water is water that (…)" edit

Above is the opening sentence of this article, but the infographic placed in it suggests otherwise. Is "briny water" a colloquial term for brackish water, even though "brine" is something else? MSUGRA (talk) 23:58, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Opening sentence seems poorly written edit

"Brackish water is water that has more salt than water, but not as much as seawater."

This is a direct quote of the first line of the article. Perhaps this is ment to be quoted as, "Brackish water is FRESHwater that has more salt than TYPICAL FRESHwater, but not as much as seawater." But that still struggles to keep with standards here. On it's face this seems inaccurate or poorly worded. I think a rewrite is needed in this instance. Beyondfubar (talk) 07:17, 19 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

After looking over the infographic in the discussion above my addition I will amend this page to line up with it without changing the spirit of the information. I am in no way an expert, but this just appears fragmented badly and the last discussion was almost a year ago. Beyondfubar (talk) 07:23, 19 July 2018 (UTC)Reply