Many industrial sectors are likely to generate highly saline wastewater: these include the
agro-food, petroleum and leather industries. The discharge of such wastewater containing
at the same time high salinity and high organic content without prior treatment is known
to adversely affect the aquatic life, water potability and agriculture. Thus, legislation is
becoming more stringent and the treatment of saline wastewater, both for organic matter
and salt removal, is nowadays compulsory in many countries. Saline effluents are
conventionally treated through physico-chemical means, as biological treatment is
strongly inhibited by salts (mainly NaCl). However, the costs of physico-chemical
treatments being particularly high, alternative systems for the treatment of organic matter
are nowadays increasingly the focus of research. Most of such systems involve anaerobic or
aerobic biological treatment. Even though biological treatment of carbonaceous, nitrogenous
and phosphorous pollution has proved to be feasible at high salt concentrations, the
performance obtained depends on a proper adaptation of the biomass or the use of
halophilic organisms. Another major limit is related to the turbidity problems inherent in
saline effluents. For this reason, the major need for research in the future will be the
combination of physico-chemical/biological treatment of saline industrial effluents, with
regard to the global treatment chain, in order to meet the regulations.