A marine outfall is a pipeline or tunnel that discharges municipal or industrial wastewater, stormwater, combined sewer overflows, cooling water, or brine effluents from water desalination plants to the sea. Usually they discharge under the sea's surface (submarine outfall). In the case of municipal wastewater, effluent is often being discharged after having undergone no or only primary treatment, with the intention of using the assimilative capacity of the sea for further treatment. Submarine outfalls are common throughout the world and probably number in the thousands. More than 200 outfalls alone have been listed in a single international database maintained by the Institute for Hydromechanics at Karlsruhe University for the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR) / International Water Association (IWA) Committee on Marine Outfall Systems.
In Latin America and the Caribbean there were 134 outfalls with more than 500 m length in 2006 for wastewater disposal alone, according to a survey by the Panamerican Center for Environmental Engineering (CEPIS) of PAHO. According to the survey, the largest number of municipal wastewater outfalls in the region exist in Venezuela (39), Chile (39) and Brazil (22).
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