>>12781727We literally had a similar plan to do this in Aus.
Apparently our evaporation rates are so high it would struggle to sustain anything but a salt pan over time... which kinda describes how it is today 2bh given there used to be a sea in inland aus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradfield_SchemeApparently Lake Argyle has the same problem, but luckily the area is small and deep so it's more sustain-ably refilled with less surface area to evaporate.
Also, under the soil there is already a giant artesian water basin, ocean water would pollute that even more than the existing salt lakes in the interior. This is already a problem for Carnarvon, because the plantations there are depleting it at such a rate there that the ocean water is now seeping into that basin and replacing the natural rainwater infill rate into these basins (basically the pressure of the rainflow underground in the basin is declining and the ocean water takes it, and it's salt, to the basin to fill that gap in pressure.
It would, however, make some mild coastal environmental changes to the inland, but only mild ones (I suspect it would also be susceptible to big cyclones too, which is another problem).
The Sahara avoids this issue because it is a lot dustier than the australian interior, so it would avoid getting cyclones.
