Israel’s water demand today outstrips available conventional water resources. Thus, in an average year, Israel relies for about half of its water supply on unconventional water resources, including reclaimed water and desalination.
However, even though the country has five large desalination plants along with wastewater reclamation facilities, this strategy is being pushed to its limits with the current five-year drought hitting the country.
Water scarcity is an old problem
Water scarcity in an already arid region of the world is not only an issue for those who call it home but in the bigger picture, has geopolitical ramifications -so much so that water rights are written into treaties.
The 1995 Interim Agreement as part of the Oslo Peace Process provided certain quantities of water to the Palestinians but prevents them from drilling any new wells in the Mountain Aquifer.
However, the surface water of the Jordan River is still in dispute with Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians. Jordan is the only country that has signed a water-sharing agreement with Israel to share the Jordan River’s waters.
It is easy to see that any disruption in the availability of such a precious resource can play havoc on an economy, agricultural production, and people’s lives. And this is why Israel began investing in desalination technologies that resulted in several plants being developed.
However, it wasn’t until 2014 that Israel’s desalination programs provided roughly 35 percent of Israel’s drinking water. Today, Israel’s water resources include conventional water resources (surface water, groundwater) and non-conventional water resources including the reuse of treated wastewater (reclaimed water), seawater desalination and the desalination of brackish water.
A five-year drought
Israel relies on a very short rainy season that occurs in the winter. But five years of decreasing rainfall amounts have put the whole region into drought conditions. It has gotten so bad that the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main natural water source, is at its lowest recorded levels, and Israel has stopped pumping water from it to its national water system.
“Nobody expected five years of drought in a row, so despite our desalination capacity, it’s still a very, very grave situation,” said Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of energy.
The drought has also dried up a number of the key tributaries that feed into the Jordan River. These biblical bodies of water are crucial to the survival and stability of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, but they are increasingly drying up, largely due to climate change, growing populations and the greater use of water for agriculture.
Critics of Israel’s dependence on desalination projects say conservation is needed and critical to the region’s survival. “Israel definitely puts conservation on the back-burner. As soon as desalination plants were up and running there was this false sense of security,” and water consumption rose, said Sarit Caspi-Oron, director of the water department at the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, an advocacy group.
Another consideration is the security risks the desalination plants pose. Knocking out one or two would be a disaster – knocking out large portions of the country’s water supply. All this and Israel has plans to refill the Sea of Galilee with desalinated water starting next year, despite the ecological damages that could result.
Heatwave and wildfires
The Israel Meteorological Service said that last week, a temperature of 109 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded at the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, while the next day, Gaza recorded a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. And the temperatures are not expected to moderate any time soon.
The heat and drought conditions have led to an increase in brush fires. However, more dangerous are the fires being set by incendiary balloons and kites.
Since March 30, over 1,000 hectares of Israeli fields, forests, and agricultural land have been ravaged by fires. They were caused not by rockets, bombs or other conventional forms of warfare, but by kites, balloons and inflated condoms lit and launched from the Gaza Strip, reports The Jerusalem Post.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the idea of incendiary kites came after a Palestinian organizer saw “a kite with the Palestinian flag attached to its tail lying on the other side of the fence.”
“We thought that maybe it could carry something else, like a Molotov cocktail, but realized it wasn’t practical,” 30-year-old Rami was quoted by the paper as saying.“Then we got the idea of setting it aflame… by the time we managed to develop the flame and people saw scenes of the burning fields on the other side, the guys got excited.”
All in all, Israel in the middle of a mess that includes a drought, worries over water conservation and a continuing war on its own border.
