PALESTINIAN LANDS: UNDERSTANDING THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE WADI EL-FAR’A AS A MEANS FOR ASSESSING ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IN THE LANDS OF GEOGRAPHIC PALESTINE

More than fifty years of war and mismanagement have caused much degradation in the geographic lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean (particularly the West Bank). A two-year institutional partnership project (between Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, and Birzeit University, West Bank) was created to monitor and assess problem areas within a select water catchment, the Wadi el-Far’a. The project will make recommendations for a sustainable plan for water allocation. Meetings, research, planning and fieldwork from the last work-season (summer, 2001) helped determine the outline and focus of the project. Five main branches are included in this comprehensive study: (1) geology, topography and hydrogeology (the natural physical environment), (2) water rights, (3) land-use patterns, (4) historical sites, and (5) pollution.

As the Wadi el-Far’a is only 20 km long, with over 1200 meters in elevation change (900 m above sea level to 300 m below sea level), the natural physical environment is extremely important to this study. Study of the geologic and tectonic environment reveals reverse and strike-strip faulting, expansive anticlines, and large uplifted regions. Cap layers of poorly cemented sedimentary rocks have eroded to form the very fertile and permeable valley floor of the Wadi. Because one of the major aquifers runs directly below the catchment area, the Wadi, with its many springs, is one of the primary sources of freshwater for the Palestinian people. But, the aquifer is not only being depleted, it is also being polluted. Based on several samples from wells, the groundwater has unacceptably high levels of coliform and inorganic elements (Na, Mg, Cl, SO4, K, PO4). Although the political instability has caused a slowdown in the data transferring and much discomfort to the Palestinian half of the team's way of life, still data and communication continue and another field season in the summer of 2002 is planned.