CONFRONTING THE WATER CRISIS IN THE GAZA STRIP: INTEGRATION OF GEOCHEMISTRY, NUMERICAL MODELING, AND POLICY

Israel and the Palestinian Authority share the southern Mediterranean Coastal aquifer. Long-term over-exploitation in the Gaza Strip has resulted in a decreasing water table and accelerated degradation of the water quality. Due to high levels of salinity, nitrate and boron pollution, most of the groundwater is currently inadequate for both domestic and agriculture consumption. The rapid rate of population growth in the Gaza Strip and the dependence on groundwater as a single water source presents a serious challenge for future political stability and economic development. Here, we integrate the results of geochemical studies and numerical modeling in order to postulate different management scenarios for joint management between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The chemical and isotopic data show that most of the salinity phenomena in the Gaza Strip is derived from the natural flow of saline groundwater from Israel towards the Gaza Strip. As a result, the southern Coastal aquifer does not resemble a classic “upstream-down-stream” dispute because Israel’s pumping of the saline groundwater reduces the salinization rates of groundwater in the Gaza Strip. Simulation of the different pumping scenarios using a mono-layer hydrodynamic 2-dimension model (MARTHE) confirms the hypothesis that increasing pumping along the Gaza Strip border combined with moderate reduction of pumping within the Gaza Strip would improve the water quality of groundwater within the Gaza Strip. We posit that pumping the saline groundwater as a source for reverse osmosis desalination and then supplying the desalinated water to the Gaza Strip should be an essential component of a future joint management strategy between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.