Title: Water supply management plan in Gaza Strip/Palestine

Authors: Ahmed Al-Yaqoubi

Addresses: Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), ElWehda Street, Front ElRimal Clinic Centre, Gaza City, Palestine

Abstract: If the demand for irrigation is calculated based on the food requirements of the growing population, it appears that it will increase from the present usage of about 81 × 10⁶ m³ /y to more than 200 × 10⁶m³/y by the next two-decades. However, that figure is not realistic projection for Gaza, because neither the water nor the land to support an increase in agricultural activity exists. Based on that, it has been estimated that agriculture water demand will decreased to about 61 × 10⁶m³/y during the next coming 20 years. Taking in consideration the groundwater quality without any water resources management plan, it is expected that pumped water quality will not be suitable for irrigating most of the plant in Gaza Strip due to salinisation issue. Based on that, the proposed agriculture water management plan is by minimising the abstraction from the groundwater for agriculture by about 20-25% during the next 25-years. The implementation of this plan will have overall beneficial impacts on the Gaza coastal aquifer, and it is predicted that seawater intrusion and up coning can be significantly reduced and/or stabilised by the year 2025 with water balance surplus of about 40 mcm by the year 2035.

Keywords: Gaza Strip; over pumped water; aquifer collapse; drawdown; domestic water; water supply management; water management; Palestine; irrigation demand; agriculture; agricultural water; groundwater quality; water quality; salinisation; coastal aquifers; seawater intrusion; up coning; water balance surplus.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2017.083431

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2017 Vol.16 No.1/2/3, pp.62 - 75

Received: 06 Aug 2016
Accepted: 03 Sep 2016
Published online: 29 Mar 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article