Gaza teeters on the brink of a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe and urgent action is required to prevent widespread suffering. To compound matters, USAID have recently pulled out of the Palestinian water sector in an international aid embargo aimed at Alice Gray The political rhetoric and frequent violence of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict often serve to mask underlying environmental issues which, if not resolved, may pose an even greater threat to the wellbeing of the Palestinian population than the guns and bombs of the military occupation.
Environmental degradation threatens to undermine the viability of any future Palestinian state and create conditions that will make life in many parts of the Palestinian Territories impossible.
Many environmental problems are accelerated and exacerbated by occupation practices, which prevent effective environmental management.
This problem is particularly acute in Gaza in relation to the water resources and the ongoing military conflict.
The roots of Gaza's water problem lie in the over-population of the area, due to a high influx of refugees in 1948, when approximately 200,000 people fled to Gaza from the Jaffa and Beersheva areas of what is now Israel, following Israel's War of Independence.
The original population of
the Gaza Strip at that time was
80,000 people, thus this represented an increase of some
250%. Today, over three quarters of the estimated Gazan
population of 1.4 million are
registered refugees.
The Gaza Strip is a very
small area of land with a total
area of only 360 square kilometers (roughly 150 square
miles, ed.). It is underlain by a shallow aquifer, which is contiguous with the Israeli Coastal Aquifer to the north. Gaza is the "downstream user" of the Coastal Aquifer system, and hence water abstraction in Gaza does not affect Israeli water supplies.
The Gaza Aquifer has a natural recharge rate of approximately million cubic meters (MCM) of water per year from rainfall and lateral inflow of water from Israel and Egypt. This aquifer is essentially the only source of fresh water in the Gaza Strip.
By 1967, when Israel occupied Gaza, the sustainable yield of the aquifer was being fully utilized. Since then, as the population has grown, so too has the demand for fresh water.
No serious attempt was made at exercising any water management strategy in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli undermining the Hamas government. administration, with the number of registered wells
increasing from 1200 in 1967 to 2100 in 1993.
Abstraction from the
aquifer was approximately 110
MCM per year by 1993, resulting in falling water levels and
degrading water quality due to
seawater infiltration, caused
by the over-pumping that had
been taking place.
Likewise, there was little
investment in maintaining or
improving the deteriorating
infrastructures of Palestinian municipalities during this period, despite taxes being paid by Palestinians to the Israeli government.
In 1994, the Gaza-Jericho agreement placed water resources in the Gaza Strip under the control of the newly formed Palestinian Authority (PA) and, in 1995, the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) was formed. It was given the mandate for managing water in the Palestinian Territories.
At this time, it was widely recognized that there was a serious environmental problem with the Gaza Aquifer, with experts predicting that if nothing was done, the entire aquifer would become unusable by the year 2000. In addition, the water infrastructure was in a very poor state, with 50% of water being lost through leaking pipes.
Therefore the PWA, with the help of international donors (principally the
United States Agency for International Development
- USAID, set out to develop a management strategy for the
Gaza Aquifer and engaged the
engineering firm Metcalf &
Eddy to carry out an environmental survey and draw up a
management plan. The
Integrated Coastal Aquifer Management Plan (CAMP) was drawn up in 2000, with an implementation period of 20 years.
The main components of the CAMP included reducing the amount of water pumped from the aquifer for agricul tural irrigation, while simultaneously improving supply of drinking water to the population by providing additional water from sources other than the aquifer.
These included the import of water from Israel, construction of seawater desalination plants and improving wastewater treatment to allow it to be used for irrigation and managed aquifer recharge.
It was envisaged that, in the longer term, following a political settlement with Israel, and resolution of the Palestinians' water rights in the West Bank, a pipeline could be constructed between the West Bank and Gaza to ensure adequate supplies for the growing population.
If implemented on schedule, it was expected that the
CAMP would bring the Gaza
Aquifer back into a positive
water balance by 2007,
whereas "failure to implement
the CAMP in accordance with
the schedule will result in
continuing decline in the
quantity and quality of the
aquifer water." The Impact of Conflict
Unfortunately, completion of the CAMP (May, 2000) narrowly preceded the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000. Despite initial attempts to implement the plan, and small progress in some areas, little has been achieved since then.
The number of agricultural wells, many of them unregistered, has increased to approximately 4000; the supply of water from Israel has declined by approximately half from 1998 to 2004 in breach of the Oslo Accords; construction of the planned regional desalination plant halted in 2003 when one of the workers was killed; and Gaza's wastewater treatment facilities are still vastly inadequate, with 80% of sewage being discharged untreated into the environment (UNEP, 2003).
In addition, missile strikes and ground incursions have repeatedly damaged and destroyed pipelines, and maintenance personnel have been arrested, shot at, or even killed whilst trying to carry out repairs.
Inadequate sewage treatment infrastructure and damage to wastewater and drinking water pipelines has allowed sewage water to contaminate drinking water supplies, leading to sharp increases in water borne diseases in many areas.
Failure to control overpumping has led to sea-water intrusion into the aquifer to the extent that, in 2003, only 10% of the wells produced water of
Organization (WHO) drinking water standards.
Most recently, this year's
Israeli invasion of Gaza (Operation Summer Rain,
June 2006) caused untold
damage to water infrastructure, with destruction of the
Gaza Electric Station affecting
the operation of the majority
of wells, pumping stations and
sewage treatment facilities.
In short, Gaza teeters on the
brink of a humanitarian and
environmental catastrophe
and urgent action is required
to prevent widespread suffering.
To compound matters,
USAID have recently pulled