Management Of Shared Groundwater Resources: The Israeli-Palestinian Case With An International Perspective

Abstract

Conflicts between neighboring nations over water resources have resulted in strained relations, leading to difficulty at the negotiating table. Most cases involve surface waters that act as a shared boundary or surface waters that flow from one nation into another. Transnational groundwater management can be even more complex because there is greater uncertainty about supply quantities, hydrology of recharge zones, and movement of water within the aquifer. Issues of hydrology, economic growth, and population growth are all key to a fair resolution.Nowhere in the world is the resolution of water conflict more central to peace than in the Middle East, especially peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. The political climate makes negotiations on water supplies difficult, yet water allocation and use must be addressed in an equitable manner if a lasting peace is to be found. Complicating negotiations is the lack of solid scientific information on groundwater hydrology in the region, and the lack of sufficient institutional infrastructure to effectively manage the resource.This recently published compendium by Eran Feitelson and Marwan Haddad represents the culmination of a 7-year study of water management issues in Israel and the West Bank. Negotiators recognize the importance of groundwater management to a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This volume looks at methods to manage the Mountain Aquifer that lies under parts of the West Bank and Israel. While the book's focus is the Mountain Aquifer, the authors recognize that any water negotiations will need to include other areas (Gaza) and other supplies (surface) in the region. Initially, new supplies will need to be developed to meet basic domestic needs. Ultimately, water is necessary for economic growth. And for peace to succeed, there will be a need for prosperity for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.Using papers from four different workshops, Feitelson and Haddad have assembled a text that covers a broad range of issues in transboundary groundwater management. Many of the chapters provide critical information for setting up groundwater management policies and institutions. However, the overall quality of the book is very uneven. There are large variations in quality between chapters and occasionally within individual chapters. Topics and pieces of many chapters overlap, creating a level of redundancy frustrating to the reader. Several chapters could use additional editing to correct for grammatical and typographical errors (some paragraphs end in mid-sentence and one table is missing the data). That said, for the reader who is willing to pick, choose, and skim, a majority of the chapters provide useful information for the management of transnational groundwater resources.The book begins with an introductory chapter by the editors that sets the stage for considering groundwater's uniqueness when creating management institutions. The authors then provide the customary overview of the chapters to come. The book itself is divided into ...

Water Governance in the Middle East and North Africa: An Unfinished Agenda

“…Led by academic institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), they delved into areas that governments had avoided until that time. Notable were investigations for bilateral Palestinian-Israeli management of the Mountain Aquifer (Feitelson & Haddad, 2000) and for trilateral Palestinian-Jordanian-Israeli management of the Dead Sea basin (Bromberg, 2004), both of which were supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and other donor agencies. New governmental institutions were also created.…”

Palestinian Water I: Resources, Allocation and Perception

“…Various estimates exist for the number of Palestinians that currently live in these conditions. One estimate places this percentage of unconnected Palestinians at around 19% (Feitelson and Haddad 2001), although recent data from the PWA in 2005 suggest that this proportion is a more modest 10% (B`Tselem 2007). High percentages of unconnected Palestinians are clustered in the northern arid districts, most notably in Nablus and Jenin (see Figure 5).…”

“…In the last 10 years attempts have been made to develop a common understanding of the needs of both sides and an appropriate shared management regime (e.g. Feitelson and Haddad 2001; Shuval and Dweik 2007). Nonetheless, Israel has maintained its position as a dominant hegemonic power over a majority of the regional freshwater resources (Zeitoun 2008).…”

Asymmetric Abstraction and Allocation: The Israeli‐Palestinian Water Pumping Record

“…The second hydropolitical era spanning from 1948 until Israel’s conquest in the June 1967 war is termed the “ideological era” for the Israeli state’s ambitious and successfully completed “hydraulic mission,” that is, the state’s drive to provide water for all its sectors. Feitelson and Haddad (2000, 345) speak of this period as the Israeli “resource expropriation era,” which others have described as “[Zionist] ideology dictated water development. No plan for a new agricultural settlement was ever abandoned only because the cost of supplying water was too high” (Galnoor 1978, 345 [original emphasis]).…”