Regionalized Water Balances
Overview
Consistent
water balances have been
established for all six water
regions in the study area.
A standardized system of documenting all base data that was used for quantifying
the water supply and
demand for the base year 2000. The data were submitted by all project partners
as part of their water
plan reports. The project team has then established a harmonized version of the
water supply and demand
data, using the (few) official data, supplementary data from other data sets,
and using estimates to fill in missing data. All
water balances from the
water regions were linked
together into an overall
water balance.
Standard water quality categories
Water supply
Major springs are located in the southwest along the
valley slopes. In the
northern and center parts of the
valley such productive
springs are located also within the
valley floor. Wells are
often located in or near the bigger settlements (map).
“Locally renewable” water
sources are virtually nonexistent because precipitation is very low. “Locally
available” water sources
(local springs and wells that are renewed outside the
valley) make up 255
million cubic meters per year (MCM/yr) but are inadequately distributed. This
water supply translates
to an availability of about 1000 m²/cap.yr or 2000 m²/ha.yr, which is abundant.
In addition to the “locally available”
water, about 209 MCM/yr
of water are “imported”
into the valley from
outside to make up a 464 MCM/yr of “total available” water.
Water usage
A spatial annual water
balance was made on the
level of six water
regions. It was not possible to model a detailed sub-regional
water
balance because
information about water
supply and distribution (e.g. discharge of all wells and springs, transfer
points for "imports" of surface
water or wastewater,
complete water channel
network) was insufficient.
Domestic water use
accounts for only about 5 % of the total
water demand. Even with
an increase of the per-capita usage to luxury standards for the population in
Jordan and Palestine the
domestic demand can be easily met in all regions through available local
drinking water quality
sources.
The regional risk of water
shortage is much higher in the regions east of the river
Jordan than in the west.
The east has much less “locally available”
water and is much more
dependent on imported water.
The self- sufficiency of "locally available"
water supply for local
demand is particularly high in the Tubas (100 %) and the Bet Shean (84 %)
regions, and low in the Shayk Husayn and Mashare regions (14 % and 20 %). The
necessary "imports" of water
from outside the target area to match the usage is a major risk for
water shortage,
particularly if these come from regions that compete for
water.
Furthermore, local water
in the east has a far lower quality than in the west. The southeastern region (Karama)
has no drinking water
available to serve the population, while in the other regions most drinking
water is used for
agriculture.
About 95 % of the current usage is from agricultural activities,
mainly irrigation (e.g.irrigation of fruit orchards &
field crops, or
fishponds). In the overall
Lower Jordan
Valley there is is about
6 times more drinking water
quality available than presently used for domestic purposes.
Example results
Results show that very little of the available water is indeed being used for the population while most drinking water is used for agriculture.
System overviews:
Data tables:
Maps:
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