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WATER SCARCITY IN THE
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In the Jordan River basin, freshwater scarcity results from multiple factors and most severely affects Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The eastern and southern parts of this region are semi-arid to arid, receiving as little as 50 to 250 millimeters of rainfall per year -- dryer than Phoenix, Arizona -- according to a new report jointly produced by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Palestine Academy for Science and Technology, the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, and the U.S. National Research Council (NRC).
The most rainfall of the region, 1,000 millimeters, occurs only in a small area of highlands in the northwestern section. The estimated total renewable water supply for the region is approximately 2,400 million cubic meters per year, while water use averages 3,000 million cubic meters, according to a 1998 study compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey for the Executive Action Team of the Middle East Water Data Banks Project -- a cooperative research project of the Israel, Jordan, and Palestine water services. The resulting deficit is met by extracting water, without recharge (replenishment) capability, from groundwater sources and underground aquifers.
Water use varies throughout the region. Israel's use is greatest, although only marginally greater than Jordan's -- estimated at 2,000 million cubic meters. Usage on the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the lowest, one tenth the Jordanian amount, according to the NRC Joint Report. The daily allotment per person for drinking water in the Jordan River basin is lower than anywhere else in the world, according to a 1997 Food and Agricultural (FAO) report. Severe water rationing is not unusual during summer months in high population areas. The summer of 1998 and winter of 1999 were unusually dry. For several weeks during the summer, residents of Amman, Jordan, received municipally supplied water only two days a week. In March 1999, Israel ordered a 25 percent cut in supply to domestic agriculture and announced that it would be unable to meet this year's allocation transfers to Jordan from the shared Sea of Galilee and the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers, committed to under the 1994 Treaty of Peace.
Nationalistic patterns of water usage and politically charged territorial assertions compound the region's competition over freshwater resources. Meanwhile, the over-exploitation of existing sources and harm to natural ecosystems in the basin compromise the recharge capacity of the system. Some progress has been made in recent years in regional cooperative management, equitable apportionment, and equitable utilization. However, gains generally have been trumped by the increasing stresses of urban development and other forms of human encroachment on natural ecosystems. Critical ecosystem water resource threats include: draining of wetlands for agricultural and housing development uses; pollution of freshwater by industrial activities and untreated human waste; and contamination of rivers, aquifers, and lakes due to run-off from fertilizers and pesticides.
The combination of political strife, resource overuse, and contaminated sources means that freshwater scarcity in the Jordan River basin will reach a critical level in the near future. Consumptive use of freshwater tends to increase at twice the corresponding rate of population growth, according to a 1997 United Nations study entitled "Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World." If present rates of population growth and agricultural and industrial development continue, within the next 20 to 30 years all of Israel's and Jordan's freshwater will be needed for drinking water demands alone. Agricultural applications will receive only reclaimed sewage, and industry will have available only costly desalinated seawater. Currently, approximately 310 million cubic meters of reclaimed sewage wastewater is used in the region -- 250 million cubic meters in Israel and 60 million cubic meters in Jordan -- and as much as 1,800 million cubic meters may be available in the future, according to the NRC Joint Report. However, large-scale use of reclaimed wastewater itself is unsustainable because it can result in high mineral infiltration of soils and surface and ground-based freshwater sources.
Unilateral Water Development and Management
The political conflict endemic to this region is a major factor leading to nationalistic-oriented, unilateral, and unsustainable water management of the river basin. The individual national water development schemes that have evolved are the result of centuries of distinct local cultural and religious practices combined with historical influences. Legal impacts are also numerous and diverse, including the ancient Jewish and Islamic religious and social laws, the laws of the Greco-Roman Empires, the Ottoman Empire, and colonial British Mandatory rule -- and, since 1948, international principles of apportionment and utilization.
During the initial years following the independence of Israel, 1948-1955, the various basin states were unable to reach agreement on any regional development or water apportionment plan. The governments of Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, as well as representatives of the United Nations and the United States, each formed proposals. The country proposals were domestically focused and therefore unacceptable regionally for practical and political reasons. Acceptance of the international plans was problematic because they presented novel approaches to water sharing and apportionment, and because a regional cooperative approach would, by definition, require the Arab League's acceptance of Israel as a legitimate state and resource user. Intense political conflict led to the rejection of all of these proposals, although the Johnston Plan has served since 1955 as an informal guide for some aspects of water allocation and use within Israel and Jordan. The Johnston Plan assimilated the proposals of the Arab League and Israel, and drew upon emerging international law principles, applying equitable considerations of existing beneficial use and planned future need. It assigned the largest share of the basin water to Jordan, followed by Israel, with a much smaller share to Syria, and the least amount to Lebanon. It gave each state sole authority to decide where and how to use its share of the water.
With formal rejection of the apportionment proposals, each state within the river basin proceeded with its national plans for water development. These plans tended to address immediate domestic needs and economic expansion, and created direct competition for and over-exploitation of shared water sources. Competition and scarcity contributed to security concerns. Many scholars assert that at least a dozen cease-fire violations between 1951 and 1967 can be attributed, in part, to conflicts over the region's freshwater supply. In 1955, Israel created the National Water Carrier to channel flow from the Jordan River for distribution to the expanding population of southern Israel and the Negev desert, and utilized the Johnston Plan's proposed allocations. Israel's population was growing at a rapid pace due to the greatly increased influx of post-World War II European Jewish refugees, and its development and plans outpaced those of its neighbors. By means of the National Water Carrier, Israel hoped to provide potable as well as irrigation water to all parts of the nation. Syria and Jordan responded in 1964 by beginning construction of a dam to divert the flow of the waters of the Yarmouk and Baniyas Rivers of the basin and to defeat operation of Israel's National Water Carrier. These tensions contributed to the 1967 war when Israel bombed and destroyed the dam before construction was completed, and occupied the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
The territory acquired by Israel in the 1967 War radically changed its military and water security, and significantly expanded Israel's riparian access to and territorial control over the Yarmouk and the Jordan Rivers. The occupation increased Israel's direct physical control of freshwater by nearly 50 percent through three major sources: the headwaters of the Jordan River, including half the length of the Yarmouk River; the recharge region of the Mountain Aquifer; and the upper riparian territory of the Baniyas River. Israel was then able to complete the National Water Carrier, as well as extensive irrigation projects. Jordan also completed a major dam project at the eastern tributaries of the Jordan River, south of the Yarmouk, and developed a water distribution system.
Inroads to Regional Management
It was not until the mid-1990s that a shared-use approach would be productively considered. The Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace of 1994, and the Agreement on Cooperation in Environmental Protection and Nature Conservation Between Israel and Jordan (Environmental Agreement) of 1995 are bilateral agreements calling for a cooperative approach for sharing and developing the Jordan River. The 1994 Israel-Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Agreement on the Gaza Strip and Jericho Area, and its successor, the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Interim Agreement) address cooperative water and sewage development. The 1996 Declaration of Principles for Cooperation Among the Core Parties on Water-Related Matters and New and Additional Waters (Declaration of Principles for Cooperation) is a multilateral agreement signed by Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian National Authority.
The peace treaty acknowledges the insufficiency of freshwater sources for the region, and calls upon the parties to act in the "spirit of cooperation" in resolving short-term water shortages. Proposals integrated into the treaty anticipate joint construction planning and management of a storage dam on the Yarmouk, and the cooperative management of the groundwater of Emek Ha'arava. Specific allocations of water from the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers informally incorporate international equitable utilization principles. The treaty additionally provides for a Joint Water Committee to function as the implementing body of the Program of Action, to oversee water allocation, storage, water quality protection, information transfers and data sharing, and generally to coordinate action in alleviating water shortages.
The Environmental Agreement, although not ratified, nevertheless demonstrates the recent reconsideration of cooperative management of shared natural resources between Israel and Jordan. Article One articulates the spirit of cooperation: "The parties shall cooperate in the fields of environmental protection and conservation of natural resources on the basis of equality, reciprocity, and mutual benefit....They shall take the necessary measures, both jointly and individually, to protect the environment, and prevent environmental risks...in particular those that may affect or cause damage to...natural resources...in the region." Article Five outlines various programs of cooperation including the exchange of information, the sharing of scientific and scholarly data, and the promotion of joint scientific and technical research, as well as joint development projects. Article Ten provides for establishment of a Joint Committee on Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Conservation. The Joint Committee is to propose new projects, as well as monitor existing projects and the general performance of both parties.
The Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip establishes, in Article 40 of Appendix B, general principles for cooperation in water and sewage development, and provides for a joint water committee and joint supervision of shared resources, as well as cooperative enforcement teams.
The Declaration of Principles for Cooperation was the product of negotiations and cooperative studies of the Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources formed in 1992 to advance the Middle East peace process. The working group also endorsed the Water Data Banks Project in 1994 to regionally share and verify data, and to standardize collection techniques. The Water Data Banks Project promotes the regional management and protection of water resources with participation by scientific and technical experts from the several basin states.
Water Reform Priorities
Despite the consensus reached in these agreements in cooperative management, joint conservation, and equitable sharing, little practical movement in addressing the water scarcity problem has been taken over the past five years. The recent NRC Joint Report and the Middle East Water Data Banks Project mark the first two cooperative scientific projects among the various basin states, addressing the most critical water scarcity concerns and presenting practical suggestions. These reports and other scientific and independent studies assert that to avoid critical water scarcity in the Jordan River basin, reforms must be implemented on several fronts.
First, the basin states must continue progress toward a genuinely cooperative and integrated multinational and multi-use scheme of regional water sharing and development. The water basin is widely accepted as the natural and rational unit for the management and planning of river development, as opposed to the artificial management units imposed by political boundaries. Basin-wide management is also a cornerstone of equitable sharing and utilization principles and is integral to the Helsinki Rules of 1967 and the International Law Commission Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses of 1997 (ILC Water Convention). However, neither classical nor modern international law principles of transboundary water sharing have been fully embraced by this region, due in part to the distinct cultures and highly volatile and complex political and security issues. Political tensions and the practical disparity of unbalanced bargaining alliances inhibit achievement of bilateral, multilateral, or regional agreement. Israel in particular may tend to resist a regional management scheme in which it could find itself outnumbered by allying Arab states.
Second, information and technology sharing among and between basin states benefits management region-wide. The process of engaging scientists and other experts in collaborative management, development, and conservation efforts builds communication networks and, over time, may contribute to easing political tensions. Collaboration and information sharing also serve to verify reporting accuracy, which is critical to sound decision-making.
Third, conservation, not only of the water supply and delivery systems, but also of the ecosystem will reduce unnecessary waste and prevent further deterioration of water supplies. Aging and outdated water supply systems in Israel and Jordan lose as much as half of the transported water through leaks and excessive evaporation, according to the NRC Joint Report. Encroachment on wetlands, lakes, streams, and forests by urbanization destroys natural recharge sites -- trees and other plant life that control erosion and filter water; lakes and streams that help diffuse toxins; and organisms that assist in decomposition of certain pollutants. Over-pumping of lakes and aquifers, and agricultural use of reclaimed wastewater leads to saline and other mineral encroachment into normally freshwater sources.
Despite recent progress, many problems remain. Nationalist-based interests, economic development, and unchecked water source exploitation continue to prevent optimal utilization of water in the Jordan River Basin. The critical nature of this resource, the ever-dwindling supply of freshwater in this basin, and the irrevocability of inappropriate policy measures require unified, definitive, and ecologically sound changes to current policies and practices to insure an adequate future water supply for all peoples of the region.
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