Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the Lower Baro-Akobo Basinwhere little is known about the functioning of the ground-
water buffer in the predominant wetlands. This basin has been selected because of its
high economic importance and its hydrological and economic dynamism.
Existing studies suggest that the Baro-Akobo basin is among the most vulnerable
basins of Ethiopia. The lack of reliable hydrological and environmental monitoring
data with high temporal and spatial resolutions are some of the major obstacles to
designing development projects, observing possible changes in the hydrologic system
and monitoring the environment to ensure sustainable use of the natural resources.
Dissecting the black box of the interrelationship between technical, institutional and
political issues is the first step in the Ethiopian leg of the project.
Palestine
Water use in Palestine depends almost exclusively on groundwater resources. The
spectrum of problems for the water authorities, the public water supply and sanitation
utilities, and the private sector ranges from a) a rapidly changing hydrological regime
linked to riparian over-pumping, which could be associated with climatic change; b) a
lack of technical and financial means to investigate the hydrological regime, and control
and manage the water system; c) a lack of institutional and organizational capacity;
and d) an unequal power balance concerning control over the transboundary water
resources shared by Israel and Palestine, which has resulted in a lack of access to the
resources for the Palestinians. As recently outlined by Amnesty International from a
human water rights point of view (Amnesty International 2009), the latter factor is
extremely dominant.
Most groundwater reservoirs under the West Bank are shared with Israel. Since
the occupation in 1967, Israel has built a system of military orders to control the
water resources and prevent the Palestinians from developing their water resources.
Although the Oslo agreements of 1993 and 1995 inaugurated the Palestinian Water
Authority and a Joint Water Committee, the changes in power distribution in ground-
water management between Israel and the Palestinians are, at the very least, disputed
by the Palestinians. Moreover, the creation of the Joint Water Committee has not pre-
vented the systematic overuse and pollution of the groundwater resources. Procedures
for drilling new wells through the Joint Water Committee are lengthy and the results
have thus far been unpredictable. This holds true especially for the 83% of the land
coverage of the West Bank that is under Israeli military rule. Due to the separation
wall, gaining access to land and wells is practically impossible for many Palestinian
farmers. Such endeavours have therefore only further contributed to a future vision
for the region in which water supply will heavily depend on desalinized water with
all of the political and economic implications (Assaf 2004; Galema 2012; Smidt et al.
2013).
Within the West Bank, the Palestinian Water Authority selected the Qalqiliya Gov-
ernorate as a case study. In this governorate, groundwater is available, but often not
accessible due to the wall that separates many villages from each other. The response
studies performed in Palestine give insight into the adaptive power of the farmer's coop-
eratives in the Governorate of Qalqilya (Galema 2012). Farmers have lost large tracts
of their lands due to the construction of the wall and surrounding Israeli settlements,
but by introducing more intensive forms of agriculture they have managed to continue
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