WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT OF JENIN GOVERNORATE
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Date
2012
Authors
Ra'fat Mohammed Bsharat
Razan Kamal Atwa
Furat Mahmoud Nassar
Khalid Naser Sobeh
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Abstract
Palestine is one country in the Middle East that suffers from water poor and water stressed conditions. The availability of per capita water supply is the lowest in the region. During the last 30 years or more Israeli policy uses the natural resources of land and water without any consideration to human rights. Jenin Governorate is one of Governorates in West Bank that has critical water resources, although it lies over the North-Eastern Aquifer. The area of Jenin Governorate is 583 square Kilometer (9.7% from the area of West Bank). It has 82 localities and one camp and only 80% from these localities have Water Distribution Network. Most areas of Jenin Governorate are agricultural area (65%) and the other areas us are built up areas, industrial areas, forest and military bases. The average annual rainfall of Jenin Governorate is 528 mm/year. According to the last Statistics of year 2011, the population of Jenin Governorate is approximately 281 thousand capita, and it represents 10.9% of the total population of the West Bank. The water problem remains one of the most issues that needs to be resolved between Israel and Palestine. Jenin Governorate has three main sources of water supply for all needs. These sources are groundwater wells, springs and purchased water from Israeli side. But these sources dont meet the basic demands of the Governorate. Jenin Governorate has nine wells for domestic uses and these wells provide only 3.6 Mcm/year. The springs produce approximately 0.152 Mcm/year and another source is 2 Mcm/year as purchased water from Mekarot Company. The average rate of water consumption in Jenin Governorate is approximately 67 L/c/day, these amount of water less than the minimum amount of water consumption according to WHO (World Health Organization) standards. The aim of this project is to plan to provide other sources of water to satisfy the minimum and the average rates of WHO standards (100 L/c/day and 150 L/c/day), and to bridge the future potential water gap based on increasing population and future water demand rates. According to PCBS (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics), the population growth rate of Jenin Governorate is approximately 3.3 % and this rate will decrease in the next 20 years to 2% depending on the planning assumption. The number of population of Jenin Governorate is estimated at 439 thousand person for the year 2030. According to this number of population the estimated future water demand of Jenin Governorate is approximately 33 Mcm/year. Based on this , the future water gap for Jenin Governorate is 28 Mcm/year by year 2030. The purpose of our planning is to bridge the estimated water gap by developing new water resources for each cluster from local sources or ground water sources and others. Firstly, provide water from local water resources such as rehabilitation of existing water distribution networks by decreasing the losses of these networks, and its provide approximately 0.58 Mcm/year for year 2030. Secondly, make water harvesting of rainfall, but this need often built cisterns to catch and store rainwater, these source will be provide approximately 3 Mcm/year for year 2030. The remaining amount of future water gap ( approximately 25 Mcm/year) covered by drilling new groundwater wells in North-Eastern and Western aquifers to produced approximately 18 Mcm/year. And the remaining gap (7 Mcm/year) will be provide as imported water from Israeli National Water Carrier near Zububa and Al-Jalama villages. Based on the above, the project proposed an investment plan that will include all water networks components needed to cover water needs for the next 20 years. This investment plan will be build to consider strategic thinking of choosing priority based on an agreed upon criteria. These projects called package and each one consists of ground water well with booster station, transmission pipeline, pumps and reservoir. After all proposed projects needed to cover the future water gap of Jenin Governorate are determined, the investment costs is estimated for all projects, and the cash flow is determined for the next 20 years. Based on the proposed packages, the total investment costs is around 34 Million US $, which is approximately 129 Million NIS (New Israeli Shekel), with an average investment cost of around 1.7 Million US $ per year. A provision of wastewater system of Jenin Governorate was developed. According to that, Jenin Governorate has divided into three zones, first zone will serve the localities in the north of Jenin Governorate, and the second zone will serve the middle localities while the third zone will serve the southern localities of Jenin Governorate. Each zone contains wastewater collection systems from localities and transfer sewage to the treatment plant. These treatment plants will be provide approximately 28 Mcm of treated water which can be directed to agricultural sector, the estimated cost of wastewater collection systems and treatment plant in Jenin Governorate is approximately equal to 484 Million US $.