TITLE:
Depletive Water Balance and High Vulnerability Due to Conflicts over Access and Rights
AUTHORS:
Jawad Hasan Shoqeir
KEYWORDS:
Perched Aquifers, Mountain Aquifer, Surface Runoff, Urban Development, Fragile Environment
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
Vol.6 No.11,
August
20,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Sustainable
water supply problem becomes strategic when inelastic demand levels are
overhauling maximum available supplies. The situation is more acute when the
groundwater recharge area is heavily populated, consist of urban, industrial
and agricultural areas and above all have typical karstic morphology and
extensive regions of thin or null soil cover. During winter season the
infiltrated water mixed with the wastewater leaking from poorly designed
cesspits and wastewater overflow from the treatment plants of the adjacent
settlements. Currently, most of the recharge area is disturbed due to the
ongoing urban development in Beitar Elite and Tzur Hadassah in conjunction with
the planned Security Fence (apartheid wall) threatens to extend over ~70% of
the aquifer recharge area. Such massive destruction in a small watershed leads
to considerable decrease in springs discharge and could completely dry-out the
springs at the upper part of the valley. The aim of this research is to improve
understanding of the hydrologic processes controlling water quantity and
quality of springs discharging small (3/yr) basin in the
mountain aquifer.