Case Study Final Report 1 the Alexander River – Wadi Zeimar Basin Palestinian Israeli Case Study
Case study final report 1 The Alexander River – Wadi Zeimar Basin Palestinian Israeli Case Study Nir Becker Chair, department of Economics and Management Tel-Hai College Upper Galilee, 12210 Israel Eran Friedler Faculty of Civil Engineering The Technion 3200, Haifa Israel Marwan Haddad Faculty of Water Resources Engineering Al-Naajah University Nablus, PA Research assistants: Aviad Kahana, Anat Dekel, Nancy Ruman, Yosi Damuch, Chen Micheli, Oren Azaria, Emil Shienfeld. 1 This report is part of OPTIMA (Optimization for Sustainable Water Management), financed by the EC under contract INCO – CT – 2004 – 509091. The Palestinian – Israeli coordination was done by IPCRI (Israeli Palestinian Centre for Research and Information) - I - Executive Summery This report deals with a hydro-economic modeling of the Alexander – Zeimar river basin. The river originates near Nablus, which is located in the Palestinian Authority, and crosses the green line into the Israeli territory where it flows until it reaches to the Mediterranean Sea. While there are about 600,000 residents along the river, the management questions are related to the entire nation of Israel as well as the Palestinian authority. The major issue which river planners have to deal with, in this case, is water quality. Since the 1950's the river became a sewage outlet, used by Israelis and Palestinians alike. There are lost opportunities for recreation and also nature conservation principals have been severely violated. In the mid-nineties a master plan was approved for the 14 major rivers in Israel, which the Alexander was one. The plan determined very specific water quality targets and local authorities had to develop plans to meet them.
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