ABSTRACT
More than 95% of Palestinian water supplies for domestic, agricultural, and municipal and industrial use come from groundwater, either in the form of wells or springs. The fact that the Palestinian water resources consists almost exclusively of groundwater highlights the extreme importance of this limited resource. Palestinian water supply comes from three groundwater basins: the Western Basin, the Eastern Basin, and the Northeastern Basin. The aquifers of all of these basins constitute a shared water resource to some degree with the Israelis.
Eocene Aquifer is one of several groundwater systems that provide water for Palestinian communities in the northern parts of West Bank with a total area of 526 km2, part of this aquifer is extends outside the West Bank (about 65 km2) where most of productive Israeli wells are located. Generally, the total average extraction rate from this aquifer is about 17 mcm/y, of which 12 Mcm/y is pumping by Israeli wells while the Palestinian wells are pumping about 5.0 Mcm/y only. The pumping water from this aquifer comes through variable types of renewable water-bearing carbonate rocks of limestone and chalky limestone with a variable thickness range from 300-500 m. Rainfall is playing significant role in recharging this aquifer by reliable quantity of fresh water, the long-term average annual rainfall over the proposed area is 400-600 mm/y. The importance of this aquifer motivates Palestinian Water Authority through essential assistance from SUSMAQ Project to develop a local-scale groundwater flow model as a management tool aims to assess the sustainable yield of Eocene Aquifer for future development and to evaluate the effect of long-term pumping rate on water levels. The model was constructed through Groundwater Modeling System (GMS) and was calibrated against steady-state and against transient-state for the period of 1991-2000. The model shows that the sustainable yield is around 29 Mcm/yr; this will be subjected to many variations regarding the annual rainfall, pumping control and average simulation of the model results.
Developing and implementing a shared management program is highly requested to ensure long-term sustainable yield for this aquifer. The program will include a documentation of the decision-making process and actions necessary to protect groundwater resources.
