This article comes from the WeChat public account:Understand the planet (ID: PNXQ69)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Xin mono-, FIG question from: IC photo
In November 2014, Israeli Economic Minister Bennett led a group of experts in water technology to visit Shouguang City, Shandong Province, China. Shouguang became the first demonstration city of Israeli water technology in China.
Israel? This country, founded in 1948 by the relocation of Jews, is located in the Middle East desert area on the southeast coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is also a country with extremely scarce water resources.
But nowadays, Israel has become a powerful country of water resources. Not only has it achieved self-sufficiency in its own water use, but it has also spread advanced water technology to the world.
How did Israel find water sources in the desert and gradually become a powerhouse of water resources?
If Israel wants to build a country, it needs to first find water that can feed the Jews
In the 1930s, the Palestinian region where Israel is now still a British colony. The Jews who have been wandering around the world for thousands of years are rushing to Israel in batches under the buzz of the Zionists, who are trying to re-establish a Jewish country on their homeland.
One problem that the Jews want to establish in Israel is water!
In 1939, the United Kingdom began to strictly control the number of Jews who emigrated back to Palestine every year. In their view, the Palestinian area under the trust of the British at that time had a hot climate, insufficient water resources, and was not suitable for farming. It was impossible to feed so many Jews who wanted to return to Palestine.
Is the Palestinian area really as scarce as the British say?
The British are half right! From the perspective of climate and water resources distribution, half of the desert and half of the Mediterranean are indeed short of water.
▲Map of Israel under the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, most of Israel is a dry zone
The natural water resources in a region are abundant, mainly from two aspects of surface water and groundwater. More fundamentally, it depends on the local climatic conditions, mainly rainfall and water evaporation.
In terms of climatic conditions, rainfall in Israel gradually decreases from north to south. Northern Israel has a Mediterranean climate. The rainfall is mainly concentrated in winter, and the precipitation in other seasons is very small. The annual rainfall is about 1000mm. The southern region has a hot and dry desert climate, with dry and less rain all year round. The annual precipitation in the South Gaza Strip is only 200-300mm, and the annual precipitation in the Negev desert is only about 100mm.
▲Haifa City in Northern Israel
Therefore, the problem of water resources in Israel lies not only in the total amount of precipitation, but also in the temporal and spatial distribution of water resources.
▲Negev desert in southern Israel
Precipitation in Israel is concentrated in winter, and winter precipitation accounts for 70% of the annual precipitation. It is very difficult to make full use of rainwater. The construction of reservoirs and various water conservancy facilities will greatly increase the cost of rainwater utilization.
Not only is 80% of Israel’s rainfall in the northern region, but also the most important water sources, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River, are in the north. The extreme imbalance of water resources between the north and the south is also a major problem in Israel’s water resources utilization.
British people foresee the lack of water resources in Israel. They feel that the agriculture developed under such water conditions cannot feed too many people, and through official predictions, the population of the Palestinian area cannot exceed 2 million people.
British people may not have imagined that from the 1940s to the present, the Jews have returned to the land they called “holy land” from Israel, returning from the Middle East Jews during the Arab riots, to The migration of European Jews during the Nazi Germany period, and then to the Eastern European Jewish immigrants during the upheaval in Eastern Europe.
▲Israel population change map from 1950 to 2019 (unit: thousand people)
▲Number of Jews returning to Israel each year from 1948 to 2015 (unit: thousand people)
In 1939, there were only 834,000 people in the Palestinian region; now, the population of Israel has exceeded 9 million people, and they are not short of water or food. The Jews who sought the founding of the country created an oasis in this desert and realized the “freedom of water use”. They slapped the British “prophet” with reality and beauty.
Exhaust all methods to get water in the desert
Israel’s natural water resources are mainly divided into two parts, one is ground water and the other is ground water. Aboveground water mainly comes from rivers and lakes, while groundwater comes from aquifers below the surface.
▲ Israel’s main natural water resources (mountain aquifers, coastal aquifers, the Sea of Galilee)
Israel’s above-ground water resources are mostly in the northern mountains. At the beginning of the founding of the country, water conservancy projects such as the North-South Water Diversion Project were not completed. Mining became the first step in Israel’s active access to water resources.
From 1948 to 1962, the annual extraction of groundwater in Israel increased rapidly from 200 million cubic meters to 950.8 million cubic meters, which has alleviated the water problems of the people in the country to a certain extent.
However, the total amount of groundwater resources and the annual replenishment are limited. Israel’s annual precipitation is not enough to supplement the water in the underground aquifer. Uncontrolled exploitation is destined to cause the depletion of groundwater resources.
So, while digging deeper into the groundwater resources, the Israeli government and water resources experts are also carefully surveying every lake and river on the country’s land, which are Israel’s most precious above-ground water resources.
However, most of Israel’s rivers have very small flows and have been affected by global warming in recent years. Many rivers have dried up even during many times of the year. Even the Jordan River, which flows through Israel’s largest river, has a flow rate of only about 400 million cubic meters per year, and its flow rate is only 1/50 of the Rhine River and 1/400 of the Mississippi River. Even so, the Jordan River is still the most important source of flowing water in Israel.
▲Jordan River, the water flow is really small
And Israel’s natural lakesMost of the moorings are high saline lakes such as the Dead Sea. The lake water cannot be used directly. The only fresh water lake that can be used is the Galilee Sea.
▲The Sea of Galilee in northern Israel is actually a freshwater lake
In order to distribute precious water sources in the northern mountains to the central and southern parts, Israel is determined to build a huge national water diversion project. This national water diversion project from the Sea of Galilee in the north to Mizbira in the south began in 1953 and was officially put into operation in 1964. It lasted 11 years and cost $175 million.
▲The ancient city of Tiberias by the Sea of Galilee
Israel, which has just been founded, has almost all of its construction of this grand water conservancy project. Thanks to this, Israel can transport 500 million cubic meters of water from the north to the central and southern regions every year, which greatly eases the problem of water supply in the central and southern regions.
Israel’s freshwater resources are extremely limited. Due to low rainfall and insufficient replenishment of natural water sources, neither surface water nor large-scale exploitation of groundwater has long-term sustainability. So, while fully developing and mining natural fresh water, Israel has also been actively seeking new sources of water to replace natural water.
Seawater desalination and bitter saltwater desalination are the best ways for Israel to develop new water resources. With the continuous improvement of seawater desalination technology, desalinated water accounts for an increasing proportion of Israel’s water resources utilization. It has become the most important source of domestic water supply for Israeli residents.
▲Desalination Plant in Northern Israel
If you want to achieve “free water use”, you must be full of awe of water
For a water-scarce region like Israel, to solve the problem of water use, one must open up the source and the other must reduce the expenditure. In terms of water conservation and high-efficiency water use, Israel is definitely a global model.
▲ Tel Aviv, Israel’s second largest city
Israelis have a strong sense of water conservation for a long time. Even if they have achieved “free water use”, they still cherish water use very much.
Israel’s awe of water is derived not only from Jewish ancestors’ longing for water for thousands of years, but also from the water resources utilization law after the founding of Israeleffect.
The traditional Jewish sacrificial activities still retain the tradition of praying for rain. From the “Hebrew Bible”, you can also see the status of “rain” in the hearts of ancient Jews. This is a long-term living in arid areas Even people suffering from drought plunge into the bone marrow’s desire for water.
After the founding of Israel, the country’s most important law in the field of water resources was formulated-the “Water Law”. The formulation of the “Water Law” raised the Jewish tradition of saving water to the level of the Israeli legal system. The unified management of water resources uses limited water resources where it is most needed.
The Water Law stipulates that all water resources in Israel belong to the state and are regulated by the government. The land owner does not have ownership of the water resources on or under the land.
Simply put it, if you own a villa in Israel, and you put a few washbasins on the roof of the villa; it happens on a rainy day and your basin is filled with water. From a legal point of view, your pots of water are not your private property and you should turn them in to the country. This is still the case with rainwater. If you want to dig wells to dig underground water in your villa, it will be a serious illegal act.
The Israeli government controls all the water resources in the country. How to make the best use of it?
Israel’s water resources are subject to a quota allocation system. After a series of rigorous calculations and budgets, the quotas for domestic, agricultural, and industrial water in each region are allocated. For a fixed amount, the water price will rise substantially.
Israel also encourages and guides farmers to plant low-irrigation crops through a fixed amount of water distribution, thereby reducing crops such as wheat that consume high amounts of water, and increasing foreign exchange earning crops such as vegetables, fruits, and flowers. At present, 100% of Israel’s rice and 60% of wheat depend on imports, but the export of economic crops earns more foreign currency than is needed to import food, thereby realizing the problem of people’s meals with minimal water resources.
▲Israel National Flower Anemone
▲Crops grown in the Negev desert using solar water desalination technology
The Jews themselves are a creative nation. In terms of water conservation and efficient use of water, various inventions and creations by the Israelis have brought their cleverness into full play.
In terms of agricultural irrigation water, Israel pioneered the use of drip irrigation technology to replace the traditional sprinkler irrigation, which greatly improved the efficiency of agricultural irrigation water use.
▲Agricultural irrigation pipelines in collective communities in central Israel
In terms of domestic water consumption, Israel has invented a water-saving fitting installed on the faucet. It limits the flow rate through the flow regulating valve and the restrictor, and maximizes the saving of water without affecting the normal water use of people.
▲Water-saving faucets and toilets placed in an ecological classroom in Israel are used to teach students how to save water
At the same time, Israel is also an international leader in wastewater recycling. At present, it has become the country with the highest wastewater recycling rate in the world.
Propagating water technology to realize “water diplomacy”
Man cannot produce and create water, but man can allocate and make better use of water. After 60 years of various innovations and developments, Israel has become a powerful country in water resources, and Israel’s water-saving and water-using technologies are even more famous globally. Israel, who has “drinked water”, began to spread water technology to other countries and used its advantages in water to start “water diplomacy.”
The “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” is a news hotspot that we have been familiar with from the age of traditional media. Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, countries and regions with very complicated relations, seem to be fighting forever in our minds.
However, the war can not break the relationship between each other. Although the competition for water resources is also very fierce, now Israel, which is the first to achieve “free water”, exports fresh water and desalination to Jordan and Palestine every year. water.
▲Palestinian children waiting for water
Due to historical reasons, Israel has been relatively isolated politically since its founding. “Water diplomacy” has become an important tool for Israel’s diplomatic and commercial exchanges. In recent years, Israel has provided water technical assistance for water use and irrigation to many developing countries, including Africa. Israel’s water-saving technology products have been widely promoted and used in more than 150 countries around the world.
▲A worker maintains equipment at a desalination plant in Ashkelon, Israel
The spread and promotion of water technology not only enhances Israel’s exchanges with other countries, improves its relations with many countries, but also enables Israel to obtain good economic benefits.
This article comes from the WeChat public account:Understand the planet (ID: PNXQ69)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Xin one yuan