In November 2014, Israeli Minister of Economic Affairs Bennett led a group of experts in water technology to visit Shouguang cities in Shandong Province, China. Shouguang became the first demonstration city of Israel's water technology in China.
Israel? This country, established by the Jews, relocated to in 1948, is located in the Middle East desert area along the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean. It is also a country with extremely scarce water resources.
But now, Israel has become a water resource power, not only achieving self-sufficiency in its own water use, but also promoting advanced water technology to the whole world.
How did Israel find water sources in the desert and gradually become a water powerhouse?
1. To establish a country, Israel first needs to find water that can feed the Jews
In the 1930s, the Palestinian region where Israel is located is still a colony of the British. Under the clamor of the Zionists, Jews who had been wandering around the world for thousands of years were rushing to Israel in batches, trying to rebuild a Jewish country on their homeland.
And one problem that the Jews must solve if they want to establish a country in Israel is water!
In 1939, the UK began to strictly control the number of Jews who immigrated back to the Palestinian region every year. In their opinion, the Palestine 4 region, which was custodianed by the UK 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 live back to Palestine.
Is the Palestinian region really as water-deficient as the British said?
The British are half right! From the perspective of climate and water resources distribution, half of the desert and half of the Mediterranean , , is indeed short of water.
▲Koben Israel map under the climate classification method, most areas of Israel are dry areas
Whether the natural water resources in a region are abundant, mainly from the perspective of surface water and groundwater. More fundamentally, it depends on the local climatic conditions, mainly the rainfall and the evaporation of water.
Israel's climatic conditions are gradually decreasing from north to south. Northern Israel has a Mediterranean climate, with rainfall mainly concentrated in winter, and the precipitation in other seasons is very small, with annual precipitation around 1,000mm. The southern region has a hot and dry desert climate, with drought and little rain all year round. The annual precipitation in the Southern Gaza Strip is only 200-300mm, and the annual precipitation in the Negev Desert is only about 100mm.
▲Haifa City, a northern city in Israel, therefore, the problem of Israel's water resources 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
Israel precipitation is concentrated in winter, and winter precipitation accounts for 70% of the annual precipitation. It is very difficult to fully utilize rainwater. The construction of reservoirs and various water conservancy facilities will greatly increase the cost of rainwater utilization.
Not only does Israel's rainfall 80% in the northern region, but the most important water sources, Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, , etc., are all in the north. The extreme imbalance of water resources in the north and south is also a major problem in Israel's water resources utilization.
The British foresaw the scarcity of Israel's water resources and felt that agriculture developed under such water resources could not support too many people. Through official prediction, the population capacity of the Palestinian region cannot exceed 2 million people at most.
The British may not have expected that from the 1940s to the present, Jews have returned to Israel in waves, which they call the "holy land", from the return of the Jews in the Middle East during the Arab riots, to the return of European Jews in the Nazi Germany, and to the migration of Eastern European Jews in the Eastern Europe during the great changes.
▲Israel population change chart from 1950 to 2019 (unit: thousand people)
▲The number of Jews who migrated to Israel every year from 1948 to 2015 (unit: thousand people)
1939, there were only 834,000 people in the Palestine region; and now, the population of Israel has exceeded 9 million, and they are not short of water or food. In order to create a country, the Jews who sought to establish a country created an oasis in this desert and realized "freedom of water". They slapped the British "prophet" with reality and beautifully.
2. Exhaust all methods to obtain water in the desert
Israel's natural water resources are mainly divided into two parts, one is above ground water and the other is ground water. The above-ground water mainly comes from rivers and lakes, while the ground water comes from the aquifers below the surface.
▲ Israel's main natural water resources (mountain aquifer, coastal aquifer, Sea of Galilee)
Israel's overground water resources are mostly in the northern mountainous areas. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, water conservancy projects such as the North-South Water Diversion have not been completed. In order to resolve the contradiction between the rapidly returning Jewish immigrants and the extremely lack of water resources, the mining of groundwater resources has become the first step for Israel to actively obtain water resources.
From 1948 to 1962, the annual groundwater exploitation volume in Israel increased rapidly from 200 million cubic meters to 950.8 million cubic meters, which to a certain extent alleviated the water use problem of the people in the country.
However, the total amount of groundwater resources and annual recharge are limited. Israel's annual precipitation is not enough to supplement the water in the underground aquifer. Uncontrolled mining is destined to lead to the depletion of groundwater resources.
Therefore, while digging deep into groundwater resources, the Israeli government and water resources experts are also carefully inspecting every lake and river on their land, which are Israel's most precious on-ground water resources.
However, most of the rivers in Israel have very small flows and are affected by global climate warming and other factors in recent years. Many rivers even dry up during many periods of the year. Even the Jordan River, the largest river flowing through Israel, 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
. Most of the natural lakes in Israel are high saltwater lakes like the Dead Sea. The lake water cannot be directly used at all. There is only one freshwater lake that can be used for real use.
▲The Sea of Galilee in northern Israel is actually a freshwater lake
In order to allocate precious water sources in the northern mountainous areas to the central and southern regions, Israel has made up its mind to build a huge national water diversion project. The national water diversion project, which starts from the Sea of Galilee in the north and ends at Mizbila in the south, started construction in 1953 and was officially put into operation in 1964. It took 11 years and cost US$175 million.
▲GalileeAncient city by the sea Tiberia
Israel, which has just been founded, has almost devoted all its efforts to build this grand water conservancy project. Thanks to this, Israel can transport 500 million cubic meters of water resources from the north to the central and southern regions every year, greatly alleviating the water resource replenishment problem in the central and southern regions.
Israel's freshwater resources are extremely limited. Due to low rainfall and insufficient recharge of natural water sources, the large amount of surface water and groundwater mining is not sustainable in the long term. Therefore, while fully developing and digging natural fresh water, Israel has also been actively seeking new water sources to replace natural water.
Seawater desalination and bitter salt water desalination are the best ways for Israel to develop new water resources . With the continuous improvement of seawater desalination technology, desalination water accounts for an increasingly higher proportion of Israel's water resource utilization, becoming the main source of supply for domestic water for Israeli residents.
▲Seawater desalination plant in northern Israel
3. If you want to achieve "freedom of water use", you must be full of respect for water
For areas like Israel with scarce water resources, to solve the problem of water use, one must increase resources and the other must reduce expenditure. Israel is definitely a global model in terms of water conservation and efficient use.
▲Tel Aviv, Israel's second largest city,
Israel's Israel has long had a strong sense of water conservation. Even though "freedom of water" has been achieved, they still cherish water.
The Israelites’ awe of water not only stems from the Jewish ancestors’ desire for water for thousands of years, but also benefits from the legal achievements of Israel in the use of water resources after its founding.
In the traditional sacrificial activities of the Jews, the tradition of praying for rain and praying is still retained. From the " Hebrew Bible ", we can also see the status of "rain" in the hearts of ancient Jews. This is the desire for water that has been deeply rooted in people who have lived in arid areas for a long time and have even suffered from drought.
After Israel was founded, it formulated its most important law in the field of water resources - " Water Law ". The formulation of the "Water Law" elevated the Jewish tradition of saving water to the legal level of Israel, and through the unified management of water resources by the state, limited water resources were used in places where water was most urgently 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 water resources on or under the land.
Simply put, if you own a villa in Israel and you put a few washbasins on the roof of the villa; it happened to be raining, your basin was filled with water again. From a legal perspective, these basins of water you are not your private property, and you should submit it to the country. This is the case with rain. If you want to dig wells and dig groundwater in your villa, it will be a serious violation.
The Israeli government controls all the water resources in the country. How can it make the most of its use?
Israel's water resources are subject to a quota allocation system. After a series of strict calculations and budgets, the domestic water, agricultural water and industrial water in each region will be allocated in a quota. Once the quota exceeds the quota, the water price will rise significantly.
Israel also encourages and guides farmers to plant low-irrigated crops through quota water distribution, thereby reducing crops with high water consumption such as wheat and increasing foreign exchange-energy economic crops such as vegetables, fruits, flowers and plants. At present, 100% of Israel's rice and 60% of wheat rely on imports, but the export revenue of economic crops is much greater than the import of food, thus achieving the solution to the problem of people's food with the least amount of water resources.
▲Anemone in the state of Israel
▲Crops grown in the Negev Desert
The Jews themselves are a creative nation. In terms of water conservation and efficient use of water, the various inventions and creations of the Israelites fully demonstrated their intelligence and wisdom.
In terms of agricultural irrigation water, Israel pioneered the use of drip irrigation technology to replace traditional water irrigation, which greatly improved the efficiency of agricultural irrigation water use.
▲In the agricultural irrigation pipeline of collective communities in central Israel, Israel has invented a water-saving accessory installed on a faucet. The flow rate is limited through the flow regulating valve and a limiter, so as to maximize the water conservation without affecting people's normal water use.
▲The water-saving faucet and toilet placed in an ecological classroom in Israel are used to teach students how to save water
At the same time, Israel is also in an international leading position in wastewater recycling and has now become the country with the highest wastewater recycling rate in the world.
4. Disseminate water technology and realize "water diplomacy"
people cannot produce and create water, but people can mix and make better use of water. After 60 years of various innovations and development, Israel has become a powerful water resource country, and Israel's water-saving and water-use technologies are even more famous worldwide. Israel, which has "drink water", began to spread water technology to other countries and use its advantages in water to start "water diplomacy".
"Palestinian-Israeli conflict" is a news hotspot that we have been familiar with since the era of traditional media. Israel, Palestine, , Jordan, and other countries and regions with very complex relationships seem to be fighting forever in our minds.
However, the war cannot defeat the relationship between each other's water. Although the competition for water resources is also very fierce, Israel, which is now the first to achieve "freedom of water use", exports fresh water and desalinated water to Jordan and Palestine every year.
▲ Palestine children waiting for water
Due to historical reasons, Israel has been relatively politically isolated since its founding. "Water diplomacy" has become an important tool for Israel's foreign exchanges and business exchanges. In recent years, Israel has provided water technical assistance in water use and irrigation to many developing countries, including Africa, and Israel's water-saving technology products have been widely promoted and used in more than 150 countries around the world.
▲A worker maintains the water desalination plant in Yaskiron, Israel, and the dissemination and promotion of water technology not only enhances exchanges between Israel and other countries, improves its relations with many countries, but also allows Israel to obtain good economic benefits.
