The availability a large number of springs and wells drilled during the 1950’s and 1960’s and the access to the Jordan River before 1967 provided important sources of water for irrigated agriculture in Tubas governorate.  This situation encouraged a long history of agricultural development involving the creation of job opportunities and enhancement of food security in the area.  The Israeli measures and policies since the 1967 included the confiscation of land and water resources, restricting the access to lands and water resources, the closure of large areas for military purposes and denying Palestinian right in water rights from the Jordan river resulted in restricting irrigated to a small part of the governorate.  As a result of the harsh environmental conditions in the governorate and the arid climate (low precipitation and high temperature), the stress on land and water resources increased significantly resulting in depletion of natural resources and deterioration of water quality and various types of environmental degradation in the governorate.

Although the population density in Tubas governorate is low compared to other parts of the West Bank, however land degradation continues to be severe in many parts of the governorate.  The loss of fertile land to urban development is considerable especially in the areas east of Tubas city (Tubas plain) and Fara’ plains.  The natural environmental conditions concerning climate and the steep land slopes result in severe erosions of soils and thus land degradation.  The extensive use of land in irrigated agriculture is resulting in loss of fertility, salinization of soils and erosion as common forms of land degradation.

The low and highly variable rainfall rates in the governorate result in reducing the return from rainfed agriculture and thus more attempts from farmers to convert their lands to irrigated agriculture.  This resulted in drilling additional wells for irrigated agriculture to provide highly needed water for irrigation.  Since most of the governorate is located within area C, the drilling of new wells has been restricted to small areas in Ras Fara and wadi Fara.  From these additional wells, water has been transported to fertile plains such as Al-Baqeah, Tamun and Kufair.  As a result of uncontrolled drilling during the second Intifada, the additional drilling resulted depleting the shallow groundwater aquifer in Fara and thus the drying of Al-Fara spring and several old wells (drilled before 1967). 

Up to now, there are no collection or treatment systems for wastewater in nearly all the communities of the governorate with the exception of Fara camp where there is a collection network with no treatment.  Currently wastewater is collected in cesspits and septic tanks which are usually evacuated using vacuum trucks and disposed in open wadis.  This practice is resulting in contamination of land and water resources in addition to risks to the public health and nuisance.  The need for systems to collect, treat and reuse of treated wastewater is high.

Solid waste is being collected and transported to Zahrat Al Finjan dumping site through the joint services council of Tubas.  However, Tubas governorate does not have a solid waste transfer station to transfer that solid waste in large trucks to reduce the cost of solid waste disposal.  As a result, the cost of solid waste disposal is becoming unaffordable to most communities in the area.  This situation is resulting in weakening the joint service council and less solid waste is being transferred while the rest is being dumped next to roads and random dumping sites.

Considering the environmental conditions in Tubas there are urgent needs for environmental improvements and mitigation measures including the following areas:

• Land resources: Enforcement of spatial plan to protect fertile lands and lands of high agricultural values from urbanization, encourage and support soil-water conservation activities including land reclamation, forestation, organic farming, use of compost, monitoring and controlling the use of fertilizers and pesticides, public awareness and  education towards sustainable management of land and soil
• Water resources:  Enforcement mechanisms for pumping from the aquifers including reducing the pumping rates from Al Fara aquifer to stabilize the water table, utilizing the deeper aquifer through a limited number of wells after evaluating the potential yield of that aquifer to insure sustainability.  Encourage and support harvesting activities especially constructing dams on wadis.  Reuse of treated wastewater for irrigated agriculture.
• Irrigated agriculture:  Improving on farm water management through education and training, establishing a number of agricultural weather stations in Fara, Tamun, Baqeah and Ein Beida, using these stations to measure evapotranspiration, predicting water crop consumptive use and making these predictions available to farmers.
• Irrigation infrastructure:  The existing irrigation infrastructure should be reviewed and improvements to the physical infrastructure and its management are highly needed.  Many systems are old and deteriorated which need replacement of pipes and installing of storage tanks.
• Waste water:  Tubas communities should be served by collection networks and wastewater to be conveyed to treatment sites where wastewater should be treated to a quality suitable for reuse in agriculture considering the high potential of wastewater reuse.
• Solid waste:  A transfer station is highly needed for the governorate considering the high cost of transferring solid waste to Zahrat Al Finjan.

Conference Title

Palestine Environment

Conference Country

Palestine

Conference Date

Nov. 25, 2015 - Nov. 26, 2015

Conference Sponsor

Office of the President, Environmnetal Education Center