Project:

Summary of Palestinian Hydrologic Data 2000

In the late 1990's, the USGS was requested by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to lead a project to identify and quality assure decades of water data maintained by the Palestinian Water Authority and to publish a summary of the data. USAID funded the bi-lateral project that was coordinated with the Regional Water Data Banks Project, Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources, Middle East Peace Process.

Water is the most precious natural resource in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Ample supplies of high quality water are essential for economic growth, quality of life, environmental sustainability, and--when considered in the extreme--for survival. Wise management, development, protection, and allocation of water resources is based on sound data regarding the location, quantity, quality, and use of water and how these characteristics are changing over time. As a result of the USAID-funded activity, a report was prepared that summarizes data on about 2600 groundwater wells, 300 springs, and 70 precipitation stations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The report serves as a benchmark of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) hydrologic database and as a tool for future and ongoing water-resources investigations. Because of the large volume of data, the report is bound into two volumes--Volume One for the West Bank and Volume Two for the Gaza Strip. Under the guidance of the USGS, the data summarized in the report have been collected, quality assured, and organized into a powerful database management system by personnel of the PWA, the principal water-resources management agency for the Palestinian Authority.

The project now has been completed.