Israel’s successful efforts to increase water  security will lessen one of the country’s geographical constraints. But  new sources of water are more  energy intensive, and this could increase Israel’s short-term dependence on  energy imports unless domestic energy sources are successfully  developed.

While Israel  enjoys relative national security compared to its neighbors, which  are struggling with internal  fragmentation, this will probably change eventually. Because concerted military efforts  have been required in the past to secure water resources, Israel has had a  strong incentive to develop technological solutions to improve water security. Additional domestic water  resources — including increasing desalination capacity and continued efforts to  recycle water — allow Israel to  mitigate one of its inherent geographic constraints.

Israel has substantially increased its capacity to desalinize water over the  last decade. The arid country of roughly 8 million already has a number of  desalination plants — including the Sorek plant, the world’s largest  desalination plant of its kind, which became fully operational in October. Israel has plans to increase total desalination  capacity through 2020 such that it approaches the estimated annual amount  of internally generated natural  water resources.

Naturally Occurring Water

Israel’s total annual internal renewable natural sources of fresh water stand at 0.75 billion cubic meters. It has  roughly 265 cubic meters per year of water per person available. This  is well below the U.N. definition of water poverty, which is anything below  1,000 cubic meters per person per year.

For groundwater, Israel relies on two main aquifers: the Coastal Aquifer and  the Mountain Aquifer (which is further divided into subaquifers). Both also lie  under the Palestinian territory — in Gaza and the West Bank,  respectively.

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Israel’s surface water is concentrated mainly in the north and east of the  country. Israel is part of the Jordan River system, which also includes  Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank. The major rivers in the upper part of  the basin include the Hasbani, Banias and the Dan rivers. These rivers converge  to form the Jordan River near the border of Israel, Lebanon and Syria before  flowing into the Sea of Galilee. Downstream, the Jordan River is further fed by  the major tributaries of the Yarmouk and Zarqa rivers.

Crucially, more than half of Israel’s total natural water originates  outside its borders: 310 million cubic meters come from Lebanon, 375 million cubic  meters come from Syria and 345 million cubic meters originate in the West Bank.  All the countries in this arid region compete for the limited resources of the  basin. The Palestinian Authority has between 51 cubic meters per person and 333  cubic meters per person per year depending on location, while Syria and Lebanon  receive water from additional river systems and operate at 882 cubic meters per  year per person and 1,259 cubic meters per year per person, respectively. Jordan  has 161 cubic meters per year per person.

Allocations of water from transboundary river systems are often disputed. The  last basin-wide allocation scheme for the Jordan River system came in 1955 with  the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan (also known as the Johnston Plan, named  after the American ambassador involved in negotiations). By allocating water  based primarily on agricultural demand, the plan offered a compromise between  participating nations. However, because many of the Arab states did not want to  recognize Israel, the plan was never ratified. Attitudes toward cooperative  distribution strategies continued to sour during the construction of Israel’s  National Water Carrier, which diverted water from the Sea of Galilee to other  points in Israel. However, Jordan and Israel have used the Unified Plan as the  basis for subsequent negotiations.

As one of the downstream riparian nations in the basin, protecting Israel’s  northern borders is essential to maintaining control of surface water resources.  Maintaining control of the Golan Heights not only gives Israel a military  advantage in dealing with adversaries to the north, it also helps to guarantee  access to the Sea of Galilee.

Israel historically has demonstrated a willingness to use military force to  guarantee access to water resources. In 1964, Syria, with the support of the  Arab League, began devising plans to divert the Banias River, threatening  roughly 10 percent of Israel’s water supply at the time. From 1965-1967, Israel  launched attacks to destroy the diversion projects under construction in an  effort to maintain access to the water source.

Water rights and distribution parameters were included in the 1994 peace  treaty between Israel and Jordan. The Oslo II agreement in 1995 between Israel  and the Palestinian National Authority also outlined parameters for water  cooperation in the West Bank, but in practice, joint management has often failed  and the Palestinian population remains heavily dependent on Israel for access to  water.

These treaties also did not remove Israel’s imperative to ensure continued  access to water resources, nor its willingness to threaten military action to  ensure it. In 2002, villages in southern Lebanon installed small pumping  stations and irrigation pipelines on the Hasbani River. Ariel Sharon, Israeli  prime minister at the time, claimed these actions constituted a “case for war”  and threated military action. While no action was taken, the posturing  illustrates Israel’s wariness of upstream water management schemes.

Expanding Sources of Water: Conservation and  Desalination

The foundations of Israel’s current water infrastructure system were laid in  the 1950s and 1960s, when Israel faced a more volatile security situation.  Subsequent decades saw further development of the efficient use of water and the  development of alternative sources. As a result, Israel has expanded internal  water resources without expanding its physical borders, helping mitigate the  risk of international confrontations over water.

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To the same end, Israel has also developed a highly organized water  management system, effectively integrating the whole country. An early project  known as the National Water Carrier, which comprises a series of canals,  pipelines and pumping stations, moves water from the Sea of Galilee in the  comparatively water-rich north to areas of higher demand and greater need in the  central and southern zones.

Israel is also a pioneer and global leader in water-efficient irrigation  technology. Because agriculture remains the largest water consumer in the  country, efficient use in this sector is necessary for continued sustainable  water management. In addition to the irrigation technology, by effectively  treating roughly 400 million cubic meters of wastewater, using it mostly to  irrigate crops, Israel further reduces pressure on water resources.

Although Israel has used desalination technology on a smaller scale since the  1960s, the push for a substantial increase in desalination capacity began only  after a major drought in 1998-1999. Several droughts over the course of the last  15 years drove home the vulnerability of Israel’s water supply. Meanwhile, the  overuse of groundwater resources, especially of the Coastal Aquifer, is  degrading the quality of the water.

Israel currently consumes just under 2 billion cubic meters of water per  year, and while water management has the ability to improve the efficiency of  water usage, increasing populations in the region will continue to pressure  these limited resources. These factors combined have pushed Israel toward  desalination.

When the Sorek plant became fully operational in October, Israel gained  150 million cubic meters per year of desalination capacity. Total seawater  desalination capacity is expected to reach 600 million cubic meters per year by  2015 and could reach 750 million cubic meters per year by 2020. The production  cost of desalinized water depends on the plant, but averages $0.65 per cubic  meter, with the new Sorek plant costing roughly $0.50 per cubic meter. This is  compared to $0.15-$0.45 for water from natural sources. Advances in the  technology that Israel uses, including technologies that improve the energy  efficiency of the plants, have helped drive the costs down compared to previous  desalination technology. But desalinated water remains far more energy-intensive  than naturally sourced water, and it increases demands for power on the  national electricity grid and from independent natural gas  generators.

Short-Term Dependence on Imported Energy

Because Israel has traditionally been an energy importer, increasing reliance  on an energy-intensive water resource could in turn increase Israel’s dependence on energy-exporting  nations. Natural gas will likely be the predominant fuel used to produce  desalinated water. The Israeli electrical grid is projected to shift further  toward natural gas and away from coal in the coming years, while the  desalination plants often independently employ natural gas generators.

The total fuel required will vary based both on the type of desalination plant, as well as the type of power  generation. Even with newer, more efficient equipment, the operation of more  than 500 million cubic meters of desalination capacity could require more than  100 million cubic meters of natural gas or the equivalent energy from some other  fuel sources to produce the additional power necessary to run the plants.

Israel had previously been an importer of natural gas, but the total volume  of imports has declined in recent years. As of August 2013, imports were  only accounting for 13 percent of total consumption. Furthermore, offshore  discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean, including the Leviathan fields  projected to come online as early as 2016, mean Israel has the potential to  become a natural gas exporter. While there are many political and technical  constraints surrounding the development and subsequent use of these  fields, increased levels of domestic energy production could reduce dependence on  foreign partners in terms of energy. This is especially important as Israel  pursues a strategy of relying on more energy-intensive water resources.

Outlook

Israel traditionally requires a third-party sponsor to survive. And  even with the added desalination capacity, Israel may still need to use water  from external sources. But it has successfully adjusted to the environment and  better insulated itself from its neighbors, complementing an established  military superiority. And this could provide additional maneuverability in  future negotiations.

Israel is momentarily  in a secure strategic position. Syria will likely remain in a state of civil  war for an extended period, and Lebanon remains fragile and fragmented. Israel  maintains a working relationship with other neighbors, such as the Hashemite  regime in Jordan, as well as Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority and  the Egyptian military. This status quo seems unlikely to change in the short  term. But although Israel is in a relatively stable position, it knows how  mercurial the surrounding region is and will likely still behave proactively  around national security issues.

Israel’s proactive solution to ensuring water security is to develop  additional domestic resources. Though this will require more imported energy in  the short term, the continued development of domestic energy resources could act  as a counter-balance, even as water resources become more  energy-intensive.