Department of Geological Engineering, University of Missouri-Rolla - May 1, 2003 - Back to Resources Page

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ABSTRACT

In the late 1950s Jordan and Israel embarked on a race to collect, convey and disperse the free-flowing waters of the Jordan River below the Sea of Galilee. In 1955 the Johnston Unified Water Plan was adopted by both countries as a treaty of allocation rights. By 1961 the Jordanians completed their 110-km long East Ghor Canal, followed by Israel’s 85-km long National Water Carrier, initially completed in 1964 and extended in 1969. The Johnston allocation plan was successfully implemented for 12 years, until the June 1967 war between Israel and her neighbor Arab states.
The Israelis have spearheaded the effort to exploit the region’s limited water resources, using wells, pipelines, canals, recharge basins, drip irrigation, fertigation, wastewater recharge, saline irrigation and, most recently, turning to desalination. In 1977 they began looking at various options to bring sea water to the depleted Dead Sea Basin, followed by similar studies undertaken by the Jordanians a few years later.

A new water allocation plan was agreed upon as part of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, but it failed to address Palestinian requests for additional allotments, which would necessarily have come from Jordan or Israel. The subject of water allocation has become a non-negotiable agenda for the Palestinian Authority in its ongoing political strife with Israel. In 1996 Harza Engineering Co of Chicago was retained by a joint steering committee created as part of a tri-lateral initiative between the United States, Jordan and Israel. Harza investigated the feasibility of constructing a Red Sea-Dead Sea canal/pipeline connection from Aqaba to the Dead Sea. Water will be pumped up 125m/410 ft from the Red Sea to a 45 km long tunnel portal, which will carry it beneath the 220m/722 ft crest of the Arava Valley, then plunge some 533m/1,750 ft to the South Basin of the Dead Sea. This water will be used to generate electricity and can be processed by reverse osmosis for desalination using the available pressure head generated by the extreme fall. The Dead Sea has been dropping an average 0.50m/1.64 ft per year since 1960, due to water removals from the upper Jordan River and increased potash extraction from Dead Sea brines by both countries.

At the United Nations world summit in September 2002, Israel and Jordan announced that they would join forces the build the Red Sea-Dead Sea canal. The 310 km/186 mi long pipeline will cost about $1 billion, with construction due to begin in late 2003.

Joint ownership of such major engineering infrastructure between two sovereign nations often at odds with one another is unprecedented. The unconsolidated Lisan formation underlies much of the Jordan Valley. It was deposited during the Pleistocene enlargement of the Dead Sea, known as Lake Lisan. Engineering of structures such as dams, canals and dikes on the Lisan formation has proven treacherous.

Security concerns have also been raised on both sides; the pipeline may serve as a magnet for terrorists, similar to the Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct of the 1920s. The absence of any role involving the Palestinian Authority is also likely to complicate any long-lasting solution to that brewing problem, unless the Israelis or the Jordanians are willing to make water concessions or include the Palestinians in any development plans. That doesn’t appear likely without the Israelis and Palestinians coming to some sort of binding agreement through economic development enticements similar to those offered by the United States to Egypt in the Camp David accords in 1979 and to the Jordanians in the Arava Treaty in 1994.

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Department of Geological Engineering, University of Missouri-Rolla - May 1, 2003 - Back to Resources Page