The Water of Life Israel brings water technology to developing countries

THE WATER OF LIFE

Israel has signed a deal with the World Bank to provide water technology and expertise to developing countries.

IN Israel, a joke goes: “In the desert, Moses made water gush out of a rock. But he forgot to let us have the technology, so we, too, are having to perform miracles.”

Today, the descendants of Moses feel proud that they have accomplished a miracle of their own: that highly productive farming can be found across the Negev Desert.

Growing crops in these arid districts of southern Israel has become possible thanks to, among other things, new irrigation methods. “For 2000 years, the Jews of the Diaspora no longer practised agriculture,” explains Uri Ariel, Israel’s minister in charge of farming. “We have had to learn everything all over again from the beginning and, over a few decades, we have obtained excellent results.”

Today, he says, Israel has achieved selfsufficiency in the production of fruit and vegetables, dairy products, poultry and eggs. “We export our know-how across the world, including to developing countries.”

Micro irrigation

Innovative farming techniques were developed in the first kibbutzim. Hatzerim, a kibbutz established in 1946, in the north of the Negev Desert, is the cradle of micro-irrigation technology — a system that optimides the watering of crops. Simcha Blass, the inventor of this technology, created a company called Netafim in the kibbutz, in 1965.

Instead of intermittently flooding the fields with water, the aim is to bring the water, drop by drop, to the foot of the plants, thanks to a network of thin pipes that are pierced along their length with small holes. The plants are irrigated continuously, directly to the root, and losses of water due to evaporation are reduced. [This is known as drip irrigation.]

“With micro-irrigation technology, 90 per cent to 95 per cent of the water goes to the plant, against 40 to 60 per cent with traditional irrigation techniques,” stresses Natan Barak,

Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom visits a special processing plant off the coast of Ashdod in March

sales manager at Netafim. “Thanks to this innovation, a mere 57 per cent of water that is consumed in Israel is used in agriculture, whereas the average, worldwide, is 69 per cent.” Besides, micro-irrigation technology makes it possible to double crop productivity.

Netafim, today, has cornered 30 per cent of the worldwide market for micro-irrigation technology and presents itself as a bulwark against famine in the world. “For less than US$200, a family can get a micro-irrigation kit,” explains Natan Barak.

From the sea to the tap

For the past 10 years or so, Israel has been betting on desalination technology in order to diversify and increase its water resources. The country has turned to desalination technology so as to better tackle a chronic shortage of freshwater. Additionally, the aim is to curb the pumping of water out of Lake Tiberias [also known as the Sea of Galilee], which has a negative impact on the flow of the River Jordan, which, in turn, feeds into the Dead Sea.

Once Israel’s fifth desalination plant comes on stream, later on this year [2016], 75 per cent of drinking water in the country will come from the sea. The Sorek desalination plant alone, which started operating in 2013 south of Tel Aviv, covers 20 per cent of the country’s needs. Part-financed by European funds, Sorek is the largest desalination plant in the world, with a production capacity of 150 million cubic metres of drinking water per year.

“Our process of filtration through membranes is highly competitive in terms of costs and is environmentally friendly,” states Jacky Ben Yaish, operations manager at IDE Technologies, the company running the Sorek plant. “We do not use chemical products, contrary to most other desalination plants.”

The country’s natural resources only cover half of Israel’s water needs. But this deficit is to a large extent offset by the desalination of sea water. The other side of the coin is that this technology, which costs up to 10 times as much as pumping water out of the water table, also uses up a lot of energy. In order to produce 1000 litres of drinking water, one needs a minimum of 3.2 kilowatt hours, which represents half of production costs. Besides, every day, the plant generates over 30 tonnes of waste – brine that is mostly dumped, with 7 per cent of the total pumped back into the sea.

An aerial view of Alicante, Spain, where a Netafim system recycles wastewater and distributes it via a drip-irrigation system, watering all public areas in the southern Spanish town.

Valuable wastewater

Israel also recycles most of its wastewater, which meets half of the needs of the country’s farming industry. “We re-use 85 per cent of the wastewater,” points out David Sapir, in charge of sourcing water supplies at Mekorot, Israel’s national water board. “We have also reduced the water losses to 10 per cent [of the total supply], against an average of 15 per cent in other developed countries.”

Israel sees itself as a nation at the forefront in terms of the sustainable management of water and intends to play a leading role in this field internationally. The Mekorot Group brings 77 years of experience to solving global water problems. It has participated in major projects in Argentina, Cyprus, India and Azerbaijan as well as throughout Africa. Now its new agreement with the World Bank will focus on sharing water expertise and industry best practices with developing countries worldwide.

David Sapir does not doubt that this is achievable: “We can help to solve the planet’s water crisis,” he says. n

See www.mekorot.co.il

EU ambassador to Israel Lars-Faaborg Andersen and Israeli National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz