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The Central Role of the Israel Water Authority water from the northern streams and sources of the Jordan River, preventing pollution from reaching the Sea of Galilee. About 15 years ago, I was a consultant for what was then the Water Commission, today the Israel Water Authority. I dealt with the country’s major water systems and was one of the active members of the committee that formulated the reform of the current authority’s structure in the water sector. In addition to my work in Israel, I worked as a consultant performing system analysis in China, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Serbia. In June 2017, I was nominated by the government to serve as director general of the Water Authority. It is a 5-year term position. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the Israel Water Authority, its history, and its current responsibilities. National Water Carrier infrastructure near Kibbutz Hukok in northern Israel.
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Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
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Giora Shaham: I’m a water engineer. I studied water engineering in the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology. My second degree was in water resources analysis, studying multiobjective problems concerning water issues and environmental issues. In my professional life, I started as a water engineer with the Lake Kinneret Authority and then became a private consultant specializing in water resources analysis, focusing on systemic problems rather than on detailed design. I prepared a sustainability study for, and then managed the construction of, a big project in northern Israel to resolve environmental problems caused by the drying of the swampy Hula Valley, which had occurred at the beginning of the 1950s. At the beginning of the 1990s, about 40 years after the valley was dried, we planned and constructed a wetland to filter the
PHOTO COURTESY OF ARIEL PALMON.
srael is an arid nation whose population has quintupled over the last 60 years. This has necessitated bold and creative water resources policies, including the aggressive use of water recycling and desalination. Because water policy touches all aspects of Israeli national life, the Israeli Parliament in 2007 established an independent governmental body, the Israel Water Authority, that is designed to give a seat at the decisionmaking table to representatives from all relevant ministries. In this interview, the Israel Water Authority’s director general and chairman of the council, Giora Shaham, tells Municipal Water Authority about the distinctive features of Israel’s water policy and the role the Water Authority plays in setting it.
Giora Shaham: Until 2007, the Water Commission in Israel was under one ministry. It used to be under the Ministry of Agriculture, then it was transferred to the Ministry of National Infrastructures (today called the Ministry of Energy). But there were a lot of ministries in the Israeli administration responsible for some fragment of the water sector. For example, water pollution was the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment, water supply to the municipalities in the urban sector was the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior, all the investments needed to improve the water system were under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance, and water supply for agriculture fell to the Ministry of Agriculture. In 2006, a major legislative reform established the Water Authority, which is a single professional organ that sets policy and bylaws, governed by a council that includes highranking representatives from all
