Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer

The Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer, also known as the Western Mountain Aquifer of Israel/Palestine, is the western and larger part of the Mountain Aquifer, which also contains the Eastern and the smaller North-Eastern (Mountain) Aquifers.[1][2][3] The Mountain Aquifer and the Coastal Aquifer are the main aquifers shared by Israel in its pre-1967 borders, and Palestine (West Bank and Gaza Strip).[2]It has been the main longterm reservoir of the Israeli water system.[4]

It is a limestone aquifer, located under the foothills in the centre of the country.[5] It is used by Israel for roughly 340 million cubic meters of water every year and for Palestine at a rate of approximately 20 million cubic meters a year,[5]a rate that remains unchanged from the days when the West Bank was under Jordanian rule.[4] The aquifer goes down to the Mediterranean Sea, beginning in the south and descending towards north-western Israel.[5] The water recharges in the West Bank mountains and ends in the springs of the Yarkon River at Antipatris, and Taninim Springs on the coastal plain of the Mediterranean.[1]

The model adding the Beer Sheva region aquifer to the direct sources of the Yarkon springs was laid down by Samuel Mandel in 1961 and has since been contradicted by work published in 2001.[6]

Salinisation problem

The aquifer faces the problem of a gradual salinisation process, derived from the presence of a saline water body with a salinity level close to that of the Mediterranean and located at the north-western edge of the aquifer. The freshwater and the saltwater are in direct contact, with no rock formations separating them, with just a relatively thin transition zone interposed between the freshwater body from the saltwater body beneath it.[7]

See also

• Water Rights in Israel-Palestine

References

1. M. M. Mansour; D. W. Peach; A. G. Hughes; N. S. Robins (28 February 2012). "Tension over equitable allocation of water: estimating renewable groundwater resources beneath the West Bank and Israel". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 362: 355–361. doi:10.1144/SP362.20. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
2. Water Authority, State of Israel: The Water Issue Between Israel and the Palestinians: Main Facts, February 2012. Accessed April 2019.
3. Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer location map with the current natural groundwater table (after Dafny, 2009). Accessed April 2019.
4. Eyal Benvenisti , Haim Gvirtzman 'Harnessing International Law to Determine Israeli-Palestinian Water Rights: The Mountain Aquifer,' Natural Resources Journal, vol. 33, no.3 Summer 1993 pp.543-567,558.
5. Aaron Scheiner. "The Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer". Prezi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
6. D. Avisar; J. Kronfeld; J. Kolton; E. Rosenthal; G. Weinberger (2001). "The Source of the Yarkon Springs, Israel". Radiocarbon. The University of Arizona. 43 (2B): 793–799. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
7. Amir Paster; Gedeon Dagan; Joseph Guttman (30 May 2006). "The salt-water body in the Northern part of Yarkon-Taninim aquifer: Field data analysis, conceptual model and prediction". Journal of Hydrology. 323 (1–4): 154–167. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.08.018.