Abstract
Facing chronic water scarcity, Israel has invested heavily in supply augmentation, including cloud seeding, reclamation and reuse of wastewater, and more recently large-scale seawater desalination. Given the physical and technological limitations as well as the economic costs of supply augmentation, Israel has also pursued a wide array of demand management policies. While both supply and demand management policies have always been pursued concomitantly, the relative emphasis placed on each has shifted over the course of the country’s development. In the early years of the country, emphasis was placed on development of existing supplies and large infrastructure projects such as the National Water Carrier. By the 1970s and 1980s, all renewable freshwater resources were exploited, and the focus was more on demand management. Failure to reduce demand, especially during extended droughts, such as those in the 1990s, led to overwithdrawals and a renewed focus on supply augmentation, which, given declines in the cost of desalination, again took precedence at the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, given the costs of desalination, as well as the various environmental and even security impacts associated with it, demand management is still a critical element in Israel’s overall water management strategy.
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Notes
- 1.
Chronic water scarcity has been defined differently by different sources. A commonly used reference is the so-called Falkenmark measure (see, for instance, Lawrence et al. 2002), which defines chronic water scarcity at the national level as a supply of less than 500 cubic meters per capita per year (m3/cap/year). As of the writing of this chapter (in 2012), Israel had roughly 200 m3/cap/year in natural renewable water resources. If one adds reclaimed wastewater and desalination, the amount grows to roughly 300 m3/cap/year – still well within the definition of chronic water scarcity.
- 2.
In some cases, the distinction between supply and demand management is fuzzy. For instance, reduction of water losses due to leakage could be considered both provision of additional water to the end users (supply augmentation), as well as reducing the overall amount withdrawn from the sources (demand management). In general, however, the distinction is a useful one.
- 3.
Agriculture still consumes more total water; however, roughly half of this is reclaimed wastewater.
- 4.
Dahan and Nisan (2007a) demonstrated that the adjustment for number of persons per household is not implemented uniformly across demographic sectors in Israel. They note that groups that do not have Hebrew as the native language, such as Arabs and immigrants, tend to exploit the benefit of additional water at low tariffs less than native Hebrew speakers. They attribute this to the associated costs of information, given the need to fill out a form declaring a change in the number of persons per household.
- 5.
The meaning of an elasticity of −0.2 is that a price increase of 10 would decrease the quantity consumed by roughly 2%. Analyses of studies of residential and urban water demand from around the world found that elasticities tended to be in the range of −0.2 to −0.8 (Dalhuisen et al. 2003; Espey et al. 1997; Hanneman 1997; Nauges and Whittington 2010). Thus, demand in Israel is at the more inelastic end of this range.
- 6.
In theory, such increasing block-rate tariffs can be economically efficient, however, Bar Shira et al. (2006) have shown that this is not the case when using a combined quota and block-rate system, as is done in Israel.
- 7.
The most likely scenario for a decline in industrial water demand is reduced demand by the textile sector. Several such companies face increasing economic competition from abroad, and it is unlikely, should these companies cease production in Israel, that their quotas would be distributed to other industrial consumers.
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Katz, D. (2013). Policies for Water Demand Management in Israel. In: Becker, N. (eds) Water Policy in Israel. Global Issues in Water Policy, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5911-4_10
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