I. Purpose: Water pollution is of more than cosmetic importance. It directly and negatively impacts human quality of life. Poor crop and animal health, water shortages, disease, and squalor are related to the lack of good water management practices. The residents along the Wadi el-Far’a suffer from poor water quality and the corresponding consequences to their quality of life.
The purpose is to make recommendations for pollution control and water management based on an assessment of pollution and water management practices and their effects in the Wadi el-Far’a Catchment. The assessment will involve data analysis of various parameters including water quality, pollution sources, and agricultural and irrigation practices.
A. Water Quality Assessment of the Wadi el-Far’a and its springs
B. Location of Pollution Source
I. Pollution sources will be located by comparing the spatial distribution of pollution parameters with land use survey data.
C. Consequences of Polluted Waters
I. Agriculture- Pollution has a significant impact on crop yield, quality, and safety. The extent of this impact depends on types of crops, irrigation methods, and soils, all of which will be surveyed in the land use study.
II. Health
1. Pollution harms the overall health of the region. It’s necessary to investigate the extent and effects of the public’s exposure to pathogens and chemicals in the polluted water. A survey will be conducted of the overall public health and medical problems in the area around the Wadi in relation to the use of the Wadi as a source of drinking water and irrigation.
- A contaminated water supply and food source poses significant health risks to human beings. These waters are mediums for a wide variety of waterborne and water-related diseases and illnesses among them: cholera, typhoid, parsitic diseases, gastroenteritis, and other diarrheal diseases.
- Other secondary effects associated with unregulated sewage dumping into the water, and the shortage of clean uncontaminated water include a lack of sanitation and proper hygiene, both of which are paramount for disease prevention and the overall health of the population.
- We will also be taking a look at the medical infrastructure of the region.
D. Recommendations for the Future: The final report will make recommendations for pollution control through proper management of water resources in the Wadi el-Far’a.
I. Wastewater Treatment
1. Recommendations for implementation.
II. Politics
1. Implementation and enforcement of proper pollution regulations.
III. Agriculture and Irrigation:
1. Changes in irrigation methods and choice of crops. (These changes depend on the type and the extent of the pollution in the Wadi el-Far’a.)
2. Farmer education and cooperative efforts to implement appropriate agricultural techniques.
3. Safe and efficient wastewater reuse.
IV. Health:
1. Recommendations for improving overall health conditions for the populations in the catchment, Including: Hygiene, Sanitation, Helathcare availability, and Public Health Education. These recommendations will take into account the distribution of water, (i.e. the availability to the various groups of people living in the area), as well as the quality of drinking water and of the local produce (effects of dietary consumption of pollutants).
II. Methodology
A. Water Quality Assessment: *Awaiting further information on sampling methods and chemical analysis.
I. Water samples will be taken at various points along the Wadi el-Far’a and sent to a laboratory for analysis. TABLE 1 lists parameters that will be tested, preliminary guideline values for domestic use, and typical causes of excessive parameters.
TABLE 1: Water pollution parameters
Parameter
/Guideline Value
/Indicator of
Na
/200 mg/L
/K
/ /Ca
/ /Mg
/ /NO3
/50 mg/L
/Cl
/250mg/L
/Sewage
SO4
/500mg/L
/Sewage
HCO3
/<40-60mg?L is soft, >150mg/L is hard
/TDS
/500mg/L
/BOD
/<3mg/L is unpolluted. >12mg/L is grossly polluted ??????????
/PH
/ /Fecal Coliform
/2 or less E. coli/100mL
/Organic Pollution
1. Sampling: Raida will take water, soil and plant samples every ~2km along the Wadi Far’a and its tributaries. She will take three samples at each spring head to accurately establish discharge quality from the aquifer and pollution at the head of the spring (three samples are required given the unpredictable flow patterns at a spring head).
2. Chemical Analysis: Labaratory analysis at Birzeit University will test 50-100 samples for the parameters in TABLE 1.
B. Spatial Analysis of Data: Results from the analysis will be plotted on a layer of the GIS map and interpreted by correlation to agricultural, health, and municipal land use along the Wadi Far’a.
I. Investigation of what and to what extent each sector of the population is contributing to or is affected by the pollution.
C. Error Analysis:
I. Time of the Year: Sampling the Wadi el-Far’a during the summer narrows our pollution study to water contamination due primarily to base flows of Industrial and Municipal Waste. In the summer there is no rainfall runoff carrying agricultural wastes.
III. Preliminary Results: Since no hard data has been received as of yet, our preliminary conclusions and interpretations are based on background research on the region, and general water and pollution studies.
Spatial Analysis
I. Agriculture and Irrigation:
1. Most of the land is being used for agricultural purposes, and we expect that the pollution has caused significant harm to the crops. Irrigation methods are varied but generally inefficient and ill-suited to counter pollution effects on specific crops.
II. Land Use and Pollution
1. Wadi Far’a is most likely polluted mainly with municipal sewage. We expect minimal Industrial Waste from what we know from land use of the region, despite rumors of dumping by a nearby Israeli Indusrial Zone at the rim of the watershed.
2. We expect that the lower areas of the basin are the victims of upstream pollution. The lower areas areas are inhabited mainly by poor local farmers who use the water from the Wadi el-Far’a directly for irrigation of their crops.
3. Similarly we suspect the upper areas that are owned by wealthy families to be least affected by the pollution. They are pumping water from various wells, which contain much cleaner water than that drawn directly from the Wadi el-Far’a lower in the valley. Upper irrigation methods are better than that lower in the basin because of greater education and investment in infrastructure. Pumping from these wells for irrigation however, may possibly be affecting spring discharge.
4. Dumping and sewage discharge from Nablus and other communities foul the water before it reaches lower canal-fed agriculture and surface-water dependent communities
III. Health
1. We expect to see a higher than normal number of gastrointestinal problems and waterborne infectious diseases in the Wadi el-Far’a catchment, particularly in the lower reaches of the basin in comparison with the area around Wadi Shueib in Jordan, whose waters are significantly less polluted.