Israel is likely to enter its sixth consecutive year of drought in 2019, and even if the coming winter brings a good amount of rain, the damage to the country's natural water resources will take more than one rainy season to repair, experts from the Israel Water Authority warned Sunday.
The long drought over the past five years has resulted in record low levels of water in streams, springs, aquifers, and in the Sea of Galilee, the country's largest freshwater lake, where the water level has fallen to alarming dimensions and is so low that an island has emerged in its center.
The Water Authority has stopped pumping water from the lake, which is nearing the so-called "black line" – 6.6 meters below maximum capacity – the point in which the lake's entire ecosystem is at severe risk.
Experts say that even if Israel has a particularly rainy winter, the lake will still remain below the lower red line, some 2.5 meters above the black line.
According to the Water Authority, the water level in the Sea of Galilee is 214.2 meters below sea level and is expected to keep dropping at a rate of a centimeter per day, bringing the lake dangerously close to the black line by the beginning of winter.
In a few days, the island at the heart of the lake is likely to reach the closest beach, near Kibbutz Maagan, experts predicted Sunday.
The Water Authority said the five-year drought has mainly affected waterways in northern Israel, placing the country's water sources at a deficit of about 2.5 billion cubic meters.
Other nations in the Middle East are also struggling with the prolonged drought.
However, unlike them, Israel has been able to successfully confront the challenges of the water shortage for the population's use. Israel has built five large desalination plants over the past decade that now account for some 70% of household water consumption.
These facilities also treat about 86% of all sewage water in Israel, which is repurposed for irrigation.
Tenders for the construction and operation of two additional desalination plants are currently being fast-tracked, with a projected cost of 1.3 billion shekels ($358 million).
The Water Authority has taken various steps to preserve the Sea of Galilee, including launching a nationwide campaign to conserve water.
In addition, a series of projects has been launched to rehabilitate the water levels in the lake. According to these plans, once the two new facilities are operational, some 60 million cubic meters of reclaimed water will be pumped into the lake annually, to prevent receding water levels from allowing a rise in brackish water that may cause irreversible ecological changes in the area.
