While the desalination of water provides sufficient drinking water for Israelis, there is little-to-no concern over the worrisome reality that the Kinneret is going dry due to the lack of rainfall. The level of the Kineret was once on everyone’s mind, but this is not so today.
After Water Authority officials measured, they warn the Kineret is at a new low since May 1920 when measuring began. It is added that during the month of May 2017, the Kineret lost an additional 15 centimeters of water.
It is expected to drop more before we get to the next rain season, with the experts warning the situation in the Dead Sea is critical as well, as the level has dropped 16 centimeters.
Data from the Hydrological Service of the Water Authority indicates that in May, there was a sharp and additional drop in the flow of basins in the Kineret Basin. The flow of water along the Jordan River is about 3.3 cubic meters per second, twice as much as the average capacity for this period, about 7 cubic meters per second.
The authority said that the amount of water available – calculating water input from rain, streams and springs, while reducing evaporation is negative and stands at 9 million cubic meters. This is the lowest point of all times. The level measured in May was the worst since 1920. The situation is even worse since it has been for two years in light of the rare sequence of four years of drought in the north- the pumping from the Kineret has all but halted. On average, in May the water level remained stable due to high flow in the Jordan River.
Water Authority spokesman Uri Schor explains that the summer has not even begun and the decline in the level began earlier in the year than usual, dropping about a half centimeter daily. During the height of the summer, evaporation is about a centimeter a day.
The experts believe that by the beginning of the next rain season, which they mark as November 2017, the Kineret will drop at least another meter to below minus 214 centimeters under sea level. Officials add “There is a situation that has not been recorded in the Kineret for a decade and will lead to further decline of water from the shores of the Kinneret and various environmental and ecological phenomena”, officials add.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
I’m very scared of the potential ecological disaster if it doesn’t start filling back up (I’ve heard somewhere before if the pressure from the water in the kinneret gets too low it can permanently damage the surrounding aquifer or something to that affect). But there is one curious part of me that wonders if we could find the beer miriam of the waters receded enough.