Wastewater Management Overview in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Abstract

The Palestinian wastewater treatment sector in Palestine is manifested by inadequate management due to insufficient infrastructure, unsafe disposal of untreated or partially treated effluent and unplanned use of low water quality. The current wastewater treatment plants, established during 1970–1980 under the Israeli occupation, are overloaded and badly maintained with aging equipment, thus posing serious environmental and public health hazards. The challenges behind this unsustainable wastewater sector are exacerbated by the lack of institutional coordination reflected by multiple stakeholder involvement leading to institutional fragmentation and lack of coordination. By law, the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) is responsible for all regulatory, planning, monitoring, research, and training functions. Despite the current valid Palestinian effluent quality standards, urgent efforts pertaining to effluent monitoring and regulations enforcement are needed. To promote feasible wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) crucial strategic regulatory and planning policies were stipulated. Wastewater should be collected, treated, and reused where feasible and the design of WWTFs should be modular and community-based with effluent use options. The institutional capacity for implementing and enforcement of water-related rules and regulations should be enhanced. WWTFs including reuse schemes form a key element of an integrated water management strategy with coordinated institutional cooperation. The PWA is committed to sanitation services enhancement in the Palestinian communities to protect public health and the aquatic environment, where the reclaimed effluent must be used for various applications. Effluent reuse practices protect not only the limited water resources, but also enrich the quality and quantity of groundwater and the receiving water bodies; groundwater and surface water.