The Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer, also known as the Western Mountain Aquifer of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

/ Palestine, is the western and larger part of the Mountain Aquifer, which also contains the Eastern and the smaller North-Eastern (Mountain) Aquifers.Water Authority, State of Israel
The Water Issue Between Israel and the Palestinians: Main Facts
February 2012. Accessed April 2019. The Mountain Aquifer and the Coastal Aquifer are the main aquifers shared by Israel in its pre-

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...

borders, and Palestine (West Bank and

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

).It has been the main longterm reservoir of the Israeli water system. It is a

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...

, located under the foothills in the centre of the country. It is used by Israel for roughly 340 million cubic meters of water every year and for Palestine at a rate of approximately 20 million cubic meters a year,a rate that remains unchanged from the days when the West Bank was under Jordanian rule. Eyal Benvenisti , Haim Gvirtzma
'Harnessing International Law to Determine Israeli-Palestinian Water Rights: The Mountain Aquifer,'
Natural Resources Journal, vol. 33, no.3 Summer 1993 pp.543-567,558. The aquifer goes down to the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

, beginning in the south and descending towards north-western Israel. The water recharges in the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

mountains and ends in the springs of the

Yarkon River The Yarkon River, also Yarqon River or Jarkon River ( he, נחל הירקון, ''Nahal HaYarkon'', ar, نهر العوجا, ''Nahr al-Auja''), is a river in central Israel. The source of the Yarkon ("Greenish" in Hebrew) is at Tel Afek (Antip ...

Antipatris Antipatris (, grc, Αντιπατρίς) was a city built during the first century BC by Herod the Great, who named it in honour of his father, Antipater. The site, now a national park in central Israel, was inhabited from the Chalcolithic ...

, and Taninim Springs on the coastal plain of the Mediterranean. The model adding the Beer Sheva region aquifer to the direct sources of the Yarkon springs was laid down by Samuel Mandel in 1961 and has since been contradicted by work published in 2001.

Salinisation problem

The aquifer faces the problem of a gradual salinisation process, derived from the presence of a saline water body with a salinity level close to that of the Mediterranean and located at the north-western edge of the aquifer. The freshwater and the saltwater are in direct contact, with no rock formations separating them, with just a relatively thin transition zone interposed between the freshwater body from the saltwater body beneath it.

References

{{Aquifers Aquifers

Salinisation problem

See also

References