The Use of Water Allocation System “WAS” as a Decision Support System “DSS” Tool for Water Management in the West Bank

Water is a scarce resource in West Bank. Moreover; water sector suffers from serious problems due to several political, socio-economic, and climatic reasons. This research focuses on developing a model using WAS tool which is an optimizing tool and designed specifically for this region that applies economic analysis, leading to solutions of water problems. This model would be used as a decision support system (DSS) in water management by evaluating different future investment options and introducing solutions that may guide decision makers. West Bank is divided into 11 districts (Nablus, Tulkarem, Jenin, Ramallah, Jericho, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Qalqilyah, Salfeet, Tubas) and the necessary data for each district was collected . Three proposed scenarios were tested under this model. Those are; No Action scenario which assumes no additional quantities of water to be allocated to the Palestinians which reflects somehow the present situation. Full Application of Oslo Agreement scenario which assumes additional quantities of water will be allocated to the Palestinians according to the Oslo Agreement, And Water Spring Scenario which assumes that Palestinians will be able to have their own states and will be entitled to develop their own water resources according to the International Laws and Principles. For each scenario a set of management options to secure additional water supply were implemented like waste water reuse, rain water harvesting, and desalination. After optimizing the scenarios the results showed that the water amounts is not enough to solve the water problem in a no cooperation situation and without additional supplies, so the No Action Scenario is not a feasible solution for the future. Under the Oslo Scenario the prices still high and can’t be accepted by the users which means that the water quantities that added by Oslo is not enough and will not solve the gap between the supply and demand needed in West Bank. In the Spring Scenario the results of the Model showed that the average price for the Urban prices is 1.42 $/3 and the average price for Agricultural prices is 1.12 $/m3 Which is acceptable and better than the previous scenarios but is still high for a cubic meter to be paid by Palestinians considering the difficult economic situation experienced by the Palestinians and the low annual income of earnings. Based on the three scenarios, wastewater reuse is a necessary management option regardless of the scenario. In addition, rainwater harvesting is also a preferable management option. At the same time, desalination under the assumption of full Palestinian water right is seen un-preferable in cases where groundwater resources are cheaper. Even in cases where desalination is cheaper still the conveyance cost to some districts will be high so desalination will be an option to use after groundwater is fully utilized.