Water Consumption Behavior in Semi Urban Areas Beit Lahya Town AS A Case Study

Abstract

Groundwater is the major source of drinking water in both urban and rural areas in the Gaza Strip. Population growth and urban expansion have persistently raised the demand for water supply and consequently, greatly increased the exploitation of groundwater in the Gaza strip. The importance of this research is to investigate the water consumption behavior in semi-rural area by studying the current distribution situation, water demand and supply, the unaccounted for water and studying the effect urban agriculture on the system efficiency. Therefore, field survey to determine the sources of water for irrigation, the agricultural area and water meter readings were conducted for continuous three periods two in summer and one in winter. Urban agriculture is one of the most persistent approaches for supplying food in the Gaza Strip. The main outcomes of the study are that farmers use the illegal domestic network for irrigation purposes leading to high percentage of unaccounted for water. This leads to higher water quota per capita in Beit Lahya which apparently exceeds 200 l/c.d. and the unaccounted for water more than 60% in semi urban quarters where green houses are the main agricultural practice. The difference between supply and demand indicates that the farmers use illegal connection to irrigate the adjacent agricultural areas. The overall system efficiency for water distribution is 42.0% and 55.7% for summer and winter periods, respectively. The quarters with intensive agriculture shows high percentage of unaccounted for water 73%, while the urban quarters unaccounted for water is 24%. Therefore new policy and regulation concerning water resources management should be implemented for the semi urban areas in the Gaza Strip.