Palestine Economy Portal

In order to improve the productivity of the agricultural sector, the European Union-funded Water and Environment Support (WES) will support Palestine in the establishment of new approaches concerning irrigation, today said a WES press release.

Bringing in non-conventional water resources for irrigation might be one of the options to optimize irrigation, said Professor Michael Scoullos, Team leader of the Water and Environment Support project during the online kick-off meeting of this activity.

According to Joao Anselmo, Program Manager of the European Union Representation, the EU is already supporting a number of projects related to treated wastewater and is continuously looking for ways to fulfill the parameters of the Green Deal. “The EU is therefore keen to support projects that align related activities and to scale up solutions that we are looking at.”

Palestine already took important steps in water management, starting in 2014 with the Water Law which provided for the establishment of Water User Associations. Majeda Alawneh, Director of the Water Quality Department of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) said she was pleased that this project is focusing on bringing together various stakeholders, ranging from the Ministry of Agriculture to the PWA and various water users, and farmers’ associations.

Omar Zayed, Acting Director General of Water Resources Directorate at the PWA, added that “water resources are very scarce and therefore we aim to strategically use treated wastewater in a sustainable and integrated manner. This project will help us to release the pressure off the available water resources.”

Professor Nicola Lamaddalena, who is leading this activity for WES, emphasized that “Training of Trainers in on-farm irrigation management and in off-farm irrigation performance assessment will be an important component of this activity. As water is scarce, this project will focus also on irrigation requirements at crop level and on the identification of the best delivery schedule to achieve the optimal crop yield.”

Wafa