In a greenhouse in the Negev Desert, water is meted out to plants with drip irrigation. Photo by and © 2016 Vision Studio
The Jacob Blaustein Institutes’ researchers are constantly looking for new ways to conserve and reutilize water. Not a drop is wasted here. This is a theme heard throughout Israel—everyone is concerned about the conservation of this most precious of resources, and everyone, it seems, is trying to do something about it.
“It wasn’t simple to convince people that growing fish in the desert makes sense!” —Samuel Appelbaum, professor and fish biologist at the Blaustein Institute.”
Israel’s sources of water include underground water from the mountain and coastal plain aquifers, groundwater from Lake Kinneret (or Sea of Galilee), rivers, lakes, flood-waters, and reservoirs. Underground water is the largest reserve in the country; in fact, more than 50 percent of Israel’s water is naturally stored underground and is pumped from wells or springs. Hundreds of feet under the Negev lie vast aquifers, which, though not a renewable source of water, may be used now to help irrigate, and later—like most of Israel’s water—will be recycled.
Samuel Appelbaum, a professor and fish biologist at the Blaustein Institutes showed us small tanks filled with various types of fish—sea bass, sea bream, tilapia—all being studied to see how effectively they breed in the brackish water.
Learn more by reading "From Far Beneath the Israeli Desert, Water Sustains a Fertile Enterprise" at Israel21C which explains:
Scientists here realized they were onto something when they found that brackish water drilled from deep underground aquifers could be used to raise warm-water fish. The geothermal water, less than a tenth as saline as seawater, free of pollutants, and a toasty 98 degrees on average, was an ideal match. It wasn’t simple to convince people that growing fish in the desert makes sense! . . . Ponds fed by geothermal waters from under the Negev teem with fish.
The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research >
Learn more by reading From Far Beneath the Israeli Desert, Water Sustains a Fertile Enterprise at Israel21C.org.
