Study Results

Date palm cultivation is a fundamental part of the development of the agricultural economy in Jericho, yet its potential has been limited by the low availability of water resources for irrigation. The Jericho WWTP provides an attractive new non-conventional water resource that is already almost fully utilized for supplementary irrigation on date palm farms, representing 8–25% of the total irrigation water used for date palm cultivation in Jericho. The areas of the farms partially irrigated with recycled water from wastewater treatment plants range from 10 to 300 ha, with the average area exceeding 85 ha. Each hectare is typically planted with 140 palm trees. Most of the farmers (80%) mix the recycled water with groundwater. This reduces the salinity of the groundwater. 20% of these farmers have also reduced the volume of chemical fertilizers they add to their soils due to the increased nutrients in the recycled water – all farmers in the area use both chemical and organic fertilizers. The farmers have not observed any negative impacts on the soil since irrigation through the reuse project started and likewise, all of them affirmed that they had never witnessed any disease outbreaks in humans, animals or the irrigated date palms. In terms of employment, each farm has 2–30 full-time workers and represents the main source of livelihood for both owners and employees so are hugely important. The marketed effluent is beneficial for the farmers and the general public as it brings back revenues that cover almost 30% of operational costs. The demand for treated effluent produced at the Jericho WWTP is such that the recycled water is used to its maximum limit for date palm irrigation, in an area with limited availability of other water resources. In fact, there is a waiting list of farmers who want to join the scheme as soon as capacity increases. Those that are already receiving the recycled water are highly satisfied. They have not experienced any negative impacts on either the quantity or the quality of the dates, or the general environment. On the contrary, farmers are seeing positive impacts. The Jericho WWTP is not yet operating at full capacity, which is predicted to reach four times current production. This means the scalability potential of reclaimed water use in the date palm farms in Jericho is very high. Likewise, because of the great success of Jericho the wastewater treatment and reuse scheme, from socio-economic and environmental perspectives, the high replicability of the project is foreseen not only in Palestine but also in other countries in the region with similar conditions.