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Project A Future for the Dead Sea Basin: Options for a More Sustainable Water Management

- The Dead Sea Basin has been affected by the economic and demographic changes of the last 50 years:

- a visible symptom for the degradation is that the surface area of the Dead Sea has shrunk by about 30 %.

- this project is to establish the scientific basis for a "more sustainable than today" water management and water-related land management in the Dead Sea Basin.
 
- The research includes both the physical and social dimensions. The approach is to synthesize the available data, to analyze the interactions between natural resources and human activities, to project likely development trajectories and their impacts, and to establish strategic more sustainable development plans, and from this, to develop practical recommendations that can be used for strategic decision making.

Project number ICA3-CT-2002-10019
Subject(s)
Acronym DEAD-SEA
Geographical coverage Israel, Austria, Palestine, Jordan
Budget (in €) 740000
Programme INCO MED (FP5)
Web site http://www.deadseaproject.org/deadseaproject/
Objectives - Development of a GIS-based database that contains harmonized and comparable physi­cal, economic and social data, including con­sistent sets of maps that document the spa­tial dimen­sion of current and pro­jected water supply and demand sectors, and of land-use patterns that drive water supply and de­mand.

- Establishment of realistic development scenarios until about the year 2020 (with social, economic, technical and ecological constraints).

- Determination and quantification of current water management system and its driving forces through a environmental, economic and social system analysis.

- Establishment of criteria for essential water require­ments for nature/ecosystems.

- Analysis of socially, economically and envi­ron­men­tally sound alternatives for irrigated agriculture in arid regions.

- Identification of options for sustainable tourism.

- Evaluation of technical options for a more sustain­able water supply and use

- Establishment of a dynamic model for water supply and use under different development options (including the human dimension).

- Analysis of environmentally, economically and socially more sustainable water management scenarios.

- Mapping of a set of “more sustainable than today” joint develop­ment plans with a risk-benefit evaluation.

-Participation of users, and dissemination of results to local/regional decision makers and users.


Period [01/02/2003 - 31/01/2006]

Partners

  • ARC systems research
    Coordinator acts as project coordinator
    Type
    Country Austria
    Contact Gebetsroither Ernst,
    Position: WP Coordinator
    Phone/fax: +43-50550-3862,
    Email: ernst.gebetsroither@arcs.ac.at
  • ARAVA INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
    CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENT POLICY
    Type
    Country Israel
    Contact Mr RIME Cecil,
    Position:
    Phone/fax: ,
    Email:
  • APPLIED RESEARCH INSTITUTE
    WATER AND ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH UNIT
    Type
    Country Palestine
    Contact Mr. ISAAC Jad,
    Position: Dr.
    Phone/fax: ,
    Email:
  • ENVIROCONSULT OFFICE
    Type
    Country Jordan
    Contact Mr. DAOUD Raed,
    Position: Dr.
    Phone/fax: ,
    Email:
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