Agricultural Economics 28 (2003) 255–262

Book reviewsManagement of Shared Groundwater Resources:The Israeli–Palestinian Case with an InternationalPerspectiveEran Feitelson and Marwan Haddad (Eds.), KluwerAcademic Publishers, Boston, 496 pp., 2001, US$ 135,ISBN: 0-7923-7254-9

Conflicts between neighboring nations over waterresources have resulted in strained relations, leadingto difficulty at the negotiating table. Most cases in-volve surface waters that act as a shared boundaryor surface waters that flow from one nation into an-other. Transnational groundwater management can beeven more complex because there is greater uncer-tainty about supply quantities, hydrology of rechargezones, and movement of water within the aquifer. Is-sues of hydrology, economic growth, and populationgrowth are all key to a fair resolution.

Nowhere in the world is the resolution of water con-flict more central to peace than in the Middle East,especially peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.The political climate makes negotiations on water sup-plies difficult, yet water allocation and use must beaddressed in an equitable manner if a lasting peace isto be found. Complicating negotiations is the lack ofsolid scientific information on groundwater hydrologyin the region, and the lack of sufficient institutionalinfrastructure to effectively manage the resource.

This recently published compendium by EranFeitelson and Marwan Haddad represents the culmi-nation of a 7-year study of water management issuesin Israel and the West Bank. Negotiators recognizethe importance of groundwater management to a last-ing solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Thisvolume looks at methods to manage the MountainAquifer that lies under parts of the West Bank andIsrael. While the book’s focus is the Mountain Aquifer,the authors recognize that any water negotiations willneed to include other areas (Gaza) and other supplies

(surface) in the region. Initially, new supplies willneed to be developed to meet basic domestic needs.Ultimately, water is necessary for economic growth.And for peace to succeed, there will be a need forprosperity for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Using papers from four different workshops, Feit-elson and Haddad have assembled a text that coversa broad range of issues in transboundary groundwa-ter management. Many of the chapters provide criticalinformation for setting up groundwater managementpolicies and institutions. However, the overall qualityof the book is very uneven. There are large variationsin quality between chapters and occasionally withinindividual chapters. Topics and pieces of many chap-ters overlap, creating a level of redundancy frustratingto the reader. Several chapters could use additionalediting to correct for grammatical and typographicalerrors (some paragraphs end in mid-sentence and onetable is missing the data). That said, for the reader whois willing to pick, choose, and skim, a majority of thechapters provide useful information for the manage-ment of transnational groundwater resources.

The book begins with an introductory chapterby the editors that sets the stage for consideringgroundwater’s uniqueness when creating managementinstitutions. The authors then provide the customaryoverview of the chapters to come. The book itself isdivided into six parts that cover groundwater man-agement issues, descriptions of the Israeli–Palestiniancase, a look at other international efforts to managetransboundary water resources, technical informationon monitoring and modeling groundwater, issues andoptions for management, and a descriptive actionplan on where the specific Israeli–Palestinian processcould go from here.

Part 1 of the book begins with a chapter by Haddad,Feitelson, and Shaul Arlosoroff that provides an en-gineering perspective on groundwater management,promoting the idea of managing for a sustainable yield.

0169-5150/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

256 Book reviews

The authors make the case for whole aquifer manage-ment, looking beyond withdrawals to include rechargeand reuse. While the chapter raises many concerns ingroundwater management, such as pollution preven-tion, overdraft, and aquifer degradation, the authors’definition of sustainable yield seems overly restrictive.

In the following chapter, Haddad provides a look atthe significance of water in the writings of the Quran.While I found the discussion of the importance of wa-ter, other natural resources, and the environment in theQuran to be quite interesting, there is a lack of balancein the presentation. The chapter provides little guid-ance on how this information should be used in thecreation and implementation of groundwater manage-ment policies and institutions. Furthermore, given thebook’s lack of alternative perspectives of other impor-tant religions in the region, inclusion of this chaptercauses a lack of balance in the book as a whole.

The specific hydrology of the Israeli–Palestiniancase, arguments for greater Palestinian managementand for joint management, and a simulation of ne-gotiations to reach a sustainable level of use are laidout in part 2 of the book. This part begins with achapter by Yoav Harpaz, Haddad, and Arlosoroffthat describes the specific hydrology of the Moun-tain Aquifer, its historic uses, and its uses under theinterim agreements of the Oslo B Agreement. Thisis followed by a chapter by Arlosoroff that providesan excellent review of Israeli water law, along witha broad overview of public policy options. However,Arlosoroff’s discussion of water markets is confusingand could probably be left to other chapters in thebook that focus specifically on this topic.

The need for Palestinian management of the Moun-tain Aquifer is put forth by Karen Assaf and TaherNassereddin in Chapters 5 and 7, respectively. Assafstates that the Palestinian Water Authority needs toset rules and regulations under a whole managementsystem that accounts for water supply, demand, andreuse. She argues that better educational programsand better data collection are needed to manage theresource. Nassereddin provides a good overview ofcurrent Palestinian supplies and related shortages.Combining these two chapters would eliminate someredundancy while providing a fuller picture of thePalestinian situation.

The case for joint management of the aquifer, bas-ing management boundaries upon the watershed’s

boundaries, is made by Yona Kahane in Chapter 6.Unfortunately, much of the chapter provides genericinformation on groundwater management, along withdetails of the Mountain Aquifer’s characteristics,most of which can be found elsewhere in the book.

Part 2 ends with a game theoretic model of nego-tiation by Sinaia Netanyahu, Richard Just, and JohnHorowitz. This chapter ties together the specific hy-drologic features of supply and demand with the allo-cation and policy constraints that are the focus of theearlier chapters. The Netanyahu, Just and Horowitzsimulations assess the impacts of various economicparameters on negotiations to move toward a sustain-able level of water use.

The third part of the book considers water manage-ment laws and policies at the international, national,and local levels, concluding with a discussion of poli-cies that may be useful at various political levels tohelp alleviate the impacts of droughts. Aaron Wolfprovides an excellent review of international treatiesconcerning water rights. He finds that most negotia-tions are over surface waters and that each treaty mustaddress circumstances unique to the particular basin.An important conclusion is that most negotiations fo-cus on the water ‘needs’ of the parties and less uponthe perceived water ‘rights’.

Surface water and groundwater issues between theNetherlands and its neighboring states are describedby Carel De Villeneuve, who stresses the need toconsider both water quantity as well as water qual-ity. In another chapter, Gregory Thomas looks at thegeopolitical level at which institutions can effectivelymanage water. Drawing on experiences in the westernUnited States, he argues that—in terms of sustainabil-ity, transferability, administrative efficiency, efficiencyof use, and equity—local institutions (a decentralizedstructure) outperform centralized institutions. JosephDellapenna looks at customary international law con-cerning water conflicts. He finds that most casesincorporate the concept of ‘equitable utilization’ asthe rule to allocate scarce water resources betweennations. He explains that this rule does not neces-sarily imply ‘equal use’. Miguel Solanes provides uswith a long list of management ideas, many of whichare covered elsewhere in the volume in greater detail.Ariel Dinar closes out part 3 by clearly outlining aset of policies that may be used to help institutionsprepare for droughts and that may be used when

Book reviews 257

reacting to droughts. He draws upon an excellent setof case studies to illustrate these policies. The chap-ter stresses the importance of setting such policiesin motion before a drought crisis in order to reducetension and minimize impacts on the affected parties.

Part 4 turns to the specifics of groundwater mod-eling and data needs and analysis. Different types ofmodels and their data requirements are discussed byJac van der Gun. Jad Isaac and Maher Owewi providean excellent overview of the structure of GIS systemsand their data requirements. Unfortunately, their chap-ter also contains a long section on the politics of theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict, which does not seem to fitinto a technical chapter. Furthermore, their review ofinternational law provides no new information beyondthat already presented in several chapters in part 3.

Part 5 considers issues and options for groundwatermanagement. Several of the chapters offer excellentdiscussions of economic innovations in groundwatermanagement and the need for politically stable insti-tutions to control groundwater uses. Steve Lonerganuses sound economic principles to assess variouseconomic instruments for water management. He pro-vides clear explanations of water auctions, markets,banking, and tradable permits systems. Starting withthe need for secure property rights, Lonergan providesus with an analysis of how these concepts can be usedin the Israeli–Palestinian case. K. William Easter andRobert Hearne lay out how to establish water marketsunder a variety of conditions. Their chapter coverswater markets so completely and expertly that descrip-tions of markets throughout the rest of the book couldbe deleted, with the reader referred to this chapter.The authors stress that the key to successful marketsis a stable (and thus equitable) initial allocation ofrights, something that may take place away from theeconomic system and within the political realm.

Eyal Benvenisti argues that there is a need for anindependent international entity to make decisionson water management outside each nation’s politicalprocess. Benvenisti is concerned that too often themanagement agencies can be captured by nationaland sub-national interest groups, causing them to actcounter to the long-term interests of the region. IsmailNajjar provides an excellent description of crisis(drought) management techniques. He stresses thatthe stages of management must include prevention,minimization, mitigation, and finally, compensation.

Different policies are appropriate for different goals,but efforts made before droughts become too severecan significantly reduce tensions and economic im-pacts that may occur later. Numan Mizyed stressesthat management plans should incorporate the physi-cal features (soil characteristics) of the region. Urbangrowth, recharge of fresh water, and recharge oftreated wastewaters should take place in specificzones to reduce environmental impacts and the risksof contamination.

In part 6, the volume concludes with two chaptersthat provide recommendations on how the Israeli andPalestinian negotiators could proceed towards creatingwater management rules and institutions. Feitelsonand Haddad do an excellent job of outlining a set ofrecommendations on how to proceed. Their chapterprovides a summary of many of the key points thatarise in the book. In Table 1, they provide a goodoverview of possible management institutions, distin-guishing between different management levels (e.g.local, regional, national) and different managementneeds. The chapter identifies many of the needs—crisis management, aquifer protection, efficiency insupply, efficiency in use—and discusses possibleinstitutions and actions (e.g. markets, auctions, priva-tization) to manage these needs.

Haddad, Feitelson, Arlosoroff, and Nassereddinprovide us with an on-the-ground assessment of howthe Israeli–Palestinian water negotiations and the cre-ation of management institutions could proceed. Theyidentify a need for a process that involves all par-ticipants, recommending a slow, confidence-buildingprocess that begins with data sharing and analysis,and moves towards allocations that must be equitableand sustainable. This process would be followed bythe implementation of new institutions and strategiesto improve efficiency and add operational flexibility.All of this will require that some new capital projectsbe funded and built, requiring the assistance andcooperation of the larger international community.

Douglas ParkerDepartment of Agricultural and Resource

Economics, University of MarylandCollege Park, MD 20742, USA

Tel.: +1-301-405-8042; fax:+1-301-314-9091E-mail address: dparker@arec.umd.edu (D. Parker)

PII: S 0 1 6 9 - 5 1 5 0 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 4 0 - 3