DURHAM, N.C. – Water is a scarce and often contentious commodity in the Middle East, especially where surface and groundwater systems extend across political borders between hostile neighbors.

Finding ways to help policymakers resolve disputes and wisely manage the region’s diminished and largely contaminated water supplies will be the focus of a Geological Society of America (GSA) keynote symposium on Oct. 30, co-chaired by Avner Vengosh, associate professor of environmental geochemistry at the Nicholas School, and John Lane of the United States Geological Survey.

“Middle Eastern Water Resources in Times of Crisis,” is one of eight Pardee Keynote Symposia scheduled for this year’s GSA annual meeting in Denver.

The symposium will bring together hydrologists, water management experts, and policy experts to examine the state of water resources in the Middle East and the discuss what can be done, scientifically and politically, to help reduce water-based conflicts and ensure that clean, safe water will be available to the region’s people for generations to come.

In addition to serving as co-chair, Vengosh has been invited to present an overview of his work, “Isotopic Reconnaissance of Water Quality Degradation in the Middle East,” at the session.

Increasing demand for water in the Middle East has accelerated the rate of water-quality degradation there and resulted in the exploitation of fossil groundwater, he notes. Sustainable water management under these conditions requires that scientists, resource managers and policymakers have adequate tools for identifying the origin of non-point contamination in the water – in particular, for determining whether it is manmade or naturally occurring.

Identifying who, or what, is to blame for contamination can become a point of contention between hostile neighbors who share groundwater systems, such as Israel and the Palestinian Authority, he says. However, if contamination is a natural phenomenon, neighbor states might cooperate and find ways to work together to resolve the problem.

In his GSA paper, Vengosh will present the results from three studies in which he used multiple isotopic systems to pinpoint the sources of groundwater contamination. One study identified the sources of high salinity in the Mediterranean Coastal aquifer and the Gaza Strip. The second study traced the sources of nitrate pollution in the Gaza Strip, and delineated between nitrogen sources such as sewage contamination. The final study identified the naturally occurring source of high radioactivity in fossil groundwater – the region’s last uncontaminated natural source of water – in Nubian sandstone basins in Israel and Jordan.

The isotopic tracers Vengosh used for his studies could also be useful tools for identifying the sources of water contaminants in other aquifers across the region. Most of the fossil groundwater supplies in the region are located in Nubian sandstone basins.  Finding high levels of naturally occurring radioactivity in these types of aquifers could have implications for possible high radioactivity anomalies in similar basins in the Middle East, Vengosh says.

Pardee Keynote Symposia are designed to be of interest to the broad geoscience and policy communities and are widely considered to be among the highlights of the annual GSA meeting.  Selection is based on a competitive basis.

To read the abstract of Vengosh’s GSA presentation, or to learn more about his symposia, go to.

 

Contact: Avner Vengosh, (919) 681-8050 or vengosh@duke.edu