Study of the readiness for receiving desalinated seawater : Gaza city case study

Abstract EN

The readiness for receiving desalinated water in Gaza city was evaluated, by ensuring the technical, economical and social readiness, and identifying the current obsticles and problems to achieve the greatest possiblebenefit from Gaza seawater desalination plant.

The conditions of existing water networks in Gaza city were assessed through the age of network, the age of flowmeters, determining the locations of asbestos lines, determining the places of breakage and failure, and generating spatially thermal maps.

Furthermore, studying the percentage of collection system based on social and economical aspects was carried out to determine the acceptance of defined new tariff as a consequence of improving the water service.

The results revealed that 68% of the water networks are aging more than 10 years, as well as 66% of water flowmeters are aging more than 10 years.

There is a close relationship between the use of 2” diameter pipes with the occurrence of breaks and failure in the networks.

The collection is not exceeding 4% of total bills value, which represents 29% of the number of cutomers.

The socio-economic results found that 65% of the customers are not paying the bills due to bad economic and 35% due to poor water service.

However, 64% of the customers agreed to raise the tarrif for reciving-desalinated water, and 97% agreed if the tarrif does not exceed 2 shekels per cubic meter.

Existing water networks problems should be maintained to ensure optimal use of desalinated water, and public awareness for citizens should be carried out to incrase the level of social responsibility and paying the bills in order to obtain a better service and sustainability.