Assessing the Dead Sea Water Budget Components
The extensive exploitation of ground and surface water has led to a lowering of the groundwater table and a dramatic decline of the Dead Sea level. Climate change may even aggravate ongoing water shortage.
The quantification of the Dead Sea water budget components at different space-time scales is therefore essential for sustainable water resources management. The individual water budget components, like the inflow of the Jordan River, flash flood events, groundwater flow, ascending brines, industrial water use, and evaporative loss, will be addressed in several WPs:
Hydrological and meteorological observations (WP3), surface and groundwater flow (WP6), as well as evaporation (WP7).
WP2 will build up on these outcomes to provide a holistic and reliable water budget estimation of the Dead Sea Basin.
Once the past and present changes of the Dead Sea water budget as well as the agents of change are known, the results can be applied to future scenarios of water availability and provide the basis for present and future sustainable water resources management.
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ
Department of Catchment Hydrology
Theodor-Lieser-Straße 4
06120 Halle/Saale
Germany
ralf.merz@ufz.de
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- Written by Super User
- Created: 05 October 2013