Description:
Israel is a semiarid country that has fully developed all of its conventional water resources in a carefully planned program designed to achieve maximum development of the country's agricultural potential. Today the main source for developing additional water resources for agriculture is the recycling of wastewater for irrigation. This paper traces the development of the Israeli wastewater-reuse program, which has now been declared a national policy, with some 35 percent of Israel's total wastewater flow recycled for agricultural and industrial use in 1986. The goal is to achieve 80 percent reuse by the year 2000. Agronomic, engineering, sociopolitical and health aspects of the development of wastewater reuse in Israel are analyzed.