On World Environment Day, PCBS reveals the state of the Palestinian Environment
Ma'an News Service
June 5, 2007
Bethlehem - Ma'an - On the occasion of World Environment Day, celebrated every year on 5 June since 1972, when the United Nations declared World Day at the opening of the Stockholm conference on human environment, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) has issued a press release on the state of the Palestinian environment.
Population density
Regarding population density in the occupied Palestinian territory, PCBS
estimates that population density will reach 667 persons/ km² in mid 2007.
In the West Bank, the density will be 445 persons/ km² and in the Gaza Strip
the density will rise to an incredible 4,108 persons/ km².
Water
According to PCBS's data, 88.6% of households in the Palestinian territory
are connected to a public water network. This still leaves 70,103 households
that are not connected to a public water network, PCBS's data reveals. 5.2% of
households depend on household water wells, PCBS adds. Of the connected
households, 121 localities (29.0%) obtain water from the Israeli water company, Mekorot.
As for wastewater, less than half (45.3%) of the households in the occupied
Palestinian territory are connected to a wastewater network, PCBS finds.
Regarding water quality, PCBS found that only 4.5% of households in the Gaza
Strip consider their water to be of good quality.
PCBS recalls that the Israeli occupation authorities took a decision on 7
June 1967, immediately after the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
to transfer the responsibility for water in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to
the Israeli Military Governor. PCBS says that this decision was followed by
others "that restrict and decrease Palestinians’ usage of their water rights
and prohibit them from digging agricultural and household wells." PCBS also
notes that many wells were dug in the illegal Israeli settlements in order
to provide Israel with water from the Palestinian aquifer.
Since the beginning of the occupation until 30 April 2006, more than 420
artesian wells and additional water resources were polluted, PCBS reveals.
Today, Israel is controlling more than 85% of the Palestinian water
resources and, consequently, the Palestinian per capita drinking water use has
decreased to less than 90 cubic meter per year.
PCBS also discovered that the area that has been isolated on the western
side of Israel's illegal separation wall is located over the major northern and
western aquifers which have an annual discharge capacity of 507 million cubic
meters, whereas the entire eastern area, located on the West Bank side of the wall,
is located over the eastern aquifer, which has an annual discharge capacity of
172 million cubic meters.
Waste
PCBS also found that 2,844 tons of household solid waste are produced daily
in the Palestinian territory. The average household daily production of
household waste in the Palestinian territory was estimated to be 4.6 kg.
PCBS also discovered that, in 2005, 27.8% of the localities in the
Palestinian territory did not have a solid waste collection service.
In terms of dumping sites, PCBS's statistics reveal that out of a total of
164 dumping sites in the Palestinian territory, only three are found in the Gaza
Strip. These dumping sites are not monitored by the Palestinian Ministry of
Health.
Land
Since the beginning of the occupation until 30 April 2006, more than 1.39
million trees, and more than one million dunums of agricultural lands, were
destroyed, PCBS reveals.
During the last five years, the construction of Israel's illegal separation
wall has led to the confiscation or isolation of more than 349,000 dunums of West
Bank Palestinian land, PCBS says. By the end of 2005, it had also destroyed
or isolated more than 90 wells in the West Bank and a large number of springs.
More information is available at http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/
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