Sea environment – Israel

The Mediterranean beach strip of Israel sprawls on 190 kilometers, from Israel’s border with Lebanon at the north to Gaza strip at the south.The beach is one of the most important nature resources of the country. The variable geological morphology created a variety of ‘habitats, rich with animals and vegetation. Tens of nature reserves and about 90 declared bathing beaches sprawl along the beach strip.

 Since the declaration of the country of Israel, the beach strip has been exposed to different kinds of strain. 85% of the population is concentrated in the area of the beach plain, and here also most of the industrial, commercial and tourism activities of Israel are located. There are power stations, industries, sea ports, marinas, nature resources, and national parks dispersed along the beach.

The sea has different importance for different people. For some, the sea is a resource that provides a renewed produce of fish, seaweeds, sea birds and mammals. For others it is a resource of production of un-renewed materials like crude oil and minerals. The sea environment serves as territory for transportation and as a basis of industry and economy.

The sea provides a variety of social and economical activities, cultivated ecological and social values that are priceless. This situation necessitates a comprehensive organization for preserving the sea environment. The quality of the sea environment is in fact, the measure of the condition of the sea, based on ethical subjective judgment or on scientific measurements. The quality of the environment desirable is not a constant value, it is determined according to the utilization of sea water. We are obligated to keep the sea environment in a high quality to preserve the sea resources for our use and benefit, and for the continuation of the natural systems.

The main sea environment pollution factors are:

Crude oils – the pollution is caused by leakages of oil from ships that transport it. Today it has a smaller impact thanks to the transportation laws.

Sewage – each year 430,000 tons of toxic materials (fertilizers, weed control materials) and about 65,000 tons of heavy metals are transported to the sea directly or from the steams. This is also being controlled by land resources law, and by allocating a purification institute.

Solid garbage – originally from not-properly organized dumps along the sea shore, from sailing boats as well as leftovers from people who come to enjoy the beach. The most dangerous is the plastic objects: sea animals are being strangled by them and they are not collapsible. The solution is that the local authorities work to collect the garbage.

Thermal pollution – sea water is used to cool devices at the power station and then it is returned to the sea with higher temperature (20 deg. Higher than the sea’s). This causes the temperature of the near shallow sea water to rise, which reduces the amount of oxygen in the water, and makes it hard for sea animals to breath, few species can survive at these conditions.

Israel’s population is getting bigger and bigger, so is the number of public services and institutions, housing units, and a whole new infrastructure. All these buildings require a new power station. The resources the country have used till now are not the best ones, as they have enormous negative side effects (air, land and sea water pollution), so the most important environmental issue these days is the realization of using different resources (more ecological) for produces power like utilization of the winds in the north and the powerful sunlight in the Negev desert, this way we can preserve a healthy sea environment, and breathe clean air.

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