The Israel’s Apartheid Wall: Environmental Disaster
October 14, 2005The first phase will place 45,000 West Bank acres on the Israeli side, approximately three percent of Palestinian’s land mass. The footprint of the wall itself will be enormous, with as much as 8,750 acres completely lost. Construction of the wall will mean the removal of tens of thousands of trees and will effect the hydrology of the watersheds. This will cause changes in water quantity and quality, stream channel morphology and groundwater levels. Surface water flow will be altered, and there will be an increase in erosion and sedimentation.
The impacts on the region’s water supplies around the wall are also of serious concern. The climate of Palestine is semi-arid, and water sources are precious. In villages around Qalqilya and Tulkarm, more than 30 wells will be lost in the first phase of the wall. These wells, located in the western groundwater basin, were drilled prior to the 1967 occupation of Palestine by Israel (when Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty to to prevent the American intelligence craft from seeing what they were doing, see their Website). As a result, Palestinians will lose nearly 18 percent of their share of the basin’s water.
Construction activities and the long-term presence of a continuous 25-foot-high impervious barrier will cause a decrease in populations of animals and plants. The wall will cause habitat loss from the footprint and construction. As the micro-ecology of the area is impacted, exotic weeds, pests and pathogens will more easily invade and thrive in the disturbed areas. Animal populations will be fragmented and distribution patterns will be altered. The remaining small populations would then be vulnerable to all of the problems associated with rarity: genetic deterioration from inbreeding, random drift in gene frequencies and difficulty recovering from environmental catastrophes. Some species may disappear completely.
Tags: Apartheid Wall, Palestine
