Historical Background

Founded in 1987, the Palestinian Hydrology Group – Palestine (PHG) is a nongovernmental organization and an independent specialized institution dedicated to develop and protect the water and environmental resources; to insure more public accessibility to adequate water supply sources and sanitary conditions; and to develop a proper information systems and technologies including GIS.

Given the rapidly deteriorating water situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the neglect of basic water supply infrastructure, the Group saw its immediate task as carrying out development work promoting the more effective and efficient use and reuse of all existing types of water resources, including wastewater. Accordingly, the Group undertook activities which included: developing possibilities for exploiting natural springs, developing rain fed catchment systems for enhancing water supply for irrigation and domestic uses and promoting new technologies and techniques on the best practices for water conservation of the scarce resources from both quantity and quality perspectives.

The Group has also tried to address critical local and regional technical, economic, social and political water resource management issues and developed a multi disciplinary expertise to address such issues and even more to address stakeholder engagement processes in decision making as well as promoting their awareness and building their capacity. Finally, PHG has adopted the environmental integrated approach in all its activities and tried to promote environmental friendly solutions for local problems. For example, the creation of composting units to reduce biological waste and to produce fertilizers at local level as well as treating the grey water and reuse it for agriculture.