Climate change and its impact on domestic water consumption in Sub-urban regions in the Gaza Strip

This paper aims to identify the priorities on water sector planning. The priorities are identified by comparing the climate change impact on water consumption and the impact of using domestic water illegally to irrigate the urban agricultural holdings in suburban areas.

Metered water consumption in summer and winter in both urban and suburban areas was studied in Rafah city. A backward chronological linear model of climate change (precipitation and temperature) influence on water consumption was developed using software STATISTICA 10. The developed statistical relation was used to predict the impact of various climate change scenarios for domestic water consumption. Hence, four climate change scenarios were hypothesized – an increase in temperature by 1 and 20°C and a reduction in the rainfall by 10 and 20 per cent, respectively.

The most influential climate change scenario was the increase of temperature by 20°C, which caused an increase of 1.4 per cent on the average domestic water consumption compared to the current value. The hypothesized reduction of 20 per cent in precipitation caused a negligible increase in water consumption by 0.1 per cent from the current value. Urban agriculture and current practice of using municipal water to irrigate cultivated urban holdings have a significant negative influence on domestic water consumption. The aforementioned practice led to a high percentage of unaccounted for water (UFW) of 33, 38 and 45 per cent for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively.

The concerned decision-makers should consider the right track in prioritizing dilemmas for planning water sector in suburban areas.

This research could be considered the first of its kind because impacts of urban agriculture and climate change on domestic water consumption have never been previously considered in the Gaza Strip.