Jalboun Second Pilot Project

Farm Level Metallic Water Reservoirs

Pilots for Sale*

Jalboun village located 13 kilometers to the east of Jenin City is considered one of the hardest hit communities by the critical shortage of water for domestic and agricultural use. Only a small fraction of the villagers’ domestic needs is covered by what gets stored during the winter season in household-level cisterns and reservoirs. While to secure the rest, the villagers (population ~ 2,400) are forced to purchase from private vendors water brought from groundwater wells located in adjacent villages which adversely impacts villagers’ health and economic conditions. Similarly, the severe water shortage, high price of the agricultural water unit, and loss/confiscation of land to building the apartheid wall, put additional constraints on (horizontally) expanding agricultural activities in Jalboun. Currently, crops cultivated in Jalboun are mainly rain-fed, with an irrigated area limited only to seven dunums for greenhouse crops. Even for this small area, greenhouse farmers rely on buying tanker water from private agricultural wells to meet demand of their greenhouses (~ 8400 m3/yr of water).

Selected Pilot Project:

After going over the different scenarios, strategies, and proposed interventions, stakeholders in Jalboun (both local community and governorate staff) gave priority to the construction of 5 metal reservoirs for harvesting rainwater from greenhouses’ rooftops and other catchments areas. With a storage capacity of 200 m3 for each, and at an estimated cost of 30,000 US Dollars in total, these reservoirs will not only contribute to achieving Jalboun’s Vision in increasing their cultivated lands, but will also serve 55 beneficiaries, and provide them with the following benefits.

1. Reduce the cost of the water unit. When using the harvested water for irrigation, it is expected that each reservoir would cover the needs of one dunum of greenhouses for 3 to 4 months.
2. Reduces farmers’ effort and time normally wasted in finding and bringing water tankers to their land, especially during the winter season when road accessibility becomes difficult.
3. Increases the cultivated area. Farmers can expand their activities and increase the cultivated area due to the increase in the amount of available stored water (in the reservoirs ).

* A proposal summary is provided below. If inetersted in contributing to the implemetation of this pilot project kindly Contact Us to provide you with the detailed pilot proposals.