One of the benefits of this setup, Gilron said, is the ability to control how much groundwater and freshwater is pumped from different sources. Nobody can drill a well without first getting permission from Israel Water Authority.” Whereas here, water is a national resource. “Water is a private property in the States, so as a result, if it’s on your property, you have water rights to use it. “In the States, you don’t have a national authority or the legal basis to treat water as a national resource,” Gilron said. This allows Israel to control the water on a countrywide level and prioritize who gets it – and when. From the limited freshwater and groundwater to the more abundant sea water and even wastewater, every drop is a national resource to which the public is only granted temporary usage based on need and availability of sources. In Israel, almost all water belongs to the State of Israel. Sitting in Gilron’s office in the network of buildings, trees and concrete paths that make up Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, it was easy to forget that we were in the middle of the desert in a country with a vastly different political system than the United States when it comes to water.

“The problems are not just technical – they’re also social, and they’re also political,” Gilron said. Yet Israel’s success in wastewater treatment and reuse likely won’t translate effectively to other countries. Jack Gilron, head of the department of desalination and water treatment at the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research. The small country is light years ahead of the rest of the globe – the next closest competitor is Spain, which reuses around 30 percent of wastewater, according to Dr. Negev Desert, Israel – A country that is 70 percent desert faces a unique challenge in finding sustainable water sources, but by treating and reusing approximately 90 percent of its wastewater, Israel has done just that.

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