The environmental impacts of humans on groundwater in Lebanon

Abstract

The execution of most large water projects in Lebanon has been continuously postponed, due to political reasons for the period preceding 1975 and to the civil war after that date. The accumulated impacts of mismanagement and shortage in water supplies forced population to drill their private wells and extract groundwater to meet their increasing needs. This uncontrolled action has significantly deteriorated the quality of groundwater, reflected in the increasing salinity of extracted water from coastal aquifers, and in the contamination of many wells and springs by improperly disposed waste water. The overexploitation of the aquifers has led to considerable decline in the discharge of springs and rivers amounting 18.8% between the 1960's and early 80's, irrespective of rainfall fluctuations. This study shows that the water budget in early 1980's has decreased appreciably, relative to 1960's budget. In Mount Lebanon basin the amount of precipitation dropped from 2700 to 2214 m³ yr⁻¹, the rivers, discharge declined from 1320 to 834 Mm³ yr⁻¹, and the recharge to groundwater decreased from 733 to 601 Mm³ yr⁻¹.