Water: A Vital and Scarce Strategic Resource

Abstract

Ever since the latter part of the 1980s, there has been a growing awareness of Israel’s dire water shortage. Today, although there may be considerable dissension as to the nature of the appropriate solution, there does seems to be an ever-widening consensus as to the severity of the situation — at least in terms of the physical deficiencies involved.¹ Indeed, in many respects, the crisis is already so serious that it has exceeded the limits of an economic problem, in which an appropriate pricing system may serve as an adequate device for long-term allocation, and has assumed the dimensions of a strategic one, which impinges upon the very physical survival of the country.²