The problems of both water scarcity and water pollution severly lower the standard of living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Natural water supply is dependent upon yearly precipitation, which replenishes the aquifers in the Palestinian territories; and upon political relation with Israel, that still controls all water reserves in the region. Meanwhile, the water that is available to the Palestinians is under threat of pollution from cesspools and septic tanks, the main wastewater disposal method in Palestine, and uncontrolled discharge of jewish settlements and Palestinian cities. The groundwater quality is steadily deteriorating, due to a lack of proper sewerage systems and inefficient solid waste management. An applicable technology, which simultaneously addresses the two environmental and health threats of water scarcity and water pollution, is the urine diversion sanitation system. This ecological sanitation technology has proven to be an especially effective and efficient sanitation alternative in regions of little water and high temperatures. Therefore, is was expected that urine diversion sanitation would be an appropriate, ecological alternative to water-borne sanitation systems for Palestine. The project will serve to test the performance of dry sanitation (urine diversion) systems in this particular climatic and cultural environment. If successful, the project results can be used to encourage politicians to consider wide-scale implementation of ecological sanitation technology, and will convince other communities and individual households to adopt this technology as well. if the test project results illustrate the suitability and applicability of such technology in this region, it will further advance the argument against water-borne sanitation systems, which still is seen as the only alternative to traditional sewage disposal methods.
