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Ramallah- Within the activities of the TEMPUS project, which is funded by the European
Union and aims to build capacity in GIS application in the field of water and environment,
the House of Water and Environment has opened a GIS computer lab and has launched two
training programs on the GIS applications in water and environment. One of the training
courses is a beginner’s course -Introduction to GIS- while the second is an advanced course.
The TEMPUS project is a joint project between the House of Water and Environment, the Water and
Environmental Studies Institute of Birzeit University, the Earth and Environmental Sciences
faculty in Al-Quds University, Newcastle University, and the University of Lund. The purpose
of this project is to develop academic curriculum for university students at the Bachelor level
and the Masters level, as well as to train those employed in the field of water and environment
in Palestinian organizations. Dr. Amjad Aliewi, Director General of House of Water and
Environment, opened the training courses, and Eng. Jumana Abusadah, will be giving the training.
Eng. Jumana has much experience using GIS on a local and regional scale in the field of water
and environment.
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House of Water and Environment as a partner participated in projects management
meeting about the status of GLOWA phase 3 project and the SMART project
from 25-29 June, 2008 at Aqaba - Jordan. These projects are about conducting
research studies about the development and management of the Jordan River.
On June 21,
2008, a meeting was held in HWE regarding the Environment
Assessment of Pollution Sources on the water environment project. The main purpose
of this meeting was to discuss the progress of this project with some members from
the Salfeet municipality. Many tasks were undertaken with close coordination and
cooperation with those members, so in order to express our thanks to their efforts,
HWE donated a laptop to the Health and Environment department, as well as a GPS
device to the Surveying department.
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Mr. Ashraf Nader from HWE attended a one day network meeting to discuss the future
direction of the AWARENET network, and how the network can better serve its members.
This meeting was about the Palestinian national chapter in the AWARENET. The meeting
was held in the Dead Sea Marriot Resort, Jordan on 4 June 2008.
To learn more about AWARENET, visit,
http://www.awarenet.org/
Dr. Amjad Aliewi, the Director General of HWE attended a scientific
meeting in Amman-Jordan 9-10 April 2008 about publishing a book, “Water
Wisdom”. Dr. Aliewi has written the water resources chapter of the Book.
The Book is expected to be released by the end of the year.
HWE organized with Foeme tow field visits as follows:
(1)
The first joint study tour was held on March 12, 2008. It consisted of a tour to
the Shafdan wastewater treatment facility, the largest wastewater treatment plant
in
Israel. Shafdan is one of the most complex wastewater treatment
plants in
Israel
and the most advanced in the
Middle East.
Participants were given a tour of the facility and were
introduced to the different treatment processes which take place there. A visit
to the Maabarot Reconstructed Wetlands followed.
(2)
The second joint study tour was held on March 24, 2008. It consisted of a tour to
the ‘Yad Hana’ wastewater treatment facility. The participants found this tour especially
interesting because the Yad Hana treatment facility is actually a joint environmental
project between the Hefer Valley Regional Council and the Palestinian Authority
city of Tulkarm. This treatment plant collects and treats Tulkarm’s wastewater in
the water treatment center at Kibbutz Yad Hanna. The project prevents pollution
of the Alexander River (also known as Wadi Zeimar), which is a vital waterway for
both the Palestinians and Israelis.
Participants were then given a tour of the ‘Ramat Hasharon’
facility, whose operation
is helping in upgrading the water quality in the Yarkon,
Poleg and Alexander Rivers.
Under the technical cooperation project “Management,
Protection and Sustainable Use of Groundwater and soil
resources” between the Arab Centre for the Studies of
Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD), SYRIA, and the Federal
Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR),
Eng. Najwan Imsieh and Eng. Lubna Siam participated in
a trianing workshop which was held on setting up and
applying a Decision Support System (DSS) for water management
(WEAP- MODFLOW). This workshop was held from 9-13 March, 2008
in the Kempinsky Hotel, Amman, JORDAN.
HWE conducted a training course about sewage treatment technologies from 16 January
to 6 February, 2008 at the Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah-Palestine for Municipality
Engineers.
More Details...
Dr. Aliewi was a visiting professor in January, 2008 at Newcastle University (UK)
and he taught Groundwater Assessment Module with the MSc programme in Applied
Hydrology.
Members of Staff from HWE attended Back to Back Workshops: Initial
Implementation of Joint Management in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System,
and Nahr El Kabir Aquifer System from 14-18 Jan 2008 in Cairo, Egypt.
HWE conducted a training course about sewage treatment technologies from 21 November,
2007 to 16 January, 2008 at HWE, Ramallah-Palestine for Municipality Engineers.
More Details...
Members of Staff from HWE attended
the 4th Conference of the Water Directors of the EURO- Mediterranean and Southeastern
European Countries from 10-11 Dec, 2007 in Bled, Slovenia.
Members of Staff from HWE
attended Water Management during Crisis Course from 4-8 Dec, 2007 in Amman- Jordan.
Within the framework of the Centre
of Arab Women for Training and Research (CAWTAR), Gender and Water Alliance (GWA), the
International Development Research Centre (IDRC) - WaDImena Project,
the Cap-Net - AWARENET, and GEWAMED, Eng. Lubna Siam, a Water and Environment
Research Associate at HWE, attended Training of Trainers (TOT) course on Gender
Mainstreaming in IWRM in the Arab Region from 26 Nov – 2 Dec, 2007 in Tunis,
Tunisia.
Eng. Jumana Abu Sada ,
the GIS Specialist at HWE attended a workshop, entitled: “Shared aquifers database
for the MEDA region: content, use and maintenance.” which was held in Thessaloniki,
Greece, from 26th-27th November 2007 organised by ESCWA.
Members of Staff from HWE
attended the SWITCH Second Scientific and Integration Meeting from 25-28 Nov, 2007
in Tel Aviv.
Eng. Najwan Imseih, A Water and
Environment Research Associate at HWE, attended the ‘WEAP Training and Application
Workshop’, which primarily addressed trans-boundary management questions, including
alternatives to the Red Dead Canal. This workshop was held in Amman, Jordan, November
24-25, 2007. This workshop provided an introduction to the regional WEAP model for
the Jordan basin.
Members of Staff from HWE
attended the 12th Regional Meeting of the Arab IHP National Committees on Climate
Change in theArab Region from 6-8 Nov, 2007 in Al Ein, United Emirate.
Member of Staff from HWE
attended Horizon 2020 and Private Investors Conference from 22-23 Oct, 2007 in
Athens, Greece.
Within the activities of
Tempus project, Eng. Jumana Abu Sada and Eng. Jamal Zeitawi –GIS Specialists at HWE
-attended the meeting for the project partners’ staff at Newcastle University-UK during
the period, 16th-25th October 2007. The main objective of this meeting was to build the
Palestinian partners’ staff capacity in Geographic Information System (GIS),
to enhance their abilities to develop GIS curriculums for new courses intended to
be offered for the undergraduate students at the Al- Quds (AQU) and Bir Ziet (BZU)
Universities. This meeting provided the opportunities for curriculum development,
preparation of case study/Project material etc.
Staff of HWE attended the
International Conference on “Sustainable Development and Management of Water in
Palestine” which was organized by HWE at the InterContinental Hotel, Amman – Jordan,
from 27-29 Aug, 2007.
For more details, visit www.hwe.org.ps/conf7
Members of Staff from HWE attended
Evaluating and Adapting Existing Water Vision/Forecasts for shared Aquifer Management
in the MEDA Region from 30-31 July, 2007 in Cairo-Egypt.
Member of Staff from HWE attended
MARD/ Balancing Water Scarcity and Growing Demands in Agriculture from 26-29 June,
2007 in Jordan/ Dead Sea.
Members of Staff from HWE
attended the Tempus Meeting/kick off from 18-22 June, 2007 in Newcastle- UK.
Members of Staff from HWE
attended Congress River Basin Management from 22-24 March, 2007 in Antalya -Turkey.
Members of Staff from HWE attended
Kick off meeting of the 5th WWF from 18-21 March, 2007 in Istanbul -Turkey.
House of Water and Environment organized on 18 December, 2006, a workshop on renewable
energy in Ramallah, attended by a number of Palestinian and German experts.
The Palestinian experts were from BirZeit and Annajah universities, water and energy authorities, Jerusalem Electricity Company, Palestinian
Hydrology Group and others.
The experts discussed how to use the technology for solar radiation for electricity
generation and desalination of water.
Dr.Amjad Aliewi explained the importance of using this technology in Palestine with
confirmation that the Palestinians should first their water rights in the Jordan
River and groundwater basins and all means of water resources.
Eng Yousef Awayes, a director general in the Palestinian Water Authority-(PWA)
and Eng. Deeb Abdalghafour from the PWA spoke about the water status of water
supply in the West Bank, while Eng. Ahmad Yaqubi, a director
general in the PWA, spoke about the Palestinian experience in using solar in Gaza,
showing the needs for additional fresh water resources in Gaza.
Dr. Imad Braik from Annajah University spoke about the potentiality of using the
solar radiation in Palestine.
Dr. Omar Kittaneh, the head of the Energy Authority in Palestine spoke about the
importance of using this technology in developing Palestine.
Professor Gerhard Kneis from Germany gave examples about the practicalities of this
technology and water it was applied in the Middle East.
Within the context of the inter-regional project on “Capacity building for Sustainable
Utilization, Management and Protection of Internationally Shared Groundwater in
the Mediterranean Region”.
The United Nations Economic & Social Commission forWestern Asia (ESCWA),was
jointly organizing with the Regional Center for Training and Water Studies (RCTWS)
at the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Network on Groundwater
in the Arab Region (NGWP), UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), UN Economic
Commission for Africa (ECA), UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization-International
Hydrological Programme (UNESCO-IHP) and UN-Department for Economic and Social Affairs
(UN-DESA) a training seminar on “Groundwater Modelling and Data Analysis”. This
seminar was taken place from 1 to 8 December 2006 at RCTWS, Egypt.
There were 9 participants in
this training course one of them is Eng. Amjad Assi from House of Water and Environment
the others are Mr. Ismail Karray (Water Resources, Tunisia), Mr. Nidal Khalifa (Groundwater
Modeller, Jordan), Mrs. Mona Fakih (Head of Service of Research and Hydraulic Structures,
Lebanon), Mr. Hassan Fayad (Director Deputy, Syria), Mr. Ahmad Abdallah (Hydrogeologist
in ACSAD, Syria), Mrs. Halima Mamou (Research Groundwater, Tunisia), Mr. Mohamed
Hindi (Civil Engineer at Water Research Institute for Groundwater, Egypt), and Mrs.
Heba Abdel Aziz (Civil Engineer at Water Research Institute for Groundwater, Egypt).
With the framework of Euro Mediterranean
Water Information System – EMWIS Project (http://www.emwis.net), Eng. Jamal Alqadi the IT and IS Manager of House
of Water and Environment,
was nominated by the Palestinian Water Authority to represent the Palestinian National
Focal Point in the Data Managers Seminar, between 13 and 15 Nov, 2006 in Spain-Madrid,
Since he was a member of the project's IT Group for more than 5 Years,The
seminar's objective is to provide complementary information and training to help
the NFP in improving their web sites.
This seminar aims at:
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Discussing an approach for the collection and the diffusion of water projects information
in each country and at the regional level (in connation with the data base implemented
on the new portal).
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Reviewing the progress on the syndication of news and events, in particular on the
basis of experiences carried out with Algeria, Spain and France (shared and automatic
re-use of the news produced by the various focal points using XML flows). The last
version of the metadata of EMWIS will be provided to the NFP.
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Reviewing the potential syndication of other types of content, e.g. the water legislation
.
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Examining the progress, the use and the enhancement of the common multilingual hesaurus/glossary
on water: English, Arab, French, Spanish (Italian -under development).
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Making a self-evaluation of NFP and international web sites in order to improve
their Content.
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Discussing the future of the national portals
1. Technological and thematic watch.
2. Assessment
of user needs and new information products.
3. News sections topics (working groups, topical
studies, etc).
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Giving a synthetic vision of the Spanish Water Information
systems for future exchanges on know-how make between country experts.
Also, Eng. Jamal Alqadi conducted a presentation about
(Palestinian Water Authority and Exchanging Water Information with other NGOs)
 PWA and NGOs
342.50 Kb
"Assessment, Monitoring and Protection of Groundwater Pollution in Urban Areas"
Workshop in Argentina, July 24-30, 2006 organized by UNESCO- IHE
With the framework of the PoWER project, UNESCO-IHE invited Eng. Amjad Assi
- Research
Associate at House of Water and Environment to
participate in the workshop which was held at Blas Pascal University, Cordoba,
Argentina from July 24-30, 2006.
With the framework of the PoWER Joint Research Project between
UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (Netherlands), Blas Pascal
University (Argentina), Indian Institute of Technology (Roorkee, India).
Birzeit University and House of Water and Environment (Palestine)
are working together in this project. UNESCO-IHE invited Eng. Amjad Assi - Research Associate
at House of Water and Environment to participate in the project
workshop which was held at Blas Pascal University, Cordoba, Argentina from July
24-30, 2006.
The participants in the workshop were;
1. Yangxiao Zhou, PhD - Associate Professor in Hydrology – UNESCO-IHE.
2. Dr. D. C. Singhal – Professor in Department of Hydrology
– Indian Institute of Technology – Roorkee.
3. Dr. Alberto Emilio Ferral – The Head of the Environmental
Department
and he is also the Secretary of Extension
and International Relations –
Blas Pascal University.
4. Dr. Eugenia Alaniz – Blas Pascal University.
5. Eng. Amjad Assi – Research Associate – House of Water and
Environment.
In this workshop, work plans were prepared for all partners. Moreover, a video conference
between the team in Argentina and UNESCO_IHE was performed so as to discuss such
joint projects.
There will be some publications and papers in national and international journals
at the end of this project.
CBT Project Meeting at the National Committee of UNESCO
in Ramallah,13 May, 2006.
Network Committee (of which HWE
is a member) met, 13 May, 2006, at the offices of the National UNESCO Committee
in Ramallah with those members in GAZA through the Video Conference and took the
following recommendations to be considered by the project directors in
UNESCO-Cairo Office:
1- To seek with the donor (Belgium) the possibility to extend the project beyond
31/12/2006.
2- To meet again to decide about the preparation of an internationl water conferance
to be held in Palestine.
1- Dr. Amjad Aliewi attended a preparation Meeting for the SWITCH Project
from 21-24 June, 2005
in Delft, Holland.
2- Eng. Muath Abu Saada from HWE
and Dr. Nidal Mahmoud from Birzeit
University attended the Kick-off
meeting of SWITCH Project in Delft, Holland During the period,
17-23 April, 2006 .
"Shared Groundwater Aquifers" Workshop in Beirut, April 24-25, 2006 organized by ESCWA
Dr. Amjad Aliewi, the Director - General of HWE and as an advisor to the Palestinian
Water Authority attended a workshop in Beirut, April 24-25, 2006 organized by ESCWA
on shared ground water aquifers.
The workshop was entitled "Formulation of a policy framework to support the establishment
of mechanisms for inter-state cooperation on shared groundwater aquifers in the
Mediterranean Region.
The workshop adopted a number of conclusions and recommendations for further actions.
To see Dr Aliewi's presentation, Click
shared aquifers
1.45 Mb
"tempQsim" - open
scientific conference in Montepllier - France on April 25-27, 2006
Dr. Amjad Aliewi, the Direcor-General of HWE was invited to present
a talk about Watershed Modelling in Palestine in a conference called, "tempQsim"
- open scientific conference, which was held in Montpllier on
April 25-27, 2006, France.
The title of his presentation was "Watershed modelling and biomonitoring to determine
optimal restoration strategies for intermittent transboundary streams between Palestine
and Israel.
To see the entire presentation
click
RIVER RESTORATION 2.99 Mb
To know more about the tempQsim, Please visit
the website www.tempqsim.net
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