Aerial photographs shot by a drone operated by Rahaf, a company specializing in photography and documentation projects from the air, show the dreaded “Kinneret Island,” which appears in Israel’s northern lake whenever the dry season claims significant portions of the lake’s water.
According to Pinhas Green, Deputy CEO of the Kinneret Authority, “since the beginning of summer the Kinneret level has gone down by 40 inches, placing it at 14.76 inches below the lowest red line. The level is very low. The drought arrived early this year. … We should all pray for an exceptionally rainy winter.”
To be full, the Kinneret is currently missing 180 inches (38 ft.).
Israel transports water from Lake Kinneret, or the Sea of Galilee, to the population centers of Israel, as well as to Jordan. The lake supplies only about 10% of Israel’s drinking water needs, but under the terms of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty, Israel also supplies 50,000,000 cubic meters (1,765,733,336 cubic feet) of water annually from the lake to Jordan. In recent years the Israeli government has made extensive investments in water reclamation and desalination infrastructure in the country. This has allowed it to significantly reduce the amount of water pumped from the lake annually in an effort to restore and improve its ecological environment, as well as respond to some of the most extreme drought conditions in hundreds of years which the lake’s intake basin has frequently experienced since 1998.
It is expected that in 2016 only about 25,000,000 cubic meters (880,000,000 cubic feet) of water will be drawn from the lake for Israeli domestic consumption.
Jordan, on the other hand (the folks who gave you the Islamic Waqf on Temple Mount), which hasn’t made an investment in water preservation, will continue to receive more than a billion and a half cubic feet of water every year.