Monitoring Lake Kinneret and its Watershed
179
Some 200,000 people live in the Israeli part of the basin, under 6 regional
authorities, and 25 local and municipal authorities. About 2-3 million tourists visit
Lake Kinneret and its basin annually, which adds significantly to the
anthropogenic pollution. The area of the basin is used primarily for agriculture:
orchards, field crops, fishponds, cowsheds, and cattle-grazing areas. This
determines the main pollutants in the watershed: nutrients, herbicides, pesticides,
and pathogenic bacteria (Berman 1998). Industrial areas in the basin are few and
small, hence they produce only a small fraction of the pollution that enters the lake
from its basin.
a
Lake Kinneret Level 1966 - 2000
-208 .---------------------------------~----------,
F
F
-- ..J -209
(f)
<
.s
-210
QI
-211
> QI
..J -212
QI
~
III
..J -213
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
o
0
66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 00
b
-208 . .-----~~~------~----------~------~----_,
..J -209 .
(f)
~
QI
>
-210 .
~ -211 .
...
QI
.... -212.
GI
C
C
::.::
-213 .
--:7.- - - _ . . .
~ -214. ~::~--4---~--~--~--_t--_+--~--_4::~::~==~
III
..J
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Fig. 2. a Water levels of Lake Kinneret 1966-2001. F marks flood years and D drought
years. b Seasonal changes in Lake Kinneret level 1995-2001. (Source: Israel Hydrological
Service). In both figures the maximum and minimum operational levels are marked by
horizontal dashed lines