Abstract
Aiming atmeeting future water demands in Palestine, an optimization model is developed to help Palestinian water planners to find the optimal combination of management alternatives that meet future demands of 2040 at minimal costs. The model considers three different options:(A) utilizing existing groundwater from groundwater resources; (B) conserving water through retrofitting theexisting householdwater system; and (C) buying water from Mekorot company. A calibrated groundwater model is employed to investigate the combination of those management alternatives on groundwater recovery. The uniqueness of this study is its inclusiveness of several water demand and supply alternatives which have a direct impact on water demand and seawater intrusion recovery. Model results show several crucial outcomes: (1) a combination of supply and conservation alternatives for all districts to minimize cost;(2) retrofitting toilet and clothes washer should be given priority over retrofittinghousehold shower and faucet for all districts in order to save on water use. Furthermore, when demand is reduced by 23% in 2018, through the implementation of conservation in conjunction with buying water from Mekorot and use of groundwater, the seawater intrusion reduced from 150 to 114km(2) which indicates substantial aquifer recovery.