As the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael - Jewish National Fund (hereinafter: the KKL-JNF) sees Israel’s freshwater streams as a natural and scenic treasure and a vital social, tourism, historical, spiritual, and ecological resource, it will continue, together with its historic partners, to do everything in its power to rehabilitate the streams.  The KKL-JNF seeks to restore Israel’s streams for the public’s benefit and enjoyment, as well as to protect nature. The KKL-JNF sees freshwater stream rehabilitation as a national initiative and a historic project as part of its ongoing mission of redeeming the Land of Israel.

Israel’s freshwater streams have always constituted an integral part of Israel’s cultural landscape, and their rehabilitation is a modern-day expression of the mission of redeeming the Land.  Freshwater streams are sites for activities such as swimming, fishing, sailing, hiking, recreation, and a quiet place for prayer and contemplation. The KKL-JNF will strive to meet the diverse demands of the public, as well as to improve the streams’ physical, hydrological, and ecological functioning.

Each stream has its own character and properties. As such, stream rehabilitation must be founded on a detailed master plan that gives expression to each stream’s special character and physical environment, containing its ecosystem and the needs of local residents.  At the same time, there are fundamental, unifying principles that characterize all KKL-JNF rehabilitation activities.

Freshwater streams should represent a window into Israel’s recent and ancient past, and rehabilitation activity must add to the transparency of that window to the historical landscape that it reflects. According to the philosophy that has emerged over the years, the objective of freshwater stream rehabilitation is not to replicate the streams’ primeval characteristics, but rather to enable their ecosystems to recover and transform them into balanced, yet dynamic entities aided by natural processes.

Those same freshwater streams that lie in the heart of Israel’s crowded center obligate the KKL-JNF to personal and community involvement in their ongoing planning and management. The KKL-JNF sees the streams’ environments as total and complex ecosystems, the balance between whose components must be preserved. Israel’s freshwater streams play an important role as buffer zones between urban blocs, and they make an important contribution to shaping the relationship between Israel’s open spaces and built-up zones. Therefore their rehabilitation must improve, and subsequently preserve and maintain this delicate relationship. Furthermore, streams play a vital and central role in the drainage of floodwaters. Therefore, their rehabilitation must combine all of the above-stated functions in planning and implementation.

The rehabilitation of Israel’s freshwater stream requires the preservation of their Mediterranean character, manifested in the abundance of water in the winter (flooding) and the gradual lessening of water during the dry season. This seasonal hydrological model is the foundation for the unique biological dynamic of freshwater streams in our region. The creek bed is accompanied by the unique properties of the land, which is also an integral part of the stream’s ecosystem.

The stream rehabilitation process is a prolonged on, stretching over years, and its success depends upon a combination of activities and pollution prevention measure  along its drainage basin. Furthermore, it is a process that crosses borders and requires the addressing of  pollution sources along the entire drainage path, including some lying in jurisdictions that are not under Israel’s administration or sovereignty.  The KKL-JNF will take on part of these activities as per its budgetary and professional capacity, including improving water quality.

The Israel Stream Authority was established in 1985 to advance cooperation between various bodies whose objective is to bring about the successful restoration of Israel’s freshwater streams. As an organization with professional expertise and operational capabilities at its disposal, that is prepared to lead the national rehabilitation effort and cooperate with all parties involved, the KKL-JNF remains committed to joint activity with government agencies, local governments, public interest groups, scientists, and private partners to advance stream rehabilitation.

As such, a distinction must be drawn between rehabilitation of year-round streams, whose clean water flow must be restored, and seasonal streams, wherein rehabilitation must focus on natural systems. Despite the fact that seasonal streams differ in character from perennial streams, many of the KKL-JNF’s stream rehabilitation principles apply equally to seasonal streams.

The KKL-JNF’s freshwater stream restoration policy is founded on the four cornerstones of sustainable development: ecology, economics, social welfare, and inter-generational responsibility. These will be addressed as follows.

The Ecological Principle

Elimination of pollutants and subsequently ensuring the renewed flow of streams that flowed in the past are the primary tasks at the beginning of the rehabilitation process. When this has been accomplished, actions should be taken to improve the landscape and recreational options along the stream’s banks. These objectives dictate the KKL-JNF’s restoration philosophy and priorities.

While landscape and scenery improvement along the banks is a vital part of the rehabilitation process, ultimately, such activity is secondary in importance to treating the stream itself and to the abating of pollution sources that must take place in the initial stages of rehabilitation.

The quality of water in the streams must be based on chemical, physical, and biological standards derived from the stream’s ecological needs, its planned uses, and its carrying capacity. The KKL-JNF will act to ensure meticulous adherence to these standards in those stretches of stream that are sensitive and require special ecological conditions, enabling the flow of clean water and the support of rare species’ habitats.

Restoration activities shall include habitat improvement, for instance riffles in areas where underwater vegetation grows that protrudes above the surface, together with maximum use of indigenous species.   Moreover, springs constitute a special component along the streams, and likewise require special treatment in ongoing planning and management.

The KKL-JNF strives to restore to the streams water whose properties are as similar as possible to that which flowed there in the past. This effort has far-reaching ecological implications involving the distinctions between various habitats. Estuaries, for example, constitute particularly rich ecosystems that are harmed when the natural balance between fresh water and saltwater is disturbed.

Beyond their function as homes to aquatic ecosystems, freshwater streams constitute a water source for land animals. Therefore, the streams’ roles are particularly vital as natural ecological corridors. The KKL-JNF will cooperate with all governmental agencies to ensure that rehabilitation plans will strengthen stream ecosystems and preserve the continuity of natural ecological corridors.

The KKL-JNF supports, to the extent possible, utilization of water in the down stream segments enabling maximum flow along most stretches of the stream stream.  In addition, the agitation of water in the upstream segments facilitating its natural purification should enable multiple use of water that is allocated for flow in the streams.

Regarding tourist attractions along streams, the KKL-JNF prefers dispersed development in “patches” along the stream corridor as opposed to uniform and continuous development. The patch development model is eminently suitable to streams and enables the flora and fauna therein to cope with localized, intensive human impact.

Regarding water flow along the streams’ banks, the KKL-JNF prefers diverse vegetation species compatible with the environment, that are flood-resistant and that support local fauna. Examples of these include acacia, oleander, chaste tree, and mila. In certain stretches along the stream banks, the KKL-JNF will prioritize new plantings to facilitate the improvement of recreation sites. Planning of the routing of the flow must attempt to reflect the stream’s natural pathway, thereby minimizing possible harm to the ecosystem, flora, and fauna throughout.

The Economic Principle

Stream rehabilitation has positive economic implications, albeit these take time to be realized and reach fruition. Rehabilitated streams offer potential hubs for tourism-based economic initiative. The advantages of these and other effects, such as improvement of adjacent property values, reinforcement of the tourism, leisure, and recreation industries, and flood prevention, are part of the economic returns associated with the streams’ rehabilitation.

Stream rehabilitation makes a formidable contribution to Israel’s tourism infrastructure. Some of Israel’s freshwater streams serve as venues for historical and / or religious events, and thereby have the potential for becoming first-order international tourist sites. As such, their rehabilitation directly strengthens Israel’s tourism industry and creates important attractions for both domestic and international tourism.

In light of Israel’s unstable rainfall regime, the economic and human damage caused by flooding is considerable. If the climatic forecasts of a rise in the intensity of Israel’s rains as a result of global warming prove true, flood damage in the future could grow even worse. The KKL-JNF shall ascertain that every stream restoration plan relates to reducing flood damage, and shall ensure the contiguity of monitored channel and water flow in stretches where flooding has occurred in the past. Any rehabilitation plan must integrate drainage needs and include a detailed maintenance plan that includes monitoring and testing.

The KKL-JNF will treat upper drainage basins through the planting of forest trees and vegetation whose role will be the intake of runoff, thus minimizing the danger of flooding and preventing the need for costly drainage and channeling work. Other benefits will accrue from the use of landscape and scenery in the forests that lie above the streams’ drainage basins. The KKL-JNF will strive to use the entire the watershed in its drainage strategy, together with its efforts to improve groundwater reserves.

As a matter of principle, the KKL-JNF opposes quarrying activity along streams.

In recent years, despite the rise in public awareness and that of decision-makers regarding the importance of stream rehabilitation, the issue has not progressed as it should have, due to chronic budget problems. The KKL-JNF supports the creation of new funding mechanisms and foundations that shall ensure restoration activity as well as ongoing maintenance, testing, and monitoring. Similar to Israel’s Quarry Rehabilitation Fund, it is important to ensure that development activity that exacerbates water pollution or that is based on water resource exploitation is calculated into restoration budgets in the form of an environmental compensation fee or taxation items.

The Social Principle

Freshwater streams play a central role in the shaping of the local identity and culture of entire regions. As such, KKL-JNF activities are intended to open up expanses along the streams to the public as a main artery of open spaces that enable urban dwellers unmediated contact with nature as a place of refuge from the urban environment. Consistent with this objective, the KKL-JNF shall assist in the establishment of parks along the banks of streams that run through urban areas in order to provide public space for leisure-time recreational pursuits.

Throughout the planning of stream restoration and the implementation of the master plan, the KKL-JNF shall consult proactively with local governments, public action groups, and even interested individuals regarding the well-being of the stream in question. This consultation will be done in order to adapt the rehabilitation plans to local visions and desires. In addition, the KKL-JNF will consult with experts in freshwater ecology.

Streams, like forests, belong to the people of Israel. Consistent with traditional policy that opens Israel’s forests and other sites to the public for free, the KKL-JNF shall ensure that access to streams, including adjacent future recreational sites, shall bear no entry charge.

Hiking along rivers and streams has been a rejuvenating experience since ancient times, and apparently is imprinted in our collective consciousness. Stream restoration and the establishment of walking trails along them create new hiking routes in a crowded country where expansion of accessible recreation sites is sorely needed.

The KKL-JNF will advance the principle of contiguity in the recreational use of streams, i.e., along the streams, as far as possible, free public movement shall be upheld on both short and long routes, linear and circular, that serve the hiking public in all its forms, from “weekenders” to serious hikers. Concurrently, the KKL-JNF will act to build separate trails for the growing cycling population. In addition, along the streams, wheelchair-friendly sidewalks will be built, taking into account the slope in choosing the type of pavement.

The stream rehabilitation process represents a unique public relations and educational opportunity. Via the process, previously abstract messages can be made more tangible on the topics of basic hydro-ecology, abatement of environmental hazards and environmental ethics. The KKL-JNF shall integrate these messages into tours conducted for its supporters and in its ongoing educational and public relations activity. In this sphere, the importance of providing quality water to streams and the legitimacy of nature as a water consumer alongside agriculture, drinking water, and home use, will be emphasized.

The KKL-JNF will mobilize the members of its KKL-JNF Friends group, its youth group (“hugei siyur”), its Afforestation and Community Division, and its Education Department in the public campaign on behalf stream rehabilitation, to bring the public closer to Israel’s stream and to get involved in various restoration activities, including pollution prevention.

A considerable part of restoration activities and stream maintenance work can be performed by both public and private parties. As such the KKL-JNF shall mobilize the public to work on behalf of its streams. The KKL-JNF shall encourage the partnership of the public in the rehabilitation process and shall establish an Adopt-A-Stream program for schools, community centers, and of course other groups with a natural connection such as its youth movement and KKL-JNF Friends group.

Inter-generational responsibility

Before the closure and diversion of springs and the reduction surface water flow by pumping, most of the water that flowed in Israel’s freshwater streams was used by the natural forces alone. The KKL-JNF sees the supply of quality water to nature as a “settling of accounts” with Israel’s creatures and natural systems and ensuring a healthy ecosystem for future generations.

The establishment of reservoirs and the diversion of water to streams are among the required activities for restoring the flow to perennial streams.  As such, the KKL-JNF has been given the opportunity to stipulate the diversion of some of the water held in the reservoirs it established to streams.  The building of reservoirs should therefore be seen as an infrastructure for the future supply of water to streams that will serve generations to come.

The foundation for any master plan for freshwater streams must be a policy that perceives restoration progressing independently via natural processes, with minimal human intervention. At the same time, in light of the population density in areas adjacent to streams, and the constant human impact on streams, ongoing management, monitoring, and evaluation must be part of any rehabilitation plan. The KKL-JNF will take on these activities, together with the objective of reducing to a minimum human intervention in maintenance, in order to reduce the burden on future generations and for the sake of the long-term health of Israel’s ecosystem.

The KKL-JNF champions the drafting of a comprehensive master plan for the country’s stream basins, as an essential prerequisite for rehabilitation activity. Such plans must be drafted with the top experts from all relevant scientific, conservation, and economic fields, and must undergo meticulous review, as well as being available for public review and comment. In fact, master plans of this type are already at various stages of drafting and implementation for every stream in Israel, and the KKL-JNF supports their progress.

A comprehensive plan for ensuring water quality in freshwater streams must grapple with site-specific pollution sources such as sewage, industrial runoff, and livestock runoff, as well as non-point sources such as agricultural discharges and contamination, urban runoff, and quarrying. As such, the activities required for rehabilitation are varied, and include land stabilization through modifying the agricultural practices and upgrading urban sewage treatment.

The KKL-JNF views positively the establishment of environmentally friendly systems that aid freshwater stream rehabilitation, such as “green basins”, and will act to strengthen them.

A logical assignment of roles to parties engaged in freshwater stream rehabilitation requires professionalization and the exploitation of relative strengths and advantages. The broad profile of polluters and pollutants obligates the KKL-JNF, in the context of its involvement in restoration processes, to relate to a broader range of polluters and pollutants than it has in the past.

In order to follow up on the progress of the rehabilitation process, as well as prevent a worsening of the parameters in the streams, the in-stream conditions must be monitored constantly. This monitoring, which constitutes an essential part of any master plan, includes testing the physical and biological conditions of the stream, the chemical, physical, and biological parameters of its water quality, and mapping the potential pollution sources in its drainage basin. The KKL-JNF will direct research activity aimed at strengthening the existing information infrastructure about streams, and will act to support studies aimed at drawing conclusions from cumulative rehabilitation experience.

Each stream needs an accountable party or agency in charge of it, who is obligated to manage it and maintain its health; ideally this party will be local. Therefore, the KKL-JNF supports the establishment of more statutory Stream Authorities as local governmental agencies authorized to ensure each stream’s ongoing maintenance, on the condition that such authorities have the sufficient financial means to implement the tasks assigned to them.

The KKL-JNF, as the steward of lands and responsible for their care and maintenance, sees itself as a partner of the stream authorities, drainage authorities, and every local actor that takes upon itself the responsibility for the management of streams. The KKL-JNF shall join freshwater stream rehabilitation and maintenance efforts nationwide, especially involving stretches of stream included in National Outline Plan no. 22 for Forestry, and any other stretches that shall be designated as specifically its jurisdiction. KKL-JNF activities shall focus on these stretches that shall be implemented in the context of the comprehensive, planned vision for the stream and its drainage basin.