Betweet Two Seas

WIZO

Project idea

Most national and international problem-solving efforts of governmental and non-governmental organizations focus on only one pillar at a time.
environmental pillar, economic growth, social sustainability like war reduction and justice.
The United Nations attempts to strengthen all three pillars, but due to its consensual decision-making process and small budget has minor impact. The United Nations focuses mostly on the economic pillar, since economic growth is what most of its members want most, especially developing nations.
No powerful international organization is working on the sustainability problem as a whole, which would include all three pillars.
Weakness in the other pillars can directly weaken the environmental pillar. Many nations and states are cutting back or postponing stricter environmental laws or investment, since their budgets are running deficits.
If the Great Recession grew substantially worse and morphed into another Great Depression, you would expect the environmental pillar would get severely less attention, since eating now is a priority over saving the environment.
The social pillar is critical too. Once a war breaks out environmental sustainability has zero priority. If a nation lives in dire poverty, the environment is pillaged with little thought for the future.
Therefore, solutions to the sustainability problem must include making all three pillars sustainable.

Project description

Israel has 2 major metropolitan areas. Haifa in the north, Tel-Aviv metropolitan in the center while the south has Be’er-sheba considered as a Metropolitan of the Negev but doesn’t work as one.
For years, many complains have been made against the government of Israel regarding the neglect of the Negev and its population, which is reflected in the shortage of workplaces and the neglect of infrastructure in the area, as opposed to the center and the north of the country, as well as the construction of development towns – towns with population of low socioeconomic status.
In the recent years, the state of Israel has begun to implement many plans to connect the Negev to the rest of the country by providing a special status to the development towns, building a railway that will enable rapid passage from the Negev to the center of the country.

We propose a development of a strong and significant economy by establishing a port in the northern part of Gaza and transferring a water channel that runs from the Mediterranean Sea through the Negev and runs under the Hebron heights to the Dead Sea.
The port and factories along the canal will offer new jobs in the Negev and strengthen the economy of Gaza and Israel simultaneously, lead to cooperation and development of the economy and hopefully improve the political situation in the region.
The Dead Sea is in a process of continuous contraction in the current century for two main reasons: exploitation of the water sources of the sea and the streams flowing to it and the industrial activity of the Dead Sea Works in the southern part.
The evaporation ponds of the Dead Sea Works brought about an additional drop in the water level of the sea and in fact turned the southern basin of the Dead Sea into a pool of pools.
By the Dead Sea we plan on locating desalination factories and hydroelectric power plant for the Rehabilitation of the Dead Sea, a very important site for Jordan and Israel.
The canal that we run from Gaza to the dead sea runs along many cities and areas, from that canal we run secondary canals that go through a city to contribute ecologically, socially and economically.
We took the city of Netivot as a case study and ran a canal through the city.
Netivot is a young city, built in the 50’s and has a natural park at the northern part of the city.
We created a park at the southern part of the city, parallel to the natural park at the North. The park goes from the train station of the city at the west to the main entrance to the city by transport at the east. the new park is a collaboration of office buildings and residential.
The entrance to the city has an old and neglected building which we reserved and made into a local market place that will attract the citizens since the current market isn’t working as planned and is wretched.
We closed main roads and left only few main axes for private and public transportation which go through all the city, the city will be run by bicycles.
We planned the city in a way where every area has a park, schools and public services while the north area will be developed as a business, offices and more factories.
All the plan is making it easier to get the service the private citizen needs. The residents are currently 4 floors Hight. We believe in more density of the buildings; we build between the local buildings and the ones that already exist will have an addition of 2 floors.
We had a main idea to make a few collaborations, nature with business area, nature with residential area and nature with manufactory.

Technical information

The canal running through the city, beside using the water at the south for manufactory, is also good for the city itself, the water flowing through the city reduces the Urban heat island which is a scientifically warmer area than its surrounding rural areas dues to human activity.