Israel is facing a mysterious and one of the rarest natural phenomena that has forced the country to shut down five of its six water desalination plants.
Israel is an arid country and it doesn’t have enough natural freshwater resources, so it relies on desalination plants for its water needs. Around 65% of its drinking water comes from these plants.
However, now a miles-long microalgae bloom in the Mediterranean Sea has forced officials to shut down the majority of plants.
A spokesperson for Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, said that only one plant was operating at its full capacity, adding, “An event of this kind has never occurred before in Israel … it was an extremely rare event.”
The bloom has spread across a large section of the Mediterranean coastline, turning the seawater unusually cloudy and making it difficult for the desalination facilities to operate normally.
Researchers believe the algae may have originated near Egypt’s Nile Delta and then travelled north with sea currents.
The tiny organisms have created a surprisingly big problem for the plants because the increased turbidity makes it difficult for their filtration systems to process seawater.
The shutdown has not so far left households without drinking water, but it has put pressure on Israel’s wider water system.
Authorities have had to rely more on other sources, including groundwater, reservoirs and the Sea of Galilee, while restrictions have also affected agricultural water supplies.
Scientists say the event is highly unusual, and its exact cause is still being examined.
There is also growing concern about whether similar events could become more common as ocean temperatures and marine conditions change.
