Stream types of the Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) watershed

ABSTRACT

The Lake Kinneret watershed (LKW) is an important freshwater resource in Israel, providing a myriad of water-dependent ecosystem services. Presently, environmental monitoring of the LKW is focused mainly on water quality and quantity parameters, but neglects biology. To fill this gap, a reference-based biological monitoring scheme is being developed. This approach requires a description of stream types, i.e. clusters of streams that naturally share similar environmental conditions, to help identify type-specific reference conditions and their associated communities. Here, we present the first stream typology for the entire LKW. Using a compilation of data layers of regional climate (precipitation and air temperature), local geology (volcanic, carbonic, and organic), and geomorphology (elevation, size, and slope), we have differentiated altogether nine stream types: small and mid-sized basaltic streams (41.6 and 2% of the entire catchment, respectively), small and mid-sized calcareous streams (36.4 and 2.9%), small organic streams (6.8%), and montane streams (6.5%). In addition, due to its size, the Jordan River is divided into three section-types: the karstic upper Jordan (6.3 km), the organic section of the Hula Valley (HV) (13.1 km), and the basaltic canyon-like section (16.9 km that stretches between the HV and the Lake Kinneret). Although Israel is not obligated to comply with the EU Water Framework Directive, this work constitutes an important step towards the development of the first bioassessment scheme for the LKW.

KEYWORDS:

• Mediterranean-region
• ecological assessment
• reference conditions
• typology
• Israel

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Israel Hydrological Service for the background data. We thank Dr. Alon Rimmer (Kinneret Limnological Laboratory, IOLR) for watershed GIS layers. We are grateful to Susanne Paster (UBE) for the compilation of the GIS data and preparation of maps. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF) under Grant [G-1272-203.13/2014].