Aquaponic System

Climate change and agriculture are two interrelated processes where changes in temperature, rainfall, extreme climatic fluctuations, changes in pests and diseases, changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and near-surface ozone concentrations, changes in the nutritional quality of some foods and changes in the surface level of the sea, all these changes affect of the agricultural. Climate change affects agriculture. These impacts appear unevenly across the world, negatively impacting crop production and increasing the risk of food insecurity for some vulnerable groups.

As a result of the aforementioned factors, many countries, institutions and farmers were interested in searching for solutions to overcome the factors that affect food security. Research and experiments began focusing on modern agricultural patterns that preserve and enhance agricultural production in light of all climatic changes. One of those patterns or models is soilless agriculture and agriculture, Isolated system or Aquaponic system.

Within the urban system, there are many mixed farming systems in which two or more of the plant production and livestock farming systems are combined together. Aquaponic is another urban farming system. It is similar to the hydroponic in which vegetables are grown without soil but with a nutrient solution, by connecting the system to a fish tank/farm. The vegetables are planted in tubs filled with rocks and connected to nutrient-rich wastewater from the fish tanks. This eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers for plant growth. Aquaponic is very environmentally friendly as it allows for the removal of most environmental factors impairing soil root growth (soil compaction, shortage of water, insufficient soil aeration and soil temps). These systems are not spread widely in the Gaza Strip. Many NGOs/INGOs have conducted a test rig for this system to check its feasibility, however, the systems were not replicated on a commercial scale nor within a humanitarian response setting.

In order for the experiment to be more realistic and touch the agricultural reality in the Gaza Strip, it was necessary to study all the different technical and practical aspects that would affect the application of the Aquaponic system, as field visits were conducted to some agricultural areas and meetings were held with a group of farmers to find out the problems they face in production. The aim is to select the most appropriate areas and the ones most in need of such systems.

Gaza Think Tank

Based on the humanitarian needs that were measured through our interventions under the Saving live teams, we found a grave need for a Humanitarian Think Tank to act like an innovation information hub to connect university students, researchers, volunteers, peer INGOs and utilize technology together to tackle different sectors and main key factors in each sector to produce researches, tools, apps, mechanisms and offer solutions. This includes the production of policy and advocacy interactive products to support the presentation and dissemination of the findings. This will help with preparedness, response to crisis (Covid, floods, escalations, aid efficiency, preparedness), support our humanitarian interventions and the implementation of the projects’ activities by having enough data for needs assessment and risk assessment, etc.

Agricultural Water Wells and Solar Energy Adaptation

In Gaza, the humanitarian conditions remain to be challenging to the population, in particular the vulnerable communities, livelihood groups, and households. During the reporting period, updated data on food security was released through the Socio-economic and Food Security Survey (data of 2020) indicating that the share of severely food insecure householders (HHs) reached 40.7%, increasing by 4.9% since 2018 in Gaza. This brings the total number of HHs experiencing severe or moderate food insecurity to 64.4%. Following the hostilities, the poverty rate in Gaza increased from 50% to 59.3%. The slow and stagnant recovery and reconstruction process post-May has also been triggering additional risks facing the Palestinian population, a situation that imposes additional challenges in responding to the needs.

As a part of its emergency response to the humanitarian crisis that resulted from the hostilities in May that came on top of the existing crisis from the covid-19 pandemic and the 16 years of blockade, Oxfam implemented multiple emergency response activities supporting access to basic needs and to basic livelihood recovery.

This work was started by repairing traditional power installations and distribution networks for energy efficiency and installing solar panels connected to new water well pumps. The rehabilitation and maintenance provided to the targeted wells enhanced farmers’ ability to access sustainable water sources for irrigation purposes. In addition, solar energy is better than a diesel generator, which consider is very expensive for farmers, and it was ensured that water is available at any time through the provision of the solar power system with lower costs of fuel that are incurred usually during power cuts.

HYBRID SOLAR SYSTEM FOR PRODUCING HOT/COLD DESALINATED WATER AND GENERATING ELECTRICITY

The protracted water and electricity crises in Gaza are the driving force behind finding an innovative, smart, and decentralized system that can introduce – even partially – a solution, the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), for the two interconnected problems, i.e., electricity shortage and water deficit. Accordingly, this project was implemented by UCAS in close coordination with Oxfam in 2019. The implementation has been divided into several phases, starting from reviewing different works achieved in the same regard and ending with implementing on-site the water desalination system. The project included designing and installing a prototype/pilot purification unit or system that uses solar radiation to produce fresh/desalinated home-use water. The work within this project concentrates on the technology of LFR. In this project, LFRs are constructed from long thin segments of mirrors (reflectors) which work on the Fresnel principle. The concentrated sunlight is received on a central linear absorber (receiver) which contains the working fluid and converts the reflected solar energy into thermal one.