The Israeli-Palestinian Water Distribution Revisited

Can Hydro-Entropy be a Useful Tool to Understand The Complexity of Hydropolitics?

Abstract

Against the background of a failed Kerry peace initiative, severe militarization of the Gaza
conflict in the summer of 2014 and an overall rise of tensions in the region and between
superpowers, the question is posed if and how existing and new tools can help in fostering future water
negotiations between Palestine and Israel. We reflect on the narrative using a number of concepts.
The Transboundary Waters Interaction NexuS (TWINS) which combines factors of cooperation
and conflict and hydro-politics is applied to describe the interdependency of the political context,
water governance and discourse in the case. In addition, we introduce the concept of hydroentropy
and illustrate it for the Israel-Palestine case as part of the theories of water governance
and management. Hydro-entropy can be regarded as an information tool to indicate the level
of chaos and order of a water governance system and its natural counterpart, the water system.
Hydro-entropy is described in four domains: physical-chemical, information systems, social sciences
and philosophy. By using insights from hydro-entropy, hydrolectics, hydro-psychology and
socio-hydrology, an approach such as TWINS can become even more illustrative and useful for
the parties involved in water negotiations. This positive effect is explained by the fact that these
concepts and the TWINS-approach all draw on speech act theory.