The “short-cut” enhanced contamination of the Gaza Strip coastal aquifer

The “short-cut” conceptual model is advanced to explain the reality of world-wide enhanced groundwater contamination, using the Gaza Strip coastal aquifer as a case study. The validity of the “short-cut” approach is supported by recent findings and “post-factum” analysis of available data concerning nonionic and anionic surfactants, chlorides, nitrates, tritium, heavy metals and organic hydrocarbons in Israel soils and groundwater. Specifically, high concentrations of anthropogenic chlorides, organic surfactants, and nitrates (>400, 0.5 and 50 ppm respectively) and rates of water vertical infiltration (0.24–180 m/day) have been found in the Gaza Strip coastal aquifer. In view of the (a) soil heterogeneity, which results in paths of preferential flow in the vadose zone; (b) presence of surfactants in the aqueous fluid which results in an enhanced groundwater contamination by solubilized and/or dispersed water insoluble organic and inorganic contaminants; and (c) reality of wetting/drying cycles of groundwater recharge, the advocated “short-cut” conceptual model is suggested to be taken into account in the construction of any realistic model of aquifer contamination.