Partner 6. Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University (BGU), Israel.

The Institute for Desert Research is part of Ben-Gurion University (BGU), located in Beer-Sheva, in the southern part of Israel. There are around 400 Professors and a total of around 1000 senior research/teaching faculty. There are around 13,000 students at BGU, in a broad range of areas including  liberal arts, humanities, natural  sciences, engineering, communication and others.

Around 60 senior  researchers and additional 80 administrative and technical workers belong to the Institute for Desert Research. Research areas cover typical topics related to arid regions such as water resources, environemental control, meteorology, solar energy, social studies, microbiology, runoff framing, ecology, agrobiology and algal research . Research activities are based on fund raising from national and international resources.

The leader of the Israeli group is prof. Gideon Oron. A graduate (B.Sc.: 1962-1967; M.Sc.: 1967-1969: and D.Sc.: 1972-1975) of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, has conducted research on wastewater treatment, effluent reuse, management modeling; irrigation, aquaculture, environmental systems. He has over 100 publications in manuals, technical journals, and conference proceeding.

-          Brimberg, J., A. Mehrez,  and G. Oron,  An integrated model  for the development of marginal water sources in  the Negev Desert. European Journal of Operations Research.  Vol. 81, 1995, pp. 35-49.

-          Oron, G., M. Goemans, Y. Manor, and J. Feyen. Poliovirus distribution in the soil-plant system under subsurface drip irrigation of  secondary wastewater.  Water  Research, Vol. 29,  No, 4,  1995,  pp. 1069-1078 .

-          Oron, G.- Management modeling of integrative wastewater treatment and reuse systems. Water Science Technology, Vol. 33 , No. 10-11,  1996, pp. 95-105  .

-          Oron, G. The soil as a complementary treatment component for simultaneous wastewater disposal and reuse. Water Science Technology, Vol. 34 , No. 11 , 1996, pp. 243-252 .

-          Persia, C., G. Oron, A. Mehrez.  Optimal operation of regional system with diverse water quality sources. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, ASCE, Vol. 123, No. 2, March/April 1997, pp. 105-115 [Price of best year paper by the American Society of Civil Engineering in the area of Water Resources Planning and Management] .

In addition there will be graduate students working on the project. One of them is Leonid Gillerman, that is conducting his graduate research on migration of low quality waters in the soil along with the dissolved constituents movement.

-          Oron, G., C. Campos, L. Gillerman, and M. Salgot. Wastewater treatment, renovation and reuse for agricultural irrigation in small communities. Agricultural Water Management, Vol. 38, 223-234, 1999.

-          Oron, G., Y. DeMalach, L. Gillerman, I. David, and V. P. Rao. Improved saline water use under subsurface drip irrigation. Agricultural Water Management, Vol. 39, 19-33, 1999.