Management Improvement of the Agmon Wetlands System (Hula Valley, Israel) Aimed at the Enhancement of Bird Populations and Kinneret Protection

Abstract

An ecological project is proposed for the system of Lake Agmon (Hula Valley, Israel). The project indicates a change of the original concept of the Hula Project construction. Practically Lake Agmon system was found to remove negligible amounts of Nitrogen and Phosphorus from the Lake Kinneret budget. Moreover, Lake Kinneret ecosystem has undergone limnological changes. The P limited Kinneret system is currently N limited. Therefore reduction of P and enhancement of N from the Hula Valley outflow might be beneficial to the Kinneret ecosystem. Currently, the TN concentration in the Agmon outflow is lower than in its inflow and vice versa for P. Consequently, this paper recommends conveying peat soil drained waters, the Agmon inflow, directly to Lake Kinneret instead of letting the waters flow through Lake Agmon. Nitrogen reduction in Lake Agmon is due to de-nitrification and sedimentation and P increase is due to degradation of aquatic vegetation. Additional benefit of this change is the predicted improvement of the new infrastructure for the activity of aquatic birds aimed at eco-tourism improvement.