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Revisiting historical sea level elevation in Israel from the British Mandate period through the present day (1922–2017)

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Abstract

Long-term series of reliable sea level (SL) data are essential for understanding the trends and causes of SL changes, for furthering knowledge about the effects of current climate change and for predicting future SL evolution. This study aims to extend the SL time series of measurements along the Israeli Mediterranean coastline by revisiting historical benchmarks (BM) along the Israeli coast, first determined by the British Survey of Palestine (SOP) at 1922 and later by the Survey of Israel (SOI) in 1995. By identifying and remeasuring the historical BM from Gaza to Imera (1922) and in Jaffa (1936), this study reconstructs the historical mean sea level (MSL), anchoring it to the present national height network, and extending the SL time series of equipped measurements along the Israeli coastline. Accordingly, the study provides long-term SL trends for the Levantine Basin. The long-term SL time series reveals an increasing trend in the 1920s, which moderates during the 1930s, a decreasing trend from the 1960s to the 1990s, and a rapid increasing trend in the 1990s. As a result, it can be deduced that the historical datum can reflect the historical MSL of its period, extend the long-term SL data and by that indicate for environmental changes. Based on long-term SL data (1956–2016) it can be determined that the MSL of Israel is 0.082 m relative to the 1995 Israeli datum.

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https://www.mapi.gov.il/Research/sea_level/info/Pages/seaLvlInfo.aspx

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Photo: Eilat Toker, June 2017

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Data availability statement (DAS)

All research data are in SOI archives for reference.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded through the Smaller-Winnikow Scholarship Fund in cooperation with the Keren Keyemet L’Israel (Jewish National Fund—JNF) 2015, and in addition, generous support and cooperation were provided by The Porter School of Environmental Studies 2014-2018. The authors wish to thank Kibbutzim and Beit-Berl Colleges for the financial support. The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their precise comments which helped improve this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts, Mordechai Namir Rd 149, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

    Eilat Toker

  2. Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Faculty of Exact Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Eilat Toker

  3. Institute of Archaeology of Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Moshe Fischer

  4. Survey of Israel, Lincoln St 1, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

    Yossi Melzer

  5. Beit Berl College, Beit Berl, 44905, Israel

    Oded Potchter

  6. Department of Geography and Human Environment, Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Faculty of Exact Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Oded Potchter

Authors
  1. Eilat Toker
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  2. Moshe Fischer
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  3. Yossi Melzer
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  4. Oded Potchter
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Contributions

E.T. designed the research, collected, and analyzed historical documents, maps and photographs from the SOI archive; Y.M. provided the data, made data control, and was in charge for the geodetic field measurements; M.F. and O.P. supervised the historical data; E.T., wrote the paper; O.P., and M.F. were supervised of the complete writing. The study was conducted in the climate and environment laboratory under the management of O.P.

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Correspondence to Eilat Toker.

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Toker, E., Fischer, M., Melzer, Y. et al. Revisiting historical sea level elevation in Israel from the British Mandate period through the present day (1922–2017). J Geod 94, 104 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-020-01430-3

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