District Office - South

The southern district extends from Ashdod at the northern edge to Eilat in the south, and is the largest of Israel's districts. The area of the district is approximately 14,000 square kms and approximately 1,244,00 residents live there. The district coordinates most of the industrial activity in Israel, especially the heavy industry.
Among the district's fields are: chemical and petro-chemical industries, industries with the potential to risk the environment, including air pollution, sewage, hazardous waste and soil pollution. Most of the waste landfill fields are located in the Southern District. The Southern District contains broad agricultural fields (that produce large amounts of untreated waste), large fields of nature reserves and open spaces, IDF bases and training fields, in addition to industrial and constructional quarrying and mining sites.

• Industry
  42% of the A factories that have an essential environmental impact on the country operate in this district. There are 169 factories, including approximately 20 "mega factories" (approximately 80% of the total "mega factories" in the country) that consume special supervision and licensing resources. In addition, approximately 50% of the A level SEVESO factories operate in the district (factories that the amount of hazardous substances in them is more than the amount stated in the European Directive's annex.
  The district contains 18 large powerplants that require air emissions permits, which produce approximately 60% of the electricity production in Israel. In addition, the district supervises 47% of the emissions permits, according to the Clean Air Law, and approximately 1,400 toxin permits.
  The industrial burden in the Southern District will increase in the upcoming years with completing the establishment of the ammonium factories in Mishor Rotem and the advancement of the trend of copying the military industry and the heavy industry from the Haifa Gulf to the Negev.
• Urban waste
  Out of 15,000 tons of waste produced in Israel per day, more than 10,000 tons of waste are buried in the Southern District in three main site (Dudaim, Ganei Hadas and Afa) and in several local sites (Zohar, Diya and Namerah).
• Agricultural waste
  The Southern District is full of agricultural activities and grow approximately 50% of the vegetables consumed in Israel, as a result of the intense agricultural activities, approximately 350,000 tons of agricultural plant waste are created, in addition to approximately 1.5 million cubic meters of animal waste, without proper treatment. The waste is often burned by the farmers and causes harm to the health of the residents, and often accumulates in an unregulated way, which prevents its treatment.
• Pirate waste hazards in open spaces
  There is a large number of unregulated waste hazards in open spaces in the Southern District. The large spaces of the Negev "attract" waste criminals from across the country, on their way to the landfill sites in the South. Waste that is collected from Central Israel is disposed of every night in open spaces in the Negev. The disposed waste includes mostly building waste, but also junk, trimmings and often also urban waste.
• The Bedouin society in the Negev
  Current to 2022, approximately 285,000 Bedouin residents live in the Negev, some of which live in settlements that were built by the State or settlements that were recognized by the State, and some live in diaspora in illegal settlements and do not receive services such as electricity, waste disposal, sewage treatment, and waste is disposed of and burnt in many settlements. All the Bedouin authorities are at the lowest rank (1) according to the financial social measurement of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The capabilities of these authorities in the environmental field are limited.
• Planning
  Despite the large size of the District, there is an ongoing conflict between protecting the open spaces and nature and views' values and development initiatives, and especially national infrastructures such as powerplants, energy facilities, railroads, roads, national waste facilities, new settlements, quarrying and mining areas, industry, training areas and army camps, agricultural development, regulating settlements in the Bedouin diaspora.
  Most of the open spaces in Israel and infrastructural facilities are in the areas of the Southern District. An additional prominent infrastructure over the past few years is underground photo-volt facilities, that on the one hand produce renewable energies, but on the other hand harm open spaces and biodiversity. Most of the nature reserves are located in the South (5 million dunam out of a total of 5.6 million dunam in the whole country), but also most of the national infrastructures in Israel are currently located in the South. The district is subject to a lot of development pressure, especially in Nafat Ashkelon.
  Current planning matters: mining phosphates in the Barir field; planning waste facilities in the South based on the ministry's national policy; promoting a master plan for ecological corridors; the Ministry of Construction and Housing's plan for construction in H̱olot Ashdod; development works in Eilat's beaches; planning new settlements in light of the continuity of governmental decisions regarding the matter.