Nahal Zin

Nahal Zin
Location
State	Israel
Region	Negev

Nahal Zin (in Hebrew:נחל צין Arabic: Wadi al-Fikra) is one of the largest intermittent streams in the Negev, and it is commonly seen as the border between the northern and central Negev. The stream flows from the Plain of the Winds north of the Ramon Crater, passes south and at the foot of the Ben-Gurion Institute, and continues from there. In the northern Arava, the stream is dammed by an earthen embankment, flows into the drainage systems of the Dead Sea Works, and is diverted to the northern basin of the Dead Sea. The length of the stream is about 120 kilometers, and it is the second largest intermittent stream in Israel after Nahal Paran.^[1][2]

Nahal Zin has several names in Arabic, a different name for each section. The first, Wadi Nafha, flows from the high Negev mountain area to the point where the wadi turns 90 degrees east (after the Nabatean city of Avdat). The second part is called Wadi Mora after Ein Mora (the bitter spring named for its brackish waters), the lowest spring in the series of springs in the wadi's gorge (after Ein Ma'arif and Ein Avdat). The third part is Wadi Fukra, which flows from the canyon of Ein Avdat to the Dead Sea (the name means the poor stream, due to the scarcity of grazing food and the few acacia trees in the wadi).^[2]

About 2 km north of the entrance to the Ein Avdat National Park, Nahal Zin forms a 'knee' where the stream turns at a right angle from north to east. The 'knee' was formed by ancient stream capture activity, where Nahal Zin captured the waters of an ancient and large stream that flowed before the formation of the Syrian-African Rift from the Edom Mountains westward to the Mediterranean Sea.

On average, about four flash floods occur annually in Nahal Zin. In 2004, a peak flow rate of 1,280 cubic meters per second was measured in the stream, the highest in Israel. In January 2010, this record was broken in Nahal Nitzana, where a flow rate of 1,420 cubic meters per second was measured. In 2007, part of the Nahal Zin channel and the erosion cliffs on both banks were declared a national park named "Sculpture Garden".^[3]