Israel has gone through one of the driest winters in its history, but despite the lean rainy season, the government has suspended a long-standing campaign to conserve water.
The familiar public messages during recent years of drought, often showing images of parched earth, have disappeared from television, despite weeks of balmy weather with record low rainfalls in some areas.
The level of the Sea of Galilee, the country's natural water reservoir, is no longer closely tracked in news reports or the subject of anxious national discussion.
The reason: Israel has in recent years achieved a quiet water revolution through desalination.
With four plants currently in operation, all built since 2005, and a fifth slated to go into service this year, Israel is meeting much of its water needs by purifying seawater from the Mediterranean.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Some 80 per cent of domestic water use in Israeli cities comes from desalinated water, according to Israeli officials.
"There's no water problem because of the desalination," said Hila Gil, director of the desalination division in the Israel Water Authority.
"The problem is no longer on the agenda."
The struggle over scarce water resources has fuelled conflict between Israel and its neighbours, but the country is now finding itself increasingly self-sufficient after years of dependency on rainfall and subterranean aquifers.
Israel's experience might also offer some important lessons, or at least contrast, for states like California which is now gripped by drought.
With the all-important snow pack averaging only 26 per cent of normal, California has struggled with desalination efforts in the past.
At present, more than a dozen desalination projects are at various stages of planning in the state and the California Department of Water Resources will be announcing a new round of desalination grants in May.
However, one big plant built two decades ago near Santa Barbara, in the final years of an earlier drought, is now dormant and officials estimate it would cost $US20 million ($A22 million) or more to reactivate it.
Israel's efforts to solve its water shortage haven't ended with desalination. The country treats and recycles more than 80 per cent of its waste water, using it primarily for agriculture, making it a world leader in that field.
By easing its own water crunch, experts say, Israel could free up more of the precious resource in a possible peace agreement with the Palestinians.
