Abstract
Water scarcity is one of the largest global risks in terms of potential impact over the next decade as it affects every continent is manifested by partial or no satisfaction of expressed demand, economic competition for water quantity or quality, disputes between users, irreversible depletion of groundwater, and negative impacts on the environment. Jordanian water crises are exacerbating all of the time due to increased water demands derived from high population growth, sudden fluxes of refugees, economic development, and increased frequency of drought events. These forces stress the urgent need to develop drought adaptation planning based on vulnerability mapping correlated to prolonged weather events. The objective of this research is thus to generate a drought vulnerability map with an emphasis on the severity and probability of drought occurrence, and to propose adaption measures based on groundwater sector impact chain analysis by incorporating numerical scorings for exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacities at groundwater basin and Jordanian district levels. Drought impacts on groundwater basins were investigated based on measurements of severity and probability of drought occurrence, and drought exposure over the whole country computed by means of a combined drought index (CDI) that included the precipitation drought index, temperature drought index, and vegetation drought index from 1980 to 2017. Results indicated that drought in Jordan is characterised by a temporal and spatial variability regarding probability and severity. The most prolonged drought events range from mild to moderate, with long periods of exposure that may extend for up to 13 consecutive years. Due to high groundwater basin sensitivity and low adaptive capacity, the groundwater systems in Jordan are fragile and highly vulnerable to drought impacts, being subject to either reduction in quantity and/or deterioration in quality over time. The most vulnerable groundwater basins are the Azraq and Dead Sea regions, while Disi and Yarmouk are also highly vulnerable groundwater basins based on the weak enforcement of transboundary agreements. The proposed drought risk management system based on this research includes proactive and contingency plans enabled by policies and legal frameworks at the national level to ensure sustainable water resilience and governance.
Highlights
Jordan’s water scarcity is ranked the second worst in the world, and it is a significant well-documented problem that has been exacerbated by increasing demand due to high population growth, several fluxes of refugees, increasing economic development needs, increasing frequency and severity of drought events, and climate change (MoEnv 2014)
Since drought in Jordan is a temporal and spatial phe‐ nomenon that varies by location and year of impact, it is inconvenient to measure the average combined drought index (CDI) magni‐ tudes for all years, as this would likely be around one
To indicate the exact probability of drought events in each drought category, drought prob‐ abilities were determined for each station by taking into account the number of events in each category divided by total drought events (Table 7)
Summary
Jordan’s water scarcity is ranked the second worst in the world, and it is a significant well-documented problem that has been exacerbated by increasing demand due to high population growth, several fluxes of refugees, increasing economic development needs, increasing frequency and severity of drought events, and climate change (MoEnv 2014). Among the effects noted have been a 70% loss in camel population, around a 70% reduction in cereal harvests, more than 200 springs becoming dry, and drops in groundwater level at a rate of around 2 m/year, though in some highly depleted areas, the reduction can reach 5–20 m/year, decreasing the magnitude of base flow and flood flow in the main wadis (valleys) and reducing the main dams’ storage to around half of capacity in the last 20 years These impacts have led to increases in food imports, food insecurity, increases in desertification trends, frequent deterioration of land pro‐ ductivity, increases in health problems, increased migra‐ tion from rural areas, reduction in investments, and even increased unemployment (Water Scarcity 2017; Battikhi 2013; Mohammad et al 2015; Abu-Allaban et al 2015; Al-Tabbal and Al-Zboon 2012)
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