Water Resources In Jordan Research Articles

Water Resources in Jordan: A Review of Current Challenges and Future Opportunities

Jordan is facing significant challenges related to water scarcity, including overexploitation of groundwater, increasing demand, and wasteful practices. Despite efforts to manage water resources, inadequate planning has resulted in ongoing water security concerns and deteriorating water quantity and quality. To address water stress, Jordan has implemented measures such as desalination, dam construction, and water conservation initiatives. However, water stress remains high, necessitating a comprehensive strategy that includes short-term demand-side interventions and long-term supply-side reforms. Financial and governance challenges hinder the implementation of these measures, requiring private investment and coordination among stakeholders. This paper provides a comprehensive review of Jordan’s water resources, analyzing current trends, challenges, and opportunities. The aim is to offer insight into the current situation and propose sustainable management approaches. The findings will be valuable for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders working towards addressing Jordan’s complex water challenges and securing a sustainable water future for its citizens.

Assessing of drinking water quality in Al-karak province in central Jordan; based on water saturation indices

Jordan is renowned for having limited water resources. The demand for water will increasing rapidly as the country's population grows and the number of refugees increases. In order to maintain the highest water quality for consumers, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation and other governmental agencies are striving to manage Jordan's water resources through continuous monitoring. The main objective was to evaluate the drinking water quality at storage mixing tanks at Al-Karak province, besides, assessing its suitability for safe consumption. The investigation scheme was to monitor Al-Karak's drinking water system for three successive months. The fourteen principal storage tanks for the water distribution system in the area of investigation were sampled. The pH, electrical conductivity (EC), major cations, major anions, total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH), turbidity, total alkalinity (TA), and heavy metals were measured. The scaling and originality of the dissolved salt elements in the collected water samples and geochemical processes were examined using Piper and Durov diagrams. The indices used in all samples over the period of investigation, are Langelier Saturation Index (LSI), Ryznar Stability Index (RSI), Aggressive Index (AI), Puckorius Scaling Index (PSI), and Water Quality Index (WQI). The results showed that scale development is high in all storage tanks, as the water is calcium carbonate supersaturated, evident from LSI values that ranges 0.5–2. According to the range of RSI values (5.91–6.6), all water tanks are resistant to corrosion. Throughout the period of study (October–December), the estimated WQIs of all samples upon average were found to be less than 50, indicating excellent water quality. Finally, the collected water samples are analyzed and found to be within the acceptable levels of Jordan's drinking water standards.

A fuzzy based model for rainfall prediction

Of all the current challenges faced by Jordan, the most severe is the inadequacy of the water supply. The country is almost entirely reliant on rainfall, whose pattern, however, is highly variable in terms of its frequency, regularity, and quantity. Evidently, therefore, the ability to anticipate rainfall accurately is critically important for the effective planning and management of water resources in Jordan, and particularly in agricultural areas. Influenced by a range of factors such as temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed, rainfall is a stochastic process. This paper suggests the use of a fuzzy model that draws upon data gathered at 26 stations situated in a range of locations throughout Jordan. The model is capable of forecasting seasonal rainfall relating to a specific station. Its ability to deliver predictions with an acceptable degree of accuracy has been demonstrated, and it can be concluded from this that the fuzzy technique can provide a model that is capable of efficiently forecasting seasonal rainfall.

To Make A Difference: Interpersonal Meanings in Museum-Texts: A Case-Study of the Children’s Museum in Amman

Systemic Functional Linguistics explicates how texts communicate ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings. Texts produced by cultural and pedagogic institutions, such as museums, depend on several discursive choices to construct interpersonal meanings communicated through the interaction between the institution, and what it stands for, and the interactant visitors. Museum-texts communicate to/with visitors meanings pertaining to social relationships construed by both the museum and its audience and communicate the mutual relationships between them in relation to role, status, social distance, and feelings of solidarity and affiliation. Meanwhile, children museums have become a widespread phenomenon that promote edifying missions communicated to children through entertaining, interacting, and learning. This study recognises how one exhibition, named ‘I am Change’ in the Children’s Museum in Amman, relies on verbal interpersonal communication to align its young visitors into shared dispositions and perspectives towards environmental concerns related to the importance of conserving electric energy and water resources in Jordan.

Statistical Indices of Land Use Changes and Nutrients Balance of Tomatoes and Peppers Production in Jordan Valley and Highlands (1999-2019)

Climate change has caused pressure on water resources in Jordan. This was accompanied by the Syrian refugee crisis during the period 2009 to 2019. This descriptive study was conducted in the University of Debrecen, during the years 2020 and 2021 within the course of sustainable land use by collecting official statistical data from reliable sources in Jordan on the production of tomato, pepper, and paprika during five years 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 to compare the change in land use, crop sown structure, country production, unit area average yield and estimation of unit area pollution with major nutrients. The study showed an increased land used for the production of vegetables by (+ 37.84%) during the period from 2004 to 2014, high productivity per hectare for three crops from 2014 to 2019. Jordan had the highest tomato and paprika crop yields in 2014. The reason is due to the increase in the local and global demand for these crops along with other reasons, which have promoted the use of mass production agricultural techniques, the most important of which is chemical fertilization. Which caused the accumulation of phosphorus and potassium in soils.

Use of artificial neural network for predicting effluent quality parameters and enabling wastewater reuse for climate change resilience – A case from Jordan

Jordan is considered an arid to semi-arid country. Water resources in Jordan comprise of conventional resources (ground water and surface water) and non-conventional resources mainly treated wastewater. In this study, artificial neural network (ANN) models were developed to provide predictions for the quality of treated effluent from Wadi Arab wastewater treatment plant (WWTP)-Phase1. This plant serves South-West of Irbid city. The treated effluent of Wadi Arab WWTP is used for irrigation. Four ANN models were developed to predict effluent quality of Wadi Arab WWTP-Phase1, namely BOD5, COD, SS, NH4-N. A systematic approach was employed to find the most appropriate architecture for each ANN model. The influent flow rate (Q), Temperature, pH, BOD5, COD, SS and NH4-N were the input quality parameters for each ANN model. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to uncover the prediction uncertainty of an ANN model to variations in each input parameter. The analyses showed that all four ANN models were highly sensitive to influent pH,while all were slightly sensitive to influent SS. This study found that ANN models were reasonably robust and they could be used to alert plant staff of future problems such as those indicated in the above scenarios. The results showed that ANN models are beneficial to manage the treatment process in Wadi Arab WWTP, to produce effluent quality within the Jordanian Standards for irrigation, and to protect the ecosystem in the Jordan Valley.

Machine Learning Approach for an Automatic Irrigation System in Southern Jordan Valley

The agriculture sector is the most water-consuming sector. Due to the critical situation of available water resources in Jordan, attention should be paid to the issues of water demand and appropriate irrigation in order to spread the right management ways of modern irrigation to the farmers. The objectives of this paper are to improve the irrigation process and provide irrigation water to the highest possible extent through the use of artificial intelligence to construct a smart irrigation system that controls the irrigation mechanism using the necessary tools for sensing soil moisture and temperature, giving alerts of any change in the parameters entered as the baseline values for comparison, and installing system sensors buried at a depth of 3-5 inches below the roots to measure the moisture content in the soil. The sensors measure the humidity and temperature in the soil every ten minutes. They prevent the automatic irrigation process if the humidity is high, and permit it if the humidity is low. The smart automatic irrigation system model was built using the Decision Tree (DT) algorithm, which is a machine learning algorithm that trains the system on a part of the collected data to build the model that will be used to examine and predict the remaining data. The system had a prediction accuracy of 97.86%, which means that it may be successfully used in providing irrigation water for the agricultural sector.

Mapping Flash Flood Potential and Risk Level Using GIS Techniques and the Flash Flood Potential Index (FFPI) in Amman Zarqa Basin of Jordan

Jordan is located in an arid and semi-arid climatic zone, where about 80% of the country, known as the "Badia". Generally, this is classified as a dry or arid region. Climate change is expected to exacerbate the current aridity and scarcity of water resources in Jordan. Sudden and extreme weather events are becoming more common; this likely means longer and drier summers, more severe droughts, harsher winters, and an increase in flash floods. Jordanian Civil Defense reported that during 1963-2019, 451 people were killed and about one million people affected by flash floods. This research aims to determine the critical locations of flash floods in the Amman Zarqa Basin. This research methodology depends on using four variables (slope, vegetation cover/density, soil type/texture, and land use/cover) under the GIS environment to calculate the Flash Flood Potential Index (FFPI). This index has not been used in Jordan (up to our knowledge). Five scenarios were used in this study, based on previous reviews and the last one (scenario 5) based on Jordanian experts of flash floods in Jordan. The results show that increasing the weight of slope and land use in different FFPI equations will increase the values of FFPI. Reducing the vegetation density by 50% resulted in limited effects on the importance of FFPI. The risk level is divided into four categories (extreme, high, medium, and low) related to the FFPI values. Scenario two, which uses equal weights for all parameters, had the lowest risk level all over the area. Scenario four, which double the consequences of the slope and the land use with respect to the other two parameters. This has the highest risk level over the study area. Based on equation no. 5, which is modified based on Jordanian experts' opinion, the low-risk level covered 9.01% of the basin. Besides, the medium, high, and extreme risk levels covered 72.96%, 15.89%, and 2.14% of the study area, respectively.

The Impacts of Climate Change on the Availability of Surface Water Resources in Jordan

Climate change in the Middle East area including Jordan has started to be reflected in decreasing precipitation and increasing temperatures with their impacts on the availability of surface and groundwater. This article aims to evaluate the impacts of decreasing or increasing precipitation by 10% and 20% on the quantities of flood runoff based on recorded precipitation and runoffs of catchments during the past 60 to 70 years of observation, during which the precipitation in individual or a few years increased or decreased by tens of percentages relative to the long-term average precipitation. The results of quantification show that in Jordan as a whole, decreasing precipitation by 10% and 20% has historically (during the recording period) resulted in reductions in flood flows by 26.2% and 52.8% and that increasing precipitation by 10% and 20% has resulted in increases in flood flows by 26.4% and 56.5% respectively. These results look somehow paradox, because the general perception is that flood runoff changes in the same percentage like precipitation although flood flow is not linearly correlated with precipitation but exponentially. Decreasing precipitation in the water-scarce stressed country, Jordan due to climatic changes, will have strong implications on rain-fed and irrigated agriculture and on household water supplies with very severe socio-economic percussions expressed in increasing unemployment and poverty which may lead to social and political unrest. Therefore, proactive measures have to be implemented before disasters hit. Such measures are limited in Jordan to seawater desalination, intensified water harvesting and improved water use efficiency in agriculture.

Water Resources Management by Aquifer storage and Recovery in Jordan

Water resources in Jordan are very inadequate which is why its name is counted among the countries that have the lowest level of water per capita in the world. The demand for water at this time surpasses the available resources of renewable water which have been overexploited in order to eliminate the gap. However, it is also predicted that in all the sectors of water, this gap is potential of widening in the future. To overcome the situation of water scarcity, there is a need for endangering sustainable development thus Jordan is required to adopt a strategy for planning and storing water crucially. The proposed method or approach in this project is focused on managing demand and developing non- conventional resources of water. This paper has provided the strategy of Aquifer storage and recovery for coping with the current water situation in Jordan along with water development and planning components.

Design and Implementation of Water Desalination System (RO) Using Renewable Energy Source

The shortage of sufficient available fresh water resources in Jordan to meet water needs forces the nation to look for new water supply sources also to meet the increasing demand for fresh water. In this manuscript, a case study for designing, optimizing and implementing an off-grid water desalination system using photovoltaic (PV) power generation system is introduced. The system is installed on a farm in Southern Ghore of Jordan valley where the access to the grid is not reliable enough to guarantee the desalination of the amount of water for the farm’s irrigation needs. The study offers a framework to aid in designing similar pilot plants where the classic power generation prediction is greatly affected by the environmental conditions. An off-grid PV system with a total nominal power of 10.4 kWp was designed, procured and installed in the southern part of Jordan Valley near Karma town. The system operates the pumping system as well as the reverse osmosis based desalination unit. A measurement system has been collection relevant data like temperature, radiation, voltage, current, water quality, pressure, etc. continuously for the last 4 years. In this paper we will present the sizing procedure used, the system design and evaluate the design using the collected data of the run-time of 4 years. Data about the water quality and amount of desalinated water will equally be used to evaluate the system. The paper will end with recommendations to adapt the system design in different part of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Impact of climate change on water resources in Jordan: a case study of Azraq basin

Azraq basin is one of the most important groundwater basins in Jordan. Trend analysis using RClimDex for six rainfall stations and two metrological stations was performed to detect and predict climate change impacts on the Azraq basin until the year 2030. Three absolute homogeneity tests were used to detect any variation in the data time series. The results showed that monthly max value of daily mean temp, tropical night, monthly maximum value of daily maximum temp, monthly maximum value of daily minimum temp and cool days were found to be statistically significant climate change indices. The trend of the max temperature during July is significant, while insignificant trend for the minimum temperature in the same month was noticed. The frequency of days in which the maximum temperature exceeded 38 °C increased and there was increase in the minimum temperature count of values that are exceeding 20 °C in the last 46 years. Regarding the rainfall, there is no change in total annual precipitation over the study area during the studied period. The results of simulating climate change impact into the evaporation showed expected increase by 4.74 and 5.32% for Al Butum and El Janab wadis, respectively, during the period of 2013–2030. Streamflow analysis showed slight decrease by 1.51 and 1.02% for both wadis, respectively.

Geospatial Techniques for Improved Water Management in Jordan

This research shows a case from Jordan where geospatial techniques were utilized for irrigation water auditing. The work was based on assessing records of groundwater abstraction in relation to irrigated areas and estimated crop water consumption in three water basins: Yarmouk, Amman-Zarqa and Azraq. Mapping of irrigated areas and crop water requirements was carried out using remote sensing data of Landsat 8 and daily weather records. The methodology was based on visual interpretation and the unsupervised classification for remote sensing data, supported by ground surveys. Net (NCWR) and gross (GCWR) crop water requirements were calculated by merging crop evapotranspiration (ETc), calculated from daily weather records, with maps of irrigated crops. Gross water requirements were compared with groundwater abstractions recorded at a farm level to assess the levels of abstraction in relation to groundwater safe yield. Results showed that irrigated area and GCWR were higher than officially recorded cropped area and abstracted groundwater. The over abstraction of groundwater was estimated to range from 144% to 360% of the safe yield in the three basins. Overlaying the maps of irrigation and groundwater wells enabled the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) to detect and uncover violations and illegal practices of irrigation, in the form of unlicensed wells, incorrect metering of pumped water and water conveyance for long distances. Results from the work were utilized at s high level of decision-making and changes to the water law were made, with remote sensing data being accredited for monitoring water resources in Jordan.

Multidimensional analysis of the water-poverty nexus using a modified Water Poverty Index: a case study from Jordan

Water as a strategic natural resource is of fundamental importance for human development, prosperity, and poverty alleviation. Over the last three decades, Jordan's water resources have been severely degraded, threatening the livelihoods of countless people, particularly in rural and poor communities. The inadequate provision of water-related facilities has contributed to the rapid decline in quantity and degradation of quality in these communities. This study depicts the theoretical foundations and development of a water-focused and thematic indicator of poverty, which allow a comprehensive understanding of the crosscutting nature of water issues and impacts. It is with this in mind that a modified Water Poverty Index (mWPI) is developed herein to exemplify the utilization of the index, and to test its applicability and validity at the Jordanian governorate's level. The results show that water poverty fluctuates broadly between northern and southern regions suggesting a need for location-specific management plans and more targeted policy interventions. Overall, the mWPI, as a holistic tool, can assist decision-makers and other stakeholders in achieving sustainability and can be used to communicate the progress of sustainability to the wider community.

Spatial climate variation pattern and regional prediction of rainfall in Jordan

AbstractCurrently Jordan is facing various water problems accompanied by rapid population growth, urbanisation and industrialisation. It is of outmost importance to search for water resources augmentation possibilities leading to decision‐making procedures by addressing the rainfall sources as the main water resources in Jordan, through refined techniques. Point cumulative semivariogram (PCSV) samples are analysed in order to identify the regional dependence of the rainfall phenomena. Amman station is taken as a pivot site because of its location in the centre of the Kingdom, where the samples of the PCSV are calculated for eight systematic directions. Standard regional dependence function (SRDF) is obtained from the sample PCSV and the weighted average procedure is applied with the help of SRDF to predict the rainfall amounts. The radius of rainfall influence is determined for Amman in each direction. The cross‐validation methods are used to predict the rainfall in Amman using different samples representing along each direction. The result of cross‐validation method is acceptable in all samples with relative error not exceeding 10%, except in the desert sides where larger errors indicate weak regional dependence.

Application of IHACRES rainfall-runoff model to the Wadi Dhuliel arid catchment, Jordan

With increasing stress on water resources in Jordan, application of rainfall-runoff models can be part of the solution to manage and sustain the water sector. In this paper, the metric conceptual IHACRES model is applied to the Wadi Dhuliel arid catchment, north-east Jordan. Rainfall-runoff data from 19 storm events during 1986 to 1992 have been used in this study. Flood estimation was performed on the basis of daily scales and storm events scales. The model was extended for snowfall in order to cope with such extreme events. Although the best performance of the IHACRES model on a daily basis is poor, the performance on storm events scale showed a good agreement between observed and simulated streamflow. Apart from model parameter values, the principal reasons for IHACRES model success in this region are thought to be based on antecedent soil moisture conditions, rainfall duration and rainfall intensity before and during each storm. The model outputs were likely to be sensitive when the monitored flood was relatively small. The optimum parameter values were influenced by the length of calibration data and event specific changes.

A Framework for Wastewater Reuse in Jordan: Utilizing a Modified Wastewater Reuse Index

Pressing water scarcity in Jordan rapidly increases the demands of marginal water resources for the agricultural sector. Water management studies reveal that no single source could fully solve the nation’s water shortage and many integrated actions are needed to ensure water availability, suitability and sustainability. Yet, among these options treated wastewater has the largest potential to augment water supply in the near future, thereby narrowing the gap between available freshwater and total demand. Indeed, treated wastewater could be a valuable source for irrigation in the agricultural sector and an increasing percentage of irrigated areas, especially in the Jordan Valley, are currently using treated wastewater. With a fast growing population and expansion of the irrigated areas to meet food demand, the pressure on water resources in Jordan remains of imminent importance. Hence, an urgent call to analyze the current and potential role of treated wastewater seems justified. Under the umbrella of the project on the Sustainable Management of Available Water Resources with Innovative Technologies (SMART) funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research in Germany, an investigation has been carried out in the Jordan Valley to estimate the current wastewater reuse quantities and the potential to increase its utility for agricultural production. In general, the reuse as percentage of total treatment is applied for national and international comparisons. Yet, this index is of limited use for policy decisions as it does not reflect potentialities of wastewater use. Therefore, this study introduces a wastewater reuse index (WRI) that reflects the actual proportion of wastewater reused from the total generated wastewater. We found that the WRI in Jordan steadily increased from 30% in 2004 to 38 in 2007. Efficient use of treated wastewater requires the application of new technologies in Jordan like dwellings connected to the sewer system, decentralization of treatment plants to rural and urban settlements and prevention of high evaporation rates from stabilization ponds.

A model-based assessment of the effects of projected climate change on the water resources of Jordan

This paper is concerned with the quantification of the likely effect of anthropogenic climate change on the water resources of Jordan by the end of the twenty-first century. Specifically, a suite of hydrological models are used in conjunction with modelled outcomes from a regional climate model, HadRM3, and a weather generator to determine how future flows in the upper River Jordan and in the Wadi Faynan may change. The results indicate that groundwater will play an important role in the water security of the country as irrigation demands increase. Given future projections of reduced winter rainfall and increased near-surface air temperatures, the already low groundwater recharge will decrease further. Interestingly, the modelled discharge at the Wadi Faynan indicates that extreme flood flows will increase in magnitude, despite a decrease in the mean annual rainfall. Simulations projected no increase in flood magnitude in the upper River Jordan. Discussion focuses on the utility of the modelling framework, the problems of making quantitative forecasts and the implications of reduced water availability in Jordan.

Will the water resources of Israel, Palestine and Jordan remain sufficient to permit economic and social development for the foreseeable future?

Scenario analysis suggests that by 2050 the population of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Jordan will have grown from 17.2 million to between 21.1 and 38.5 million people. These population scenarios are compared to a range of water resource scenarios that consider the effect of climate change, a possible redistribution of the region's shared water resources as a result of a peace agreement, or the status quo. This scenario analysis shows that under all possible population-water scenarios combinations considered, the water resources of Jordan and Israel remain above the minimum threshold required for social and economic development. In the case of the West Bank, water resources may also remain sufficient for all population and climatic scenarios if the West Bank gains a greater portion of the shared water resources. In the Gaza Strip, however, desalination or water imports are required.

Water shortage in Jordan — Sustainable solutions

The large environmental challenge that Jordan faces today is the scarcity of water. Definitely, water is the significant feature in the population/resource equation where water resources in Jordan are limited and the country's population has continued to rise. A high rate of natural population growth, combined with massive influxes of refugees, has transformed into an imbalance condition between population and water. Jordan's water resources are limited to support population in a sustainable manner. The situation has been intensified by the fact that Jordan shares most of its surface water resources with neighboring countries; their control on water has partially disallowed Jordan of its fair share of water. Current use of water already exceeds its renewable supply. The deficit is covered by the unsustainable practice of overdrawing highland aquifers, resulting in lowered water tables and declining water quality.This paper focuses on the water shortage in Jordan, the primarily evaluation of this problem and the solution is contemplate. A true foundation of sustainable water solution requires awareness upon the part of the population, and a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations are actively involved in educating the populace about water shortage. The more essential and “doable” elements of a sustainable water solutions were discussed in this research, these elements are standing under, the development of new supplies of water, water harvesting, desalination, reuse of wastewater in the agricultural sector and reduction of water demands.Moreover, this article presents specific recommendations addressing water resource shortage in the kingdom and highlighting the importance of conservation of water and discussing the basics of sustainable solution.