TITLE:
Jordan’s Water Resources: Increased Demand with Unreliable Supply
AUTHORS:
Saad Merayyan, Salwa Mrayyan
KEYWORDS:
Water Resources, Middle East, Jordan, Supply, Demand, Reliability
JOURNAL NAME:
Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering,
Vol.3 No.2,
April
22,
2014
ABSTRACT: Jordan is a small county located in the Middle East. Jordan has borders
with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Israel (Figure 1). Jordan was established in 1921 and has very limited natural resources.
Jordan’s current (2008) population is 6.5 million. The country has a total land
area of 750,000 km2, about one third (92,300 km2) of
which is dry land while the other two thirds (329,000 km2) are irrigated
land. Jordan is considered as a water poor country due to unreliable and
shortages in the supply of water sector. This makes it very difficult to meet
the required and steadily increasing demand. Impact of climate change adds a
layer to the uncertainty on the supply side of Jordan’s water portfolio. This
paper addresses the water supply challenges that Jordan faces and what has been
accomplished to improve supply and/or reduce demand.
Many projects were undertaken or planned by the Jordanian government to
increase the water supply and improve its reliability. Completing the
proposed projects will result in Jordan meeting its water demand [1].
Otherwise, the Jordanian Government implement some or all the proposed short
term solutions as presented in this
paper.