Jordan: Water Scarcity

Introduction

Why is water so important to us? Firstly, it is one of the fundamental requirements for human physical survival along with oxygen, food, shelter and sleep. It is one of the basic human rights guaranteed by the United Nations. According to the UN Human Rights Council, "the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human dignity".

For basic physical survival, a human requires something between 2 and 5 litres of water per day. If we add the water needed for cooking and washing, then a Bedouin tribe from the Middle East can make do on roughly 20-30 litres of water per day, while sedentary populations require an absolute minimum of 100 litres per person a day for safe hygiene and an adequate standard of living Domestic households in developed countries typically require about 250-350 litres a person in Europe and over 500 litres in North America.

But it is not only a basic factor in the maintenance of our lives and the life of every organic lifeform on the planet, it is also essential to every other aspect of human life from cooking and cleaning, to transport and energy, to climate and food production, to carbon sequestration (the oceans act as a vital carbon sink and hence are becoming more and more acidified), to our religious rituals (think of the Catholic Church's use of holy water or the ablutions required of Islam before prayer), to our physical landscape (our coastlines, lakes, rivers, glacial valleys, etc) and to our mental landscape (our art, poetry and literature is full of water images, e.g. Stauss's The Blue Danube, Smetana's The Moldau, etc).

The human body itself is composed mainly of water: about 75 to 80% of babies, to between 50 and 65% of adults, while our brains are composed of up to 85% water. The planet’s surface is made up of 71% water, but only 0.03% of this is available to us as fresh water. Of the 1.386 km3 of water on the Earth’s surface, 96.5% is made up of the oceans, another 1% is saline ground water, and only 2.5% is fresh water. Of that 2.5%, 68.7% is locked up in the polar ice caps, 30.1% is found in groundwater, and 1.2% is surface water.

Globalisation aspects of access to water

In every corner of the modern globe, water is to a greater or lesser extent a crucial raw material for practically all economic activity. Around the planet, up to 92% of water for non-household purposes, mostly in the agricultural sector. Growing a sufficient amount of food for a human adult requires around 300 metric tons of water a year, i.e. nearly a ton a day. If this water does not arrive through natural precipitation, then it has to come via human constructed irrigation conduits – irrigated agriculture is responsible for 69% of global water consumption.

Industry also consumes enormous amounts of water for washing, diluting, cooling and production of steam. Highly industrialised economies therefore harness most of their water for such purposes where water often also provides an important source of energy via hydroelectric power generation in large-scale dams, as well as a vital means of transport. As the natural habitat for planetary piscine life all countries that are able heavily exploit their water resources as a source of food, and for the countries with the most highly developed economies, water is a natural draw card for recreational and tourism activities.

All these activities have a great impact on the world’s water reserves and in particular on its limited resources of fresh water. As the world economy becomes more and more globalised and integrated in order to meet the demands of an ever increasing population, water consumption increases accordingly, placing pressure on the drinking water supply. In “water poor” nations, competition increases between people and commercial activity over dwindling supplies of potable water – water is diverted toward irrigation for expanded food production, to upmarket hotels and golf courses to cater to rising numbers of wealthy tourists, and to new industries to provide the consumer products demanded by the global market. But the impact is not only on the increased volume of water used. Expanded agricultural activity not only consumes more water but also pollutes remaining water supplies with the run-off of chemical fertilisers, while large scale irrigation schemes can destroy natural water ecosystems; greater industrial consumption of water creates greater amounts of waste water that can overwhelm sewage and water purification plants; rapidly expanding populations in water stressed countries place overwhelming pressure on water delivery systems; and overpumping of groundwater supplies can dramatically increase salinity levels and render water unfit for human consumption.

In terms of water stress levels, it is generally considered that countries with annual supplies of 1,000-2,000 m3 per person are water-stressed, with 1,000 m3 thought to be the minimum per capita requirement of a moderately developed country. Societies with less than 500 m3 per capita are said to suffer from absolute scarcity, so this "lack of water then requires application of expensive technologies and becomes a constraint on food production, social and economic development, and protection of natural systems.”

It is generally accepted that we face a global water crisis, elements of which can be summed as follow:

• More than 2.4 billion people have no access to sanitation and more than 1.2 billion lack potable water.
• Even under the best circumstances, the sanitation deficit could be reduced to only 1.9 billion people by 2015.
• Conservation or efficient water management is not encouraged by the low price of water
• Climate change will have a dramatic impact on water supplies in future, although there is huge uncertainty as to the effects it will have on individual regions, making it extremely difficult to plan adequately for the future

Water in the Middle East

The climate in the Middle East is classified as ‘arid’, with low precipitation and high evapotranspiration, i.e. a large swathe of the region receives less than 200mm of rainfall per annum and potential evaporation of surface water of over 2000mm.

It has very few rivers: the Euphrates and the Tigris are very important sources of water for the whole region, while the shrinking levels of the Jordan and its tributaries are of use to the west of the region only.

Relative decline of water supplies due to more frequent droughts and the burgeoning population has increased political conflict. It is expected that the population of countries in the Arabian Peninsula, for example, will double over the next 50 years to 600 million. Some of these countries are already extracting over 75% of their total renewable water resources. Israel has about 300 m3 of fresh water per person per year and Kuwait a mere 1 m3, while in the Gaza Strip in Palestine it is estimated that 90% of the local water supply is undrinkable as a result of pollution and increased salinity. This problem is aggravated by the continuing historical tensions between the Arabs and the Israelis. Tensions over water even played a part in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 due to a dispute over the diversion of the River Jordan and the sabotage of water pipelines; the post-war position of Israeli provided it with control over the headwaters of the Jordan and the aquifers of the West Bank. But despite such conflicts, water can also serve as a point of agreement; the Israeli-Palestine water commission, for example, is the only joint committee created by the Oslo Agreement that still exists today, while Israel and Jordan have worked together for years on managing the Sea of Galilee located in Israel but near the Yarmuk River, which demarcates the border between the two countries.

Resources

Documentary Films

• A World Without Water Channel Four documentary 1hr 16min
• It Runs On Water 51min
• BBC Our World - India's Water Crisis 22min
• Every Drop Matters A documentary on water governance in Arab States: Stories of community-based solutions to water scarcity 16min (with subtitles)
• Villages On The Front Line - Jordan 3-part documentary
• Saving The River Jordan 16min

Web sites

There are many websites dedicated to water shortage issues. Here is a small sample:

• The Water Project
• Wikipedia: Water Politics in the Middle East
• The Jewish Virtual Library
• The Smithsonian
• The World Water Council
• Water Facts

Academic Articles

The following academic papers can be found by using academic search engines or databases like www.scholar.google.com, www.scopus.com or www.sciencedirect.com, etc.

• Abdulla, Fayez A., and A. W. Al-Shareef. "Roof rainwater harvesting systems for household water supply in Jordan." Desalination 243.1 (2009): 195-207.
• Al-Adamat, Rida, Abdullah Diabat, and Ghada Shatnawi. "Combining GIS with multicriteria decision making for siting water harvesting ponds in Northern Jordan." Journal of Arid Environments 74.11 (2010): 1471-1477.
• Alqadi, Khaled A., and Lalit Kumar. "Water issues in the Kingdom of Jordan: A brief review with reasons for declining quality." Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment 9.3&4 (2011): 1019-1023.
• Assayed, Almoayied, et al. "On-site rainwater harvesting to achieve household water security among rural and peri-urban communities in Jordan." Resources, Conservation and Recycling 73 (2013): 72-77.
• Barham, Nasim. "Is Good Water Governance Possible in a Rentier State? The Case of Jordan." ANALYSIS (2012).
• Black, Emily. "Water and society in Jordan and Israel today: an introductory overview." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 368.1931 (2010): 5111-5116.
• Hadadin, Nidal, et al. "Water shortage in Jordan—Sustainable solutions." Desalination 250.1 (2010): 197-202.
• Hadadin, Nidal A., and Zeyad S. Tarawneh. "Environmental issues in Jordan, solutions and recommendations." American Journal of Environmental Sciences 3.1 (2007): 30.
• Kubursi, Atif, et al. "Water scarcity in Jordan: Economic instruments, issues and options." Economic Research Forum Working Paper Series. No. 599. 2011.
• Libiszewski, Stephan. Water disputes in the Jordan basin region and their role in the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich, 2009.
• Medina Jr, Miguel A. "Global water crisis and climate change." Journal of Hydrologic Engineering 15.3 (2010): 167-170.
• Mohsen, Mousa S. "Water strategies and potential of desalination in Jordan." Desalination 203.1 (2007): 27-46.
• Mourad, Khaldoon A., Ronny Berndtsson, and Karin Aggestam. "Can Integrated Water Resources Management Contribute to Sustainable Peace in the Middle East?." Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection 1.1 (2013): 1-8.
• Mourad, Khaldoon Abdalah, Hartmut Gaese, and Amer S. Jabarin. "Economic value of tree fruit production in Jordan Valley from a virtual water perspective." Water resources management 24.10 (2010): 2021-2034.
• Potter, Robert B., Khadija Darmame, and Stephen Nortcliff. "Issues of water supply and contemporary urban society: the case of Greater Amman, Jordan." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 368.1931 (2010): 5299-5313.
• Ray, P. A., P. H. Kirshen, and D. W. Watkins Jr. "Staged climate change adaptation planning for water supply in Amman, Jordan." Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 138.5 (2011): 403-411.
• Samuels, Rana, et al. "Climate change impacts on Jordan River flow: downscaling application from a regional climate model." Journal of Hydrometeorology 11.4 (2010): 860-879.
• Scott, Christopher A., et al. "Facing water scarcity in Jordan: reuse, demand reduction, energy, and transboundary approaches to assure future water supplies." Water International 28.2 (2003): 209-216.
• Sowers, Jeannie, Avner Vengosh, and Erika Weinthal. "Climate change, water resources, and the politics of adaptation in the Middle East and North Africa." Climatic Change 104.3-4 (2011): 599-627.
• Srinivasan, V., et al. "The nature and causes of the global water crisis: Syndromes from a meta‐analysis of coupled human‐water studies." Water Resources Research 48.10 (2012).
• Zeitoun, Mark, et al. "Water demand management in Yemen and Jordan: addressing power and interests." The Geographical Journal 178.1 (2012): 54-66.