On the Occasion of the Global Water Day "WATER IN JORDAN"

The renewable and obtainable quantity of water in the Arab World is estimated at 265 billion cubic meters annually.  The annual per capita of water supply is 846 cubic meters which is below the water poverty line amounting to 1000 cubic meters.  This proportion is expected to diminish to less than 500 cubic meters.

 Meanwhile, the per capita of water supply in Jordan amounts to 148 cubic meters only, while it reaches 1028 m³ in Syria and 2172 m³ in Iraq.  This shows the extent of water poverty in Jordan (ESCWA Report, Volume One 2006).  The limited water resource in Jordan is one of the major problems facing the economic development, particularly the Agricultural Sector which is consuming the largest quantity of water.  The volume of rainfall in 2005 was 9.30 billion cubic meters where the percentage of evaporation reaches 93.9%, therefore the quantity of renewable fresh water is estimated at 680 million cubic meters, while this figure reaches 10.000 million cubic meters in Syria.

Jordan has faced an increasing demand for water during the last years in all sectors accompanied by shortages in water resources which have been covered by underground water.  Accordingly, the use of underground water has exceeded the safe limit in most of the years.  The safe draw out amounted to 294 million cubic meters, while total draw outs for multiple uses in 2005 amounted to around 506 million cubic meters.  This shows the extent of continuous underground water depletion which will lead to its exhaustion.

In the sphere of the water uses by sectors, the uses of water have increased by 36% from 639 in 1985 to 865.9 million cubic meters in 2004.  The Agricultural Sector was the largest user at 62.4%, followed by the Municipal Sector (household uses) at 32.4%, while the share used by the Industrial Sector was 4.4% and other sectors including livestock raising was 0.8%.

Therefore, pressure on water resources and the need for water for various purposes should be accompanied by planning the resources for achieving and equilibrium between the current needs for resources and the sustenance of these resources for generations to come.

The ever increasing population leads to an increase in pressure on the available drinking water resources, thus affecting the daily per capita of water supply.  The results have shown that the quantity of water supply has decreased from 158.1 liter/ per capita/day in 1995 to 131.6 liter/ per capita/ day in 2001.  The quantity of water supply has increased again to 143.5 liter/ per capita /day in 2005.

Figure 2. Per Capita Water Supply, 1995-2005

There is a continuous tendency towards using sewage water as a replacement to conventional resources in certain purposes and for reducing pressure on these resources.  The use volume of treated sewage waters has increased from 75.4 million cubic meters to 86.4 and 83.6 million cubic meters in 2004 and 2005 respectively.  On the other hand, the continuous increase in population leads to increasing the pressure on the sewage treatment plants which has a negative effect on the quality of treated water, reducing its uses for irrigation purposes.

In view of the limited water resources in Jordan, care devoted to water quality is improving.

In the year 2005, there was a considerable improvement in water quality control.  The percentage of non-conforming samples (the germs wise) was 0.76% compared to 1994 where the percentage was 2.1%, which indicates the existence of control and follow up on the quality of used water.  It is noted also that attention is paid to the chemical features of water more than the physical features.

Laboratory results have shown that most of the contradicting samples are concerning physical features of water such as color, turbidity and total water hardness.