Water supply and sanitation in Jordan is characterized by severe water scarcity, which has been exacerbated by forced immigration as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Six-Day War in 1967, the Gulf War of 1990, the Iraq War of 2003 and the Syrian Civil War since 2011. Jordan is considered one of the ten most water scarce countries in the world. High population growth, the depletion of groundwater reserves and the impacts of climate change are likely to aggravate the situation in the future.
The country's major surface water resources, the Jordan River and the Yarmouk River, are shared with Israel and Syria who leave only a small amount for Jordan. The Disi Water Conveyance Project from the non-renewable Disi aquifer to the capital Amman, opened in July 2013, increases available resources by about 12%. It is planned to bridge the remaining gap between demand and supply through increased use of reclaimed water and desalinated sea water to be provided through the Red Sea-Dead Sea canal.
Despite Jordan's severe water scarcity, more than 97% of Jordanians have access to an improved water source and 93% have access to improved sanitation. This is one of the highest rates in the Middle East and North Africa. However, water supply is intermittent and it is common to store water in rooftop tanks. The level of water lost through leakage, underregistration, and theft in municipal water supply (non-revenue water) is approximately 51%. Water tariffs are subsidized. A National Water Strategy, adopted in 2009, emphasizes desalination and wastewater reuse. The country receives substantial foreign aid for investments in the water sector, accounting for about 30% of water investment financing.
Modern history and recent developments
The modern history of the Jordanian water sector is characterized by a substantial development of its infrastructure to cope with a large increase of population and by the simultaneous modernization of its institutions to cope with the challenge of developing, operating and maintaining the country's water infrastructure.
1946-1971: The Early Days Shortly after the independence of Jordan in 1946 and the annexation of the West Bank, only a small share of the population of less than half a million had access to piped water on their premises. Drinking water was supplied from local springs; there were no sewers and little irrigation. This early period of independence was characterized by a foiled attempt to develop the water resources share with Syria, the building of limited irrigation infrastructure in the Northern Jordan Valley, and the creation of professional organizations in charge of the water sector.
Between 1953 and 1955 the United States Special Representative for Water in the Middle East, Eric Johnston, had negotiated the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan to jointly develop the water resources of the Jordan River Basin between Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Although the Plan, known as the Johnston Plan, was rejected by the Arab League on political grounds, Jordan used it as a basis for all its future development of water resources. The Plan foresaw the construction of a dam at Maqarin on the Yarmouk River at the Jordanian-Syrian border as well as a diversion weir further downstream to divert the Yarmouk waters for irrigation of the Jordan Valley. Based on a 1953 water sharing treaty with Syria, Jordan made plans and sought funding for the dam from the United States. Israel, which diverted water from the Yarmouk to the Sea of Galilee for its own use, was not consulted, and the U.S. decided not to fund the Maqarin dam. Thus, much of the river's winter flows drained to the Dead Sea and left insufficient water resources for the development of irrigation in Jordan. Despite this, Jordan embarked on the construction of the East Ghor Canal with U.S. funding to develop irrigation in the Northeastern Jordan Valley with the limited water it had available.
For the development of its water infrastructure, Jordan needed to build strong organizations with qualified personnel. For that purpose, two laws were passed in 1959 to create respectively the East Ghor Canal Authority responsible for the development of irrigation infrastructure, and the Central Water Authority responsible for the development of drinking water supply infrastructure. These institutions operated outside of government routine and offered better pay than the regular public service in order to attract the motivated and talented employees required for the important task to develop the country's water sector. These efforts, however, were thwarted when Jordan lost the West Bank to Israel, and with it about a third of its population, in the Six-Day War of 1967, and during an ensuing period of internal disorder and violence known as the Black September that lasted until 1971.
1972-1994: Infrastructure Development, Institution Building and Regional Water Sharing
From the early 1970s onwards the country's water infrastructure was expanded significantly with the construction of the King Talal Dam completed in 1977 and the completion of the East Ghor Canal (renamed King Abdullah Canal) in 1987. The country's first wastewater treatment plant at Ain Ghazal had been commissioned in 1968, but the construction of other wastewater treatment plants was addressed in only beginning in the late 1970s. In 1985, the largest wastewater treatment plant in the country was commissioned in As-Samra, serving Greater Amman. The plant used the stabilization pond technology, a natural technology that needed no electricity.
In terms of institutions, the two autonomous water sector institutions created in the 1959 had been merged into the Natural Resources Authority in 1965, but this overly centralized arrangement including non-water functions such as mining did not prove to be successful. Therefore, in a further institutional shift, in 1973 three new organizations were created, each by its own law: The Amman Water and Sewer Authority (AWSA), the Drinking Water Supply Corporation (DWSC) in charge of water supply in the areas outside the capital, and the Jordan Valley Commission (JVC). In the meantime, Jordan's population had grown to 1.5 million because of natural growth and the influx of Palestinian refugees in 1967. The growing capital ran out of water and its supply became intermittent. In order to overcome the shortage, the Cabinet approved two projects in 1977: The first was the construction of a carrier from Deiralla in the Jordan Valley to pump drinking water to Amman, and the second was the construction of a carrier from the Azraq oasis east of the capital. Both projects were completed in the 1980s. At the same time, it was decided to reuse treated wastewater from Amman for irrigation in the Jordan Valley to compensate for the loss of freshwater.
During this period a first National Water Master Plan was developed and finalized in 1977 with the assistance of the German government and its technical assistance agency GTZ.
A separate water balance study was commissioned by the government at the time and was completed by Howard Humphrey and Partners in 1978. This study showed that water resources were greatly insufficient to achieve the country's goals for irrigation development and to provide its growing population with sufficient drinking water. On the basis of this study, Jordan approached the Iraqi government in order to explore the possibility to transfer water from the Euphrates to Jordan. The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was closely allied with Jordan at the time, approved the request, but a feasibility study done in the mid-80s showed that the long-distance transfer would be prohibitively expensive. After abandoning this option, the government shifted its attention to the Disi Water Conveyance Project that would bring fossil groundwater from the border area with Saudi Arabia to Amman.
In terms of institutional development, the government decided to return to the earlier structure of creating two separate autonomous agencies in charge of the water sector. In 1977, it created by law the Jordan Valley Authority (JVA) by merging the JVC and parts of other organizations, charging it with the comprehensive development of the Jordan Valley. In 1983, through another law it created the Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ), responsible for drinking water supply and sanitation in Jordan. Initially, the heads of both Authorities had the rank of Ministers and reported directly to the Prime Minister, until the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) was created in 1988 bringing the two agencies under it. Another institutional shift occurred in 1993 when a World Bank water sector review suggested to bring in a private company to run the water and sanitation system of Amman, a move that was endorsed by the government. An important motivation for this step was to increase cost recovery.
In 1995, the Water Annex to the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty increased Jordan's available water resources through the delivery of water from the Sea of Galilee and a greater share of water from the Yarmouk River. At the same time it was decided to double the capacity of the Deiralla-Amman conveyor to pump the additional drinking water to Amman. While not mentioned in the Peace Treaty, the idea of a Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal, jointly planned by the two countries in order to raise the declining level of the Dead Sea and to provide more water for Jordan through desalination, gained impetus as a result of the Peace Treaty. In summer 1998 a drinking water incident occurred in Amman, when water with an unpleasant smell came out of some taps. The incident became a tool in the succession struggle for the throne at a time when King Hussein lay dying. According to history professor Nigel Ashton, then-Water Minister Munther Haddadin was allied with then-Crown Prince Hassan. Hassan's opponents exploited the incident as evidence for “negligence and corruption in high places”, forcing the Water Minister to step down because of his alleged failure to properly oversee the operation of the Zai water treatment plant that treated water brought from the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan Valley to Amman. Along with two other former water ministers, Haddadin was indicted by the State Prosecutor, but the charges were dropped after Crown Prince Hasan was sidelined in favor of King Abdullah II who succeeded his father after his death in February 1999.
1995-today: megaprojects and modernization Since the 1990s Jordan has pursued two megaprojects, the US$1 billion Disi Water Conveyance Project and the US$10 billion Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal. It also completed other large projects, including the construction of a modern wastewater treatment plant for Amman in As-Samra and the Al-Wehda Dam on the Yarmouk River. Both the Disi Conveyor and the Samra Plant attracted significant private financing for the first time in the history of the Jordanian water sector, despite low levels of cost recovery from water tariffs.