Changing demographics, expanding urban areas and modified agricultural extents and their impacts on water availability and water quality in Jordan

Abstract

Current water use in Jordan is unsustainable in terms of both supply and quality. The growth in population, primarily as a consequence of pulse immigration stemming from regional conflicts, has led to serious water shortages in urban centers, which is expected to worsen in the future. The agricultural sector is moving towards intensification and a high reliance on irrigation, which is unsustainable in the face of dwindling supplies and rising contamination, principally due to salinity. The decline in field crops is a consequence of climatic fluctuations such as rainfall, while the nature of the plots, often small and isolated, make economies of scale problematic. Unless there is a significant shift in the trend of population growth, and controls on the use of irrigation, Jordan faces inevitable social conflict and irrevocable loss of agricultural land.