A century of infrastructure and institutions mediating water allocation in Jordan

With 61 cubic meters of blue water available per capita per year, Jordan is among the world’s most water-scarce countries. This scarcity results from the rapidly rising demand, driven by population growth and the expansion of irrigated agriculture, to which responses have been supply-side measures, such as installing water infrastructure to capture, produce, and purify water, limiting demand through reduced provision of water through supply intermittence, installing water flow restrictors, and closing down water extraction wells, as well as changes in the water governance system, which has experienced increasing centralization. Here, we map the development of water institutions and ever-increasing infrastructure in Jordan, which have mediated water user demand and water availability over the past 78 years. It shows that, despite the massive growth of water extraction, storage, treatment, and transfer infrastructure, total water availability has been stagnating at around 1200 million cubic meters per year since 2010, while demand continues to grow. We systematically review Jordan’s water-related laws and policy documents and lay out the legal mechanisms and policies for allocating surface-, ground- and unconventional water to municipal, agricultural and industrial water users, which shows discrepancies between current laws and policies regarding the priority of use, and extant water allocation. Water user perspectives derived from a small sample of interviews illustrates water service deficits and adaptive efforts to deal with supply intermittence and water quality issues on the receiving end of water allocation. Looking into the future, we discuss a reallocation scenario for the year 2050 that limits water extraction to renewable rates, restricts agricultural water use to reused domestic and industrial water and prioritizes domestic water demand. We propose legal changes necessary to accommodate this change, thereby closing a gap in the operationalization of water management that requires not only hydrological and engineering perspectives, but also the socio-institutional conditions to balance supply and demand.