Increasing Water Resilience with Jordan’s National Water Master Plan
by Armin Margane (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH)
This case study is drawn from the larger report Managing Water for Economic Resilience: De-risking Is Not Enough, published April 2024.
Key Messages
Jordan's economic and social resilience, as well as food security, are challenged by dwindling conventional water resources, population growth, and climate change. The World Bank has estimated up to a 6% GDP loss by 2050 due to climate change impacts on water resources.
Jordan's water supply comes from rivers (32%), groundwater from underground aquifers (53%), and treated wastewater (15%). However, groundwater depletion is occurring at a rate three times faster than the recharge rate, which could compromise much of the country's infrastructure in the next few years.
The Third National Water Master Plan (NWMP-3) has enabled evidence-based investment decisions by facilitating the integration of climate change effects into its strategic planning. Its detailed water supply and demand modeling at the municipal level accounts for the diminishing availability of underground water, which was previously presumed to be steady and stable.
Reusing treated wastewater is an opportunity for Jordan to increase economic resilience. In 2020, treated wastewater contributed by 15% to the total water resources, with 91% being reused in the agricultural sector.
The lack of coordination among decision-makers responsible for water supply, wastewater treatment, and treated wastewater reuse is a major obstacle in effective water resources management.
Introduction
Jordan is an upper middle-income country, as classified by the World Bank. Like all economies in the region, the Jordanian economy has been significantly strained by the COVID-19 shock as well as the Ukrainian War. Nevertheless, its recovery is transitioning compared to the previous national crisis. In 2021, the economy experienced a positive recovery compared to the contraction seen in 2020, where the real GDP grew by 2.2%. Positive projections by the World Bank and IMF proceed towards economic growth by around 2.4% up to 2024. Services are the primary contributors to the GDP by 60%. Industry contributes by 25% and agriculture 5%.
Jordan is facing significant challenges in terms of its water resources, which are compounded by the effects of climate change, including more frequent and severe droughts and changes in precipitation patterns that could reduce the amount of water available for use. In terms of water scarcity, Jordan ranks fifth globally amongst the extremely high baseline of water stressed countries (World Resources Institute, 2019). Renewable water supply covers 93 m3 per capita annually, 400 m3 below the absolute water scarcity threshold (World Bank Group, 2022). Jordanians, residing in one of the most arid regions globally, are familiar with a weekly household water supply of only 36 hours (Zraick, 2022). Jordan's water supply comes from various sources. Water from rivers such as the Jordan and Yarmouk contributes 32% of the supply. Groundwater from underground aquifers provides 53% and treated wastewater accounts for 15%.
In addition to the impacts of climate change, Jordan is also facing economic and social challenges that make it difficult to build resilience and adapt to water scarcity. The country has a growing population and limited natural resources, which puts a strain on its economy and social systems. For example, groundwater overexploitation in Jordan started in the late 1980s, mainly for agricultural production (Margane et al., 2002). Recent studies using remote sensing show that agricultural water consumption still constitutes around 60% of overall water consumption (Al Bakri, 2021; MWI, 2016). This is largely due to the growing number of illegal wells and is compounded by the utilization of water in industry and manufacturing — predominantly for the chemicals and packaging sector.
Current overuse of groundwater is around three times the rate of actual groundwater recharge. As a result, groundwater levels are declining more than 5 m/year, leading to a continuously shrinking supply of groundwater. Therefore, many of the wells currently being exploited will be dry in the future. In turn, water scarcity further drives up energy demand and costs through the need for additional water pumping from greater depths. By 2040, an average 100 m higher pumping lift, compared to 2018, will be required to extract groundwater. This means that pumping water will require approximately 40% more energy over the same timespan, impacting all economic sectors through rising energy demands.
The growing pressure on Jordan's water security is attributed to several factors that contributed to increased consumption, including a two-fold increase in population to 11 million from five million over the past decade, compounded by the influx of refugees from war-torn neighboring regions. The temperature rise of 1.5–2 °C during the last two decades and the projected increase of 1.5–3.75 °C between 2080–2099 are crucial factors that highlight the significant contribution of climate change, according to UNICEF (2022). This increase has led to Jordan’s placement of 73 out of 182 countries in the ND GAIN index for climate vulnerability (ND-GAIN, 2023).
Based on regional climate model results, climate change is estimated to lead to a decrease in groundwater and surface water availability by approximately 15 % each through 2040. This decline would result in a countrywide decrease in long-term groundwater recharge from 280 MCM/yr to approximately 240 MCM/yr by 2040. Similarly, long-term surface water runoff would decrease from around 400 MCM/yr to around 340 MCM/yr over the same period (2018–2040). As a result, the internal long-term conventional water resources availability will decrease from current levels of 65 m³/ca/yr to 46 m³/ca/yr in 2040. Changes in water quality are also expected, with increased salinity in the aquifers due to lower groundwater recharge and higher groundwater use for agriculture, leading to higher irrigation return flows. This will increase the presence of elements like molybdenum, nickel, arsenic, selenium, and radioactivity (radium), which are detrimental to human consumption and require higher intensities of water treatment and associated costs in the future.
Jordan faces a dual challenge of water scarcity and the mounting impact of extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall and flash floods. The heightened intensity or frequency of these events can lead to agricultural losses and adversely impact the tourism sector, particularly in the southern region of the country. The resulting damage to infrastructure and the economy is significant. However, these events also offer an opportunity to boost groundwater recharge, which has been largely overlooked in Jordan. Groundwater recharge can be achieved by allowing excess rainwater to infiltrate the ground, replenishing the groundwater aquifers that are a critical source of water for the country. In Jordan, there is a need for integrated water resources management that considers both surface water and groundwater resources, and links between them. Given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, it is crucial to explore ways to capture and store rainwater in a way that facilitates groundwater recharge.
Creating a National Water Master Plan to Ensure Resilience
Previous planning assumed a constant or even increased availability of renewable water resources, although it was known that groundwater resources have limited availability and are already highly overexploited, while surface water resources are nearly fully exploited. Within the framework of the Management of Water Resources Project, GIZ is preparing together with its three water sector partners — the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI), the Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ), and the Jordan Valley Authority (JVA) — the Third National Water Master Plan (NWMP-3). The primary objective of this plan is to incorporate all the critical factors that affect water utilization in Jordan, including future projections, and their impact on water supply security and overall resilience. It is essential to recognize the direct correlation between water scarcity and economic growth.
The NWMP-3 plan has made it possible for Jordan to integrate climate change impacts into its strategic planning for the first time. To accomplish this, a crucial step was to assess and analyze water supply and demand at the municipal level. This analysis has enabled the country to make predictions about the future and is currently informing its strategic investments in the water sector.
In its Rapid Assessment (GIZ & MWI, 2020) and the Water Resources Volume B of the NWMP-3 (GIZ & MWI, 2021), it is predicted that the production for domestic water supply from renewable groundwater resources (both governmental and private) will decline to 29% of the 2018 amount. The existing supply gap (65%) can only be closed by massively investing into desalination technology. For the first time, the NWMP-3 has succeeded in integrating the impacts of climate change (GeoTools, 2021) and the decline of conventional water resource exploitation into the water sector's strategic planning. The decline of conventional water resources availability and exploitability means that additional water resources must be made available to ensure municipal water supply security. This includes non-conventional resources — predominantly desalination of sea and brackish water — to suffice the demands in 2040. To this end, the Aqaba Amman Water Desalination and Conveyance (AAWDC) project is being developed, which is set to provide an impressive 300 MCM/yr, making it the largest seawater desalination facility in the world.
Economic water demand is the amount of water a household would want to consume at a given water price or tariff rate, depending on that household’s socio-economic characteristics. Under a system with supply interruptions, water demand quantities can exceed actual consumption. With the continuing rise in income levels, it is expected that the per-capita water demands in all governorates of Jordan will gradually increase over time, with projections of a 15% increase over 2020 by 2040 — on top of demand growth from the expanding population.
An analysis of household water demands was conducted using a coupled hydro-economic multi-agent model. The water demand estimate was detailed per municipality, and has indicated that households in different governorates would expand their current consumption to a varying degree under a supply system with uninterrupted access to piped water. Households in Amman governorate, for example, would currently be expected to expand their consumption by 12% beyond 2018 levels, whereas most other governorates would see a greater increase, based on lower current supply quantities or higher demands.
Water Allocation Gaps (Water Balance)
The total municipal water demand (supply requirements) was estimated at 621 MCM for all governorates in 2018. The projected demand will increase by 28% reaching 798 MCM in 2040. This increase is attributed to population growth only, if non-revenue water (NRW) will remain at the current level of 53.3%.
Water supply of 476.6 MCM in 2018 has satisfied 77% of the required demand, excluding water use for irrigation through the network (around 5.5 MCM). However, the gap between the remaining water production and the required demand is widening due to an increase in demand and the expected substantial decrease of production from conventional water resources. By 2040, the available production of water resources will satisfy only 36% of the required demand as the remaining production will drop to around 279.6 MCM.
In 2018, only 460.5 MCM could be produced from the existing governmental water resources. An additional 332.6 MCM is required to meet the demand of 2025, and the deficit will increase to 518 MCM by 2040. This gap urgently needs to be addressed through planning of projects for water augmentation.
Although cost-intensive water-loss reduction programs have been implemented over the course of the past three decades, they have failed to achieve their aim. NRW has constantly remained at almost the same level. However, in all cases the impact of reduction in NRW compared with the current situation revealed 4% of recovery for demand coverage. This would amount to 89 MCM in water savings if successfully implemented — a challenge considering the continuous expansion of the network and new possibilities for losses. It is also important to note that the calculation of NRW only considers the supply infrastructure and not the abstraction side.
Wastewater Treatment, Reuse, and Water Supply (WTR): An Opportunity For Enhanced Resilience
Climate induced effects such as extreme heat and water scarcity as well as saltwater intrusion are damaging Jordan´s water and wastewater infrastructure, affecting basic service delivery and leading to low energy efficiency. One opportunity to strengthen water resilience in Jordan is to reuse treated wastewater, thereby decreasing the pressure on Jordan’s freshwater resources. A project entitled Wastewater Treatment, Reuse, and Water Supply (WTR) helps to improve the performance of selected water sector institutions in Jordan. This includes WAJ and three water utilities: Miyahuna Water Company (MWC), Yarmouk Water Company (YWC), and Aqaba Water Company (AWC).
The main goals of the project are to enhance the availability of treated wastewater of high quality for restricted agricultural and industrial standards. One aim of the WTR project is that 95% of treated wastewater in nine wastewater treatment plants are following the Jordanian quality standard known as JS 893/2006. Another target is to increase operational optimization of the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and hence reduce electricity consumption by 15%. Further goals include improving the technical and human capacities in the water and wastewater sector, optimizing the use of water resources in Jordan, and increasing the quality and quantity of treated wastewater from the 33 WWTPs all over Jordan.
Jordan faces financial challenges in the water sector. The transmission and treatment of water as well as wastewater is connected to high costs due to the quality of the raw water, which often must be treated. Due to the topographical conditions of the country, the water must be pumped up to the necessary heights using a large amount of energy. Therefore, it is economically important that every cubic meter of water is preserved, which is why Jordan aims to increase the proportion of the population connected to a sewer system from 69% (2020) to 80% by 2030 (MWI, 2016). Also, current water tariffs are too low for the sustainable operation of water utilities. Therefore, the WTR project promotes efficient and effective use of scarce resources in the sector. In addition, heavy rainfall events lead to flooding in winter, which can cause blockage by debris or silting in sewage treatment plants or overflowing of the plants. The absence of rain, on the other hand, results in increased concentrations of pollutants, making biological treatment within the plant less effective.
While water scarcity leads to higher water and food costs, higher water availability would instead lead to lower prices for food and water. Increased opportunities for small-scale farmers can be created, and reducing prices for water for domestic use and irrigation can help to alleviate poverty. As pointed out before, the agricultural sector is most vulnerable to changes in water availability. Around 91% of the treated wastewater is reused in the agricultural sector and in 2020, treated wastewater made up 15% of the total water resources. For example, in the northern governorates, a reuse pipeline system was implemented to substitute 40% of the irrigation water with treated wastewater. The treated wastewater is transported from the Wadi Arab WWTP through a pipeline to the Wadi Arab dam and mixed with freshwater. Eventually, the water is used for irrigation of restricted agricultural sectors in the Jordan Valley and freshwater demand is thus reduced. Further examples for the use of treated wastewater are irrigated golf courses for tourism in Aqaba or the irrigation of urban green areas in the city of Amman.
The use of treated wastewater has an economic importance in several sectors as it supports securing employment, especially in the agricultural and the water sector. Currently, organizational and technical capacities are not sufficient to ensure proper operation of complex WWTPs in Jordan. WTR therefore supports capacity development of utility staff and an improved management of the WWTPs to enhance operational effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability. An approach known as Technical Sustainable Management (TSM) was introduced, and key performance indicators (KPIs) were developed to enhance wastewater management. The aim of the TSM approach is operational improvement and sustainability. It consists of repeated certification according to defined quality criteria and evidence-based recommendations by the supervisory body to improve wastewater management. So far, nine WWTPs have been successfully certified. Continuous surveys of key technical and financial performance indicators of the wastewater treatment plants show a gradual reduction in energy consumption as well as an increasing improvement in the quality of the treated wastewater. The WTR project also promotes the conducting of Training Needs Analyses (TNAs) that allow targeted capacity development for management and operating staff. As a result, plant operations are improved, and the skills of individual employees are strengthened, providing enhanced career opportunities.
Policy Interventions as Proposed by NWMP-3
The Third National Water Master Plan (NWMP-3) for Jordan proposes a range of policy interventions to improve water resource allocation and management. The following proposed interventions enable the national governments to prepare for climate change and plan for it to streamline resilience.
1. Improve the Water Resources Allocation Plan through national level planning coordination
To enable economic resilience, an improved water resources allocation plan is necessary in Jordan. This plan should clearly allocate the resource to different uses based on comprehensive data and with major coordination among related parties. Currently, allocation and investment planning are done without such coordination and data, leaving some parties behind. Achieving this requires a continuous negotiation process among all related parties, with transparency and information sharing being crucial. However, transparency and information sharing remain significant obstacles in many developing countries, particularly in Jordan.
2. Establish a Water Resources Allocation Committee
A Water Resources Allocation Committee is needed, which brings together all stakeholders, meets on a monthly basis, and determines the required allocation of water for all sectors. However, severe obstacles at the management level must be overcome, as decision-makers often prioritize specific interests and neglect water resources management issues. This often results in a lack of understanding of the reasons behind a decline in water resources, which is sometimes ignored for political reasons. Coordination among managers responsible for projects of water supply, wastewater collection and treatment, and treated wastewater reuse are still an exception rather than the norm.
When conditions were favorable, the project attempted to address these challenges by establishing a Joint Planning Committee. The committee's purpose was to openly discuss proposed projects and conditions, question the feasibility and usefulness of such projects, and identify any inconsistencies in data or assumptions. For instance, it brought groundwater vulnerability criteria into consideration while justifying sanitation projects (Margane & Steinel, 2011). However, this effort faced challenges due to the unfavorable conditions brought about by COVID-19 and the beginning of water sector reform efforts, which led to less coordination among the various units competing over funding.
3. Assess and incorporate the water costs from different supply channels and price them accordingly
Economic resilience considers the cost of municipal, industrial, and agricultural water uses. Drastic actions, as proposed by the NWMP-3, are needed to improve economic resilience when facing drastic changes in conventional water resources availability and exploitation in Jordan.
Appropriately considering the cost of water is important for finding the optimal solutions; however, operation and maintenance costs of water supply systems, wastewater collection and treatment systems, desalinated water, and treated wastewater reuse systems are currently not assessed by WAJ or by the water utilities. In addition, the cost of groundwater extraction through wellfields is also not considered (QADI et al., 2018). Hence, there is a need for policy change and prioritizing the use of cost as the primary criterion to determine which source of water should be utilized in a particular region.
4. Incorporate treated wastewater as an alternative water resource for industrial water consumption
Industrial development has increased in Jordan over the past decade, with industrial activities contributing 28% to GDP in 2018 (World Bank, 2022). The major industries are mining and manufacturing. Phosphate and potash mining, cement production, petroleum refining, and fertilizer production utilize the biggest share of industrial water. The mining sector is the main industrial water consumer (90%) and generates around 8% of national GDP. It is thus highly relevant that the mining sector receives an adequate and stable amount of water.
Alternative water resources availability for the commercial and industrial sectors currently impedes economic growth. The challenge is that in most locations there is no alternative to the use of groundwater. Industrial demand currently is around 40 MCM/yr, or 3% of overall water use. This amount is projected to increase to approximately 72 MCM/yr by 2040 (GIZ and MWI, 2022). Thus far, industrial water supply depends mostly on groundwater (approximately two thirds); however, in many industrial processes, treated wastewater reuse could be an option.
The coordination between MWI and the Ministry of Industry or other related entities in the commercial and industrial sectors is weak and there is no agreed procedure for requests and water resources allocation. This also means no planning security for companies. The MWR project is in the process of defining where treated wastewater could be reused from which WWTP source to strengthen this coordination. Since groundwater use shall be prioritized for municipal use, many industries are moving water-intense activities into Aqaba with plans to use desalinated seawater.
5. Incentivize farmers to use wastewater and create a monitoring system for agricultural consumption
Agriculture has increasingly depended on treated wastewater reuse (Oweis, 2021). Although there is a sufficiently expanded distribution network for reuse, some farmers in the northern and central parts of the Jordan Valley still prefer not to reuse treated wastewater. In the highlands, as of 2020 there were 370 signed agreements for treated wastewater reuse around the existing WWTPs. However, there is no related monitoring.
In addition, the lack of coordination among related parties has resulted in weak implementation of treated wastewater reuse by farmers. To address this issue, treated wastewater reuse can be implemented near the effluent discharge points of existing wastewater treatment plants, where it does not have any impact on relevant groundwater or surface water resources. The project is actively seeking to improve actual reuse and related infrastructure in areas where it is possible to increase reuse.
6. Make evidence-based decisions for water sector investments
The integration of Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) analysis and similar scenarios in the decision-making process is needed for resources management and investments planning. It is important that investment decisions rely on proper monitoring and analysis of water resources data, considering climate change impacts and the decline of conventional resource availability and exploitability in the water supply strategy and project planning. Data collection and analysis is essential, along with maintaining a quality database. Having these strong data will allow for the creation of more evidence-based policies. Data collection should cover a range of factors: long-term availability, exploitability, quality, protection, feasibility of raw water treatment, climate change impacts, actual uses, demand prognosis, costs of water, allocation planning, joint project and capital investment planning, and many other aspects.
Conclusions
Jordan is facing a complex challenge in managing its water resources given the country's population growth, climate change, and the dwindling availability of conventional water resources. Jordan's water scarcity is exacerbated by the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis, which has added pressure to the already limited water resources of the country. The National Water Master Plan (NWMP-3) has been a significant milestone for Jordan, as it allowed for the identification of the demand gap for water supply at the municipal level, enabling future projections and predictions for water supply and demand.
However, the demand for water in Jordan is expected to rise significantly in the coming years, and the availability of conventional water resources is projected to decrease. Therefore, to address the existing supply gap, massive investments in desalination technology such as the Aqaba Amman Water Desalination and Conveyance (AAWDC) project are necessary. Moreover, Jordan needs to adopt a holistic approach to water resource management that includes policy interventions, efficient use of available water resources, and the incorporation of new technologies.
The successful implementation of policy interventions outlined in NWMP-3 is crucial to ensuring Jordan's economic resilience in the future. The government and stakeholders must work together to coordinate and share information, prioritize cost as the primary criterion for determining water source utilization in specific regions, and incentivize the use of treated wastewater for agriculture. This strategy will not only reduce the demand for conventional water resources but will also improve the economic viability of the agricultural sector.
In addition to these policy interventions, the development of a comprehensive water resources allocation plan and a water resources allocation committee is essential for effective policy implementation. It is crucial to incorporate water costs from different supply channels and plan for water reuse, especially for industrial and agricultural demand. Furthermore, creating incentive programs for farmers to use treated wastewater for irrigation and integrating evidence-based decision-making into water sector investments using tools like WEAP analysis and scenarios can help promote a resilient water system and foster economic sustainability in Jordan.
Overall, a sustainable and resilient water management system is critical for Jordan's economic and social development. Effective policy interventions, efficient water use, and the incorporation of new technologies are essential components of this system. By adopting a holistic approach to water resource management, Jordan can mitigate the impacts of water scarcity, ensure economic resilience, and provide sustainable access to water for its population.
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