| Jordan - Groundwater to save the capital, for a while | Monday, 2. May 2011 |
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| Bundles of massive pipes lay along the 30 kilometre road from Amman’s main airport to the city, giving commuters an unusual scene to behold, and the government a tough bargain to quench the thirst for rapid economic development. A taxi driver explains that these pipes will be installed along a stretch of 350 kilometres to the Disi aquifer in the south of Jordan. “There is no other solution to provide water,” he said, pointing at two high rise buildings towering the city as we approach it. “If you flush the toilets in those buildings at the same time, half the water in Amman would be consumed.” With only 90 litres of water available for use per capita a day, Jordan is reportedly one of the world’s 10 poorest countries when it comes to water resources. Almost half of the country’s population of 6 million resides currently in and around the capital, Amman, which has witnessed several major immigration waves since the 1960s, adding on a 2.5 per cent growth rate’s pressure on its resources and infrastructure. Speaking to the Stockholm Water Front on a dry Amman winter day, Jordanian Minister of Water and Irrigation Mohammad al Najjar explained that demographic changes continue to decrease water shares per person. This compels the central government to “find non-conventional and expensive new resources to make the best of the situation.” Consequent governments since the 1980s have been working on the terms of pumping water from the Disi groundwater basin across the border with Saudi Arabia in the far south of the country. The project seems to be going on full speed, after two decades of sketch designing, performing feasibility studies, and long halts caused by corruption investigations, stagnant negotiations with Saudi Arabia, alleged radium pollution, and the hard resistance of landowning tribes who have exploited its waters “illegally.” |
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