003 Jordan Water Scarcity — Decolonise Architecture

A seat at the water table

05.05.26

Image by Andy Køgle, Unsplash

A look at Jordan’s many water networks

“TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE... CLOSE IT DOWN!"

“Time for it to die”.

These were the words of Donald Trump and Elon Musk in early 2025 as they prepared to export ‘America First’ to the world. The victim? The United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Once the world's largest foreign aid agency, it was all but gutted as programmes were cancelled, websites taken down and staff put on leave. As American foreign aid dried up worldwide, one country was left largely unscathed: The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Amidst the flurry of cuts, funding for the country remained intact and a vital injection into its water infrastructure was greenlit.

Today, Jordan is one of the most water scarce countries in the world. Despite over 90% of the population having access to a piped water supply, availability is far lower than the UN’s threshold for water poverty. Rural areas and informal settlements without access to the network are forced to rely on informal water services with sectors such as agriculture bearing the brunt of the shortage.

Addressing scarcity is vital to ensure the longevity of Jordan’s blue infrastructure. The United States’ decision to not cull the development of Jordan’s water supply is a sharp indicator of not only Jordan’s role at the global level, but of water’s importance to its long term stability. However, as with all utilities, the strength of the distribution networks is where the biggest challenges lie. In order to address the needs of Jordanians in urban and rural regions alike, the kingdom must also ensure that access to water is equitable and dependable across society.

Beneath the surface

Jordan’s scarcity has been caused by a mix of topography, climate and history. While Jordan sits in an arid zone, water and its availability have long been historic flashpoints. Its main sources of surface water are the Jordan valley and the Jordan River system. The river’s largest tributary, the Yarmouk River, is shared by Jordan, Israel and Syria and has been the source of both conflicts and negotiations. Water allocation between the nations is divided using a series of treaties with one of the most significant being the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty. Under the treaty, water allocations from the Jordan River were formalised and Israel was obliged to supply Jordan with some 50 million cubic metres of water from Lake Tiberias each year. The allocations provided Israel with defined seasonal allocations of water from the shared rivers with Jordan receiving residual amounts, leaving it susceptible to declining water availability. Over the years, Jordan has purchased additional water from Israel, especially in times of drought. The two countries further deepened their cooperation with a water for energy exchange memorandum, however, such moves are politically sensitive given Jordan’s criticism of the war on Gaza and a large portion of the Jordanian population being Palestinian refugees. Moreover, heavy upstream damming of the Yarmouk in Syria has further reduced the reliability of surface water flow into Jordan.

With a minimal coastline much of Jordan’s freshwater has to be drawn from underground aquifers, often located near the borders and far from the most populated areas. These are layers of porous rock and sediment that hold and channel subsurface water. They can be recharged as rainfall gradually moves down through soil, a limited process in Jordan’s dry climate. As a result, Jordan’s groundwater extraction is more akin to drawing from a non-renewable source as opposed to a regenerative water cycle. With many aquifers being drawn from at a rate far greater than their recharge potential, the quantity of water available is decreasing along with its quality. Aquifers act like sponges with water moving from areas of high water pressure to areas of low pressure. Extraction causes a drop in pressure which draws in water from nearby sources, a particularly common problem in coastal areas where freshwater can be replaced by saltwater. Jordan’s below ground interconnectivity between aquifers further worsens the problem. Water with high salinity tends to accumulate in deeper aquifers. Extraction of the deeper, saltier water for commercial uses causes the deficit to be replaced by freshwater from shallower aquifers, contaminating the water and making it unusable for drinking.

The biggest consumer of Jordan’s freshwater resources is the agricultural industry, accounting for more than half of the usage. With meagre to no rains to dilute the increased salinity of irrigation water, the ground becomes unsuitable for many crops. The recharging of aquifers is also directly affected as irrigation water percolates through the soil and carries with it the phosphates and nitrates used in fertilisers, further reducing the water’s quality. High water demand crops such as bananas are unable to survive the high salinity and many farmers are forced to change crops or sell agricultural land altogether and migrate to urban areas in search of alternative sources of income.

The result is a vicious circle where an intermittent piped supply causes people to turn to a tanker system which puts further strain on the piped network. The question of illegal wells and pumping cannot be significantly answered without ensuring an equitable water distribution system.

Providing a supply

300 kilometres south of the capital city of Amman lies Jordan’s only port and coastal city of Aqaba. As well as being a popular tourist destination on the Red Sea coast, it has been chosen as the site for the country’s largest desalination plant: The Aqaba Amman Water Desalination and Conveyance project. Funded by a group of foreign aid programs and central banks from around the world, it aims to deliver 40% of the country’s municipal water demand by 2040. The plant will operate on a series of low velocity pumps, drawing from a wide catchment in the Red Sea before desalinating the water and pumping it through a 440km pipeline to Amman. It is part of a series of supply-side projects that Jordan has undertaken in recent years including the pipeline system from the Disi aquifer along the border with Saudi Arabia to Amman. At a local level, community groups and households have been utilising greywater recycling techniques in a bid to top up domestic supplies and reduce the dependence on piped networks.

Increasing the supply has the chance of reducing the proliferation of illegal, unregulated wells. Improperly built wells can also act as channels connecting ground level pollutants to freshwater aquifers. Controlling the proliferation of illegal wells is not just an economic challenge but a socially sensitive issue. Settlements that have not been connected to piped networks have to rely on illegal wells as the only source of sustenance. Sealing them without providing suitable alternatives risks genuine harm to local communities and has been a source of community unrest. Megaprojects that increase water capacity have the potential to reduce the need for illegal water tapping but cannot act as the sole solution.

Fixing the leak

Supply side projects have to be complemented with more effective ‘downstream’ answers. With the households receiving 36 hours of piped water a week on average, the water supply significantly affects everyday lives. Household chores and management are concentrated around supply hours with residents unable to carry out many tasks until the water arrives and the responsibility of managing an unpredictable water flow is managed primarily by women. Distribution and its effectiveness is also directly linked to the architecture of urban houses. Like in many hot and arid climates, large plastic water tanks are kept on the roof terraces for storage. This keeps the ground floor usable and allows the water to be distributed by gravity. The same principle works against the tank storage when water is delivered to the house with many residents complaining that the incoming water pressure is simply too low to reach a rooftop tank. A ground floor pump is an added expense and in households unable to afford a pump, the task of ferrying buckets of water to the rooftop tank often again falls to the women and children.

The unreliability has created a shadow economy of unregulated private water tankers that provide over 15% of all urban water, often being the only source of water available in low income areas. Merchants illegally tap from the piped network, resulting in over a half of Jordan’s water being siphoned off and labelled as ‘nonrevenue water’. Defined as water that physically and administratively leaks from the system, nonrevenue water places significant strain on the pricing and availability of network water. Despite the losses, it is largely tolerated in a bid to avoid political unrest due to its necessity in rural areas and within the agricultural sectors. Trucking smaller quantities of water inland not only increases pollution and congestion, it is significantly more expensive with prices over five times higher per litre than from network connections. The result is a vicious circle where an intermittent piped supply causes people to turn to a tanker system which puts further strain on the piped network. The question of illegal wells and pumping cannot be significantly answered without ensuring an equitable water distribution system.

Fixing the pipes is not straightforward. Jordan’s water is merged with layers of political power and social connections, its use dependent on wealthy landowners and informal commerce. They have provided both a lifeline for low income areas whilst also leaving them vulnerable to market swings. At the global level, water is a geopolitical tool that is necessary for influence. The United States’ funding of megaprojects ensures that Jordan has the infrastructure needed to keep it from falling into political unrest and in turn, remaining a dependable American ally within an increasingly fraught region. A basic human right, an equitable water source is necessary for the autonomy and welfare of Jordanians and ensuring it reaches the household has to be the next priority. Ensuring that illegal and unregulated sources of water supply are not removed without a suitable replacement requires careful planning of how water can be delivered to rural and remote regions as well as low income communities. Jordan is developing the infrastructure it needs to produce, now it needs to make sure it has the capability to deliver.