Aim and Scope
The Jordanian water sector is facing the challenge of securing a sustainable water supply for the country’s rapidly growing population. Even before the Syrian civil war and the associated refugee crisis, during which Jordan’s population grew by around 35 percent, the freshwater availability per capita per year (~ 145 m³) was far below the threshold for absolute water scarcity. In the context of the Belmont Forum project “Integrated Analysis of Freshwater Resources Sustainability in Jordan“ – in short: Jordan Water Project (JWP) – a comprehensive hydro-economic simulation model of the entire Jordanian water sector was developed under the lead of Stanford University. The model enables an integrated analysis of short- and long-term sustainability challenges in the Jordanian water sector.
The aim of the two-year capacity building project (JordanCap) is to further develop the JWP model to ensure its accessibility and practical usefulness, thus allowing it to be implemented at the Jordanian water authorities as a strategic management tool. To this end, the user friendliness of the model is enhanced and a comprehensive handbook is developed. In addition, ten Jordanian experts are being trained over the course of four workshops to build their capacities for strategic water management decisions. In particular, the project enables the authorities to continuously and independently update the model with new data, to develop new management options, policies and narratives and to simulate the effects of these inputs and decisions on freshwater sustainability over time. The experiences of these local experts applying the model in practice will also be used to further optimize the tool.
