Environment is at risk as parched Jordan taps water

michelle yazvac

4/10/11

Blog #10

Currently Jordan is among the top 10 driest counties in the world. With their water shortages, they have been planning some unconventional ways of fixing the problem however, it is more so difficult when the desert covers 92% of the territory along with a growing population of 6.3 million. Jordan government plans to retrieve water in the Disi aquifer or even build a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. This project will cost about $900 million which will extract around 3.6 billion cubic feet of water a year from the 300,000 year old Disi aquifer. These planned project are presumably harmful to the environment and this one has been going on since 2008 and will be complete in 2012. It will provide the capital Amman with water for 50 years. Also in 2008, a study done by Duke University shows that Disi's water has ten times more radiation than what is considered safe, and some radiation could trigger cancer. 

There have been arguments of this way of retrieving water if the water in the first place, is so contaminated, then what is the point. Those have said that there is of course the awareness of the radiation however, they would dilute it with enough water from other sources. 

Jordan has also agreed with the Palestinian and Israeli neighbors to build a $4 billion dollar pipeline from the Red Sea to the declining Dead Sea. A plant is supposed to be built to extract the salt so that 200 million metric meters of water could go to Jordan through the pipeline each year. Environmentalist worry that extracting the salt could ruin the ecosystem of the Dead Sea. Over 60% of Jordan's water consumption annually goes to agriculture. This is from the 900 million metric meters of water they have. So in other words, they have water, they just need to manage it better. Around 48% of pumped water supplies are lost due to theft and pipelines, according to Mehyer, the Jordinian-Israeli-Palestinian-non-governmental group. There has also been a loss in rainfall set around 500 million metric tons a year. 

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/environmentis-at-risk-as-parched-jordan-taps-water