Tankers, wells, pipes and pumps: Agents and mediators of water geographies in Amman, Jordan

Water tankers and private wells along with the municipal piped water system have become an important feature of the techno-social assemblage of water supply in Amman, Jordan. The article takes a theoretically hybrid approach aimed at generating a conversation between actor-network theory (ANT) and the critical-realist and political-economic approaches. We undertake both ANT-inspired and then social-structural analysis of the geography of access to water in Amman. The ANT-based analysis of 'things' like tankers, wells, pipes and pumps draws attention to their relational agency in enabling or constraining access to water. The structural analyses remind us of the enduring class-, gender- and geopolitically based power relations that provide the context for the technologies, or things, to work. The key argument is that ANT is useful as a meso-level framework, which may enrich structuralist narratives on geographies of access to water. Specifically, in the case of Amman, Jordan, the inequitable access to water is linked to the history of the Jordanian state, its security imperatives and the technologies that are pressed into service to manage water

Intermittent Water Supplies: Challenges and Opportunities for Residential Water Users in Jordan

Intermittent access to improved urban water supplies is a large and expanding global problem. This paper describes 16 supply enhancement and 23 demand management actions available to urban residential water users in Jordan to cope with intermittent supplies. We characterize actions by implementation, costs, and water quantities and qualities acquired or conserved. This effort systematically identifies potential options prior to detailed study and shows that water users have significant capacity to affect demand. We suggest several methods to evaluate options and highlight the need to include local water management decisions in integrated water resources management and planning at utility and regional scales

What constitutes an equitable water share? A reassessment of equitable apportionment in the Jordan–Israel water agreement 25 years later

The water agreement between Jordan and Israel, created as part of their peace treaty in 1994, set out detailed allocations terms to which both countries have respectively abided since its inception. But after two and a half decades, the water agreement terms no longer appear as equitable considering the social, economic, and environmental changes that have occurred in the region as a whole and within the two countries individually. This paper analyzes the status of the treaty terms in light of changes seen within both countries regarding the factors laid out by the United Nations as relevant to determining equitable apportionment among riparian nations. The analysis suggests that a renegotiation of the water agreement terms is warranted due in large part to changes in population and the availability of alternative water resources (desalination and treated wastewater). While no explicit recommendations are made as to what a future treaty's terms should include, this paper presents evidence of a changing ground reality that deserves greater consideration in reaching a more equitable and sustainable water agreement for the decades to come

Quantitative Assessment of Contested Water Uses and Management in the Conflict-Torn Yarmouk River Basin

The Yarmouk River basin is shared between Syria, Jordan, and Israel. Since the 1960s, Yarmouk River flows have declined more than 85% despite the signature of bilateral agreements. Syria and Jordan blame each other for the decline and have both developed their own explanatory narratives: Jordan considers that Syria violated their 1987 agreement by building more dams than what was agreed on, while Syria blames climate change. In fact, because the two countries do not share information, neither on hydrological flows nor on water management, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic factors affecting the flow regime. Remote sensing and multiagent simulation (MAS) are combined to carry out an independent, quantitative analysis of Jordanian and Syrian competing narratives and show that a third cause for which there is no provision in the bilateral agreements actually explains much of the changes in the flow regime: groundwater overabstraction by Syrian highland farmers

Tankers, Wells, Pipes and Pumps:Agents and Mediators of Water Geographies in Amman, Jordan

Water tankers and private wells along with the municipal piped water system have become an important feature of the techno-social assemblage of water supply in Amman, Jordan. The article takes a theoretically hybrid approach aimed at generating a conversation between actor-network theory (ANT) and the critical-realist and political-economic approaches. We undertake both ANT-inspired and then social-structural analysis of the geography of access to water in Amman. The ANT-based analysis of 'things' like tankers, wells, pipes and pumps draws attention to their relational agency in enabling or constraining access to water. The structural analyses remind us of the enduring class-, gender- and geopolitically based power relations that provide the context for the technologies, or things, to work. The key argument is that ANT is useful as a meso-level framework, which may enrich structuralist narratives on geographies of access to water. Specifically, in the case of Amman, Jordan, the inequitable access to water is linked to the history of the Jordanian state, its security imperatives and the technologies that are pressed into service to manage water

Assessment of Treated Wastewater Reuse in Drip Irrigation under Different Pressure Conditions

This study aims to investigate the influence of treated wastewater (TWW) on the hydraulic performance of drip irrigation emitters. A field experiment was conducted in order to test two types of online emitters, a low pressure (LP) and a standard pressure (SP), at different working pressures (0.25 bar, 0.50 bar, and 1.00 bar) using TWW. The emitters were initially evaluated in the laboratory and the field for the discharge exponent (X), discharge coefficient (Kd), average emitter discharge (Qavg), coefficient of variation (CV), distribution uniformity (DU), the mean discharge ratio (Dra), and the main degree of clogging (DC). The main effect of the emitters on the hydraulic parameters of irrigation performance was not significant, while the operational pressure and operational time of irrigation had a significant effect. For the LP emitter, the average emitter discharge was 7.6, 7.7, and 7.8 Lh−1 at 0.25, 0.50, and 1.00 bar, respectively. For the SP emitter, the average emitter discharge was 7.6, 7.8, and 7.8 Lh−1 at 0.25, 0.50, and 1.00 bar, respectively. The EU values for the LP and SP emitters varied from low to moderate at 0.25 bar, as the EU values at 0.50 and 1.00 bar were considered high for both emitter types

Validation of an Analytical Model to Lower the Cost of Solar-Powered Drip Irrigation Systems for Smallholder Farmers in the Mena Region

Abstract Drip irrigation is a micro-irrigation technology that has been shown to conserve water and significantly increase crop yield. This technology could be particularly beneficial to the world’s estimated 500 million smallholder farmers, but drip systems tend to be financially inaccessible to this population. Drip systems require costly components including a pipe network, emitters, a pump and power system. Due to limited access to electricity, many smallholder farmers would require off-grid solutions. Designing reliable, low cost, off-grid drip irrigation systems for smallholder farms could significantly reduce the barrier to adoption. This paper builds on an integrated solar-powered drip irrigation model that was shown to improve upon an existing software. Field trials of the small-scale drip system were conducted on research farms in Jordan and Morocco for a full growing season. Data collected from these field trials are used to validate the hydraulics portion of the systems-level model. In addition, the insights gained from the field trials were formed into design requirements for future iterations of the model. These include optimizing for the system life cycle cost, as opposed to capital cost, the ability to simulate the system operation over a season, the capability to input a user’s irrigation schedule, incorporating locally-available components, and incorporating a system reliability constraint based on more detailed agronomic calculations

Energy Reduction and Uniformity of Low-Pressure Online Drip Irrigation Emitters in Field Tests

© 2019 by the authors. A promising way of addressing the issue of growing water scarcity is through wider use of drip irrigation, which delivers water and fertilizer to crops in a slow, targeted manner, and has been shown to increase yields and water use efficiency. Yet, drip irrigation system adoption is low, primarily due to the high capital cost of the pressurized piping network and the pump, and operating energy cost. Lowering the water pressure needed for drip emitters to deliver water can reduce both capital and operating costs of drip systems. Here we present the results from field trials of new pressure-compensating online drip emitters that operate with a minimum compensating inlet pressure of 15 kPa (0.15 bar), in comparison to typical commercial emitters with minimum pressures of 50-100 kPa (0.5-1.0 bar). The field trials were carried out on nine farms in Morocco and Jordan over the course of one irrigation season with freshwater and treated wastewater. Low-pressure emitters are shown to reduce hydraulic energy per unit volume of water delivered by 43% on average compared to commercial emitters, without significantly sacrificing water emission uniformity (low-pressure emitters show uniformities of 81-91%, compared to 87-96% for commercial emitters). This energy reduction could lead to savings of 22-31% in the capital cost of a pump and emitters and the energy cost for a typical drip irrigation system. Thus, the low-pressure online emitters can be used as substitutes to commercial emitters that require higher water pressures, leading to reduced environmental impact and lower system costs

A coupled human–natural system analysis of freshwater security under climate and population change

Limited water availability, population growth, and climate change have resulted in freshwater crises in many countries. Jordan's situation is emblematic, compounded by conflict-induced population shocks. Integrating knowledge across hydrology, climatology, agriculture, political science, geography, and economics, we present the Jordan Water Model, a nationwide coupled human-natural-engineered systems model that is used to evaluate Jordan's freshwater security under climate and socioeconomic changes. The complex systems model simulates the trajectory of Jordan's water system, representing dynamic interactions between a hierarchy of actors and the natural and engineered water environment. A multiagent modeling approach enables the quantification of impacts at the level of thousands of representative agents across sectors, allowing for the evaluation of both systemwide and distributional outcomes translated into a suite of water-security metrics (vulnerability, equity, shortage duration, and economic well-being). Model results indicate severe, potentially destabilizing, declines in freshwater security. Per capita water availability decreases by approximately 50% by the end of the century. Without intervening measures, >90% of the low-income household population experiences critical insecurity by the end of the century, receiving <40 L per capita per day. Widening disparity in freshwater use, lengthening shortage durations, and declining economic welfare are prevalent across narratives. To gain a foothold on its freshwater future, Jordan must enact a sweeping portfolio of ambitious interventions that include large-scale desalinization and comprehensive water sector reform, with model results revealing exponential improvements in water security through the coordination of supply- and demand-side measures