Jordan's Water Shortage - A Grim Reality

   ‘Paul, we have found new ways to gain access to deep water resources that will help to rebalance Jordan’s position on the water map of the region. We’ve been using some of the most sophisticated deep geophysical mapping systems in the world, systems developed to explore for oil and gas in the Gulf. Because of our partners, we can combine that ability to see further underground than ever before with cutting edge French micro-boring technology. We know where the deep water is and where it flows and that it flows through Jordanian land. We can tap into those aquifers before they rise across the border. You see? We can keep our water, we can seize it back from them.’
   I was taken aback by the fire in Daoud’s voice. ‘Can you make it work? I mean, you’ve not only got physical constraints but political ones too.’
   My question merely fanned his passion. Daoud’s hand was on my shoulder as he leaned forwards, his eyes locked on mine and his fervour drawing me in.
Olives, Page 136

As I’ve said before, the Jordanian water shortage aspects of Olives – A Violent Romance are based on reality. Daoud’s aquifers idea was sparked by the existence of a network of Roman aquifers in the country to the north, the ‘Qanat Romani’. There are also a number of deep underground springs that do, indeed, rise into Lake Tiberias. So why not drill deep and tap these springs before the water leaves Jordanian territory?

Of course, the scheme would not meet with approval from ‘next door’, which is core to the events in Olives – Daoud’s scheme is either brilliant or criminally irresponsible, depending on your point of view. Certainly, such a scheme would never be endorsed by a reasonable government. But then we’re looking at a government with its back to the wall here, the water shortage so compelling they’d grasp at any solution that addressed the drought.

The Jordanian water shortage is a very grim reality -the Fourth World Water Development Report (WWDR), recently released by UNESCO, projected that by 2022, Jordan's population could exceed 7.8 million, raising water demand to 1,673 million cubic metres (mcm), and pushing the water deficit from the current 457mcm to 659mcm within a decade.The report itself is linked here and it's a grim read for many Middle Eastern countries - Jordan being one of the most deeply affected by the heady combination of a growing population and diminishing resources.

Here’s a slice of the evidential ‘back story’ from Olives, the introduction to a news feature filed in the Jordan Times under a pen name by one Paul Stokes at the behest of Ibrahim Dajani.

  When French geologist André Sillere started to map the locations of ancient Roman aquifers, the Qanat Romani that dot the landscape in parts of North and Western Jordan and Syria, he little realised that his actions would lead to a tragic chain of events that culminated in the infamous Amman night club bombing in which fifteen people lost their lives.
  Sillere had evolved a theory that there were previously unrealised deep underground water sources in Jordan and he approached Jordanian businessman Daoud Dajani with the idea of tapping them. It was Dajani’s funding that allowed Sillere, supported by technical experts from French water company AquaPur and Jordanian company Jerusalem Holdings, to put his theories to the test and prove the availability of significant new water resources that could provide Jordan with critical relief in its search for solutions to the country’s water crisis.
  But the scheme, part of Jerusalem’s upcoming bid for the Jordanian Water Privatisation, potentially means that Israeli water resources would be depleted. And Israel’s reaction has been both swift and deadly...

In fact there is a an extensive system of well-documented aquifers in the North West of Jordan, the 'Basalt aquifer' shared between Jordan and Syria. Daoud's aquifer scheme is actually surprisingly possible.

The Dead Sea and the Water Crisis

   We drove along the coast of the Dead Sea.
   ‘What was all the checkpoint stuff about?’
   ‘Security. That’s Palestine over there across the water. And Israel. So Jordanian security here is tighter than usual.’
   ‘I thought you were at peace with the Israelis.’
   She looked askance at me, an eyebrow raised. ‘Jordan is.’
   We passed a tall, square metal tower overlooking the flat expanse of lifeless water. I gestured toward it and asked,  ‘Lifeguard?’
   ‘Gun position. They’re not usually manned these days, but when they are they turn the guns away to face inland. So does the other side. Peace, you see?’
Olives, Page 57

It wasn’t until the ‘noughties’ the gun positions on the Dead Sea were turned to face symbolically away from Israel. These days there aren’t even guns on the towers, but there are still military checkpoints as you drive down to the Sea, the remarkable expanse of super-saline water four hundred metres below sea level.

The Dead Sea is almost miraculous, a great expanse of water so saline you just float around in it, a meniscus of mineral oil floating on the surface. You really don't want to shave just before going in, I can tell you from bitter experience. The Jordanian side of the sea is home to a cluster of resort hotels, my personal favourite being the Movenpick Dead Sea. Further down the coast from Amman, the road snakes back up the escarpment, giving a view of the extensive moonscape created by the potash extraction operation, at one time Jordan's principle source of income - the country has never been a wealthy one. At the top you'll find the town of Kerak, home to a great crusader castle - and one of many places where TE Lawrence reported spirited gun battles with the Turks.

But the Dead Sea is under threat. The constant draining of the Jordan has reduced the river to a fragment of its former self and so the Dead Sea is literally dying, its levels slowly dropping to the point where you can actually see moorings something like thirty feet up in the cliffs around the current sea. There has been extensive discussion of remediation measures, including the 'Red Dead' project which would see Jordanian/Israeli co-operation to pipe salt water from the Red Sea.

A similarly visionary scheme is actually under way, seeing water pipes laid from Wadi Rumm right up through to Amman, one of the measures being taken to try and address the very real water crisis Jordan faces - the very water crisis that forms the backdrop to Olives, in fact. Jordan is actually the world's fourth most water challenged country.

In Olives, Daoud’s preoccupation with the water shortage is founded squarely in the story of the regional conflicts born out of 1948 – the Levant (Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Israel, although the term ‘the Levant usually refers to the Arab countries of the Western Mediterranean) is desperately short of water. Israel’s annexation of the Sea of Galilee (known as Lake Tiberius on the Arab side) in the 1967 war (the ‘six day war’) ensured a major source of precious water for Israel – fed by rivers and aquifers from surrounding Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Part of the background to Pauls’ dilemma in Olives is that the book's Daoud Dajani is a wealthy Arab businessman with major business interests and connections across the region who is mounting a bid for the forthcoming privatisation of the Jordanian water network. Daoud’s consortium is being opposed by a British-led consortium which is focusing its bid on conservation and efficient distribution. Daoud’s bid is based on a brilliant and dangerous scheme – to tap the deep seasonal aquifers feeding Lake Tiberius, bringing more water to Jordan at Israel’s expense. Worse, by depleting the fresh water supply into Tiberius, he will ensure the remaining water is more saline – saltier and therefore less suitable for agriculture and drinking water.

Daoud’s bid obviously cannot be tolerated by the Israelis and unites both Israeli and British interests. The question Paul has to resolve is whether Daoud is a businessman acting within the law and meeting unlawful state-sponsored opposition to his brilliant scheme to benefit Jordan or whether he is a fanatic hell-bent on flinging the region into war.

“There can be no peace without resolving water problems and vice versa... it is water that will decide the future of the Occupied Territories and, what is more, whether there is peace or war. If the crisis is not resolved, the result will be a greater probability of conflict between Jordan and Israel, which would certainly involve other Arab countries.”
Jacques Sironneau, quoted in the NATO 2002 Report, ‘Water Resources in the Mediterranean. 

The battle to secure supplies of ‘the universal solvent’ in the Eastern Mediterranean is insoluble. There are too many people living off the land, distribution networks are often creaky and wasteful and the struggle to gain control of resources is constant.

The research on the water crisis that forms the backdrop to Olives is solid – there is, indeed, a major humanitarian crisis brewing in the area and Israel has indeed annexed a large number of water sources by constructing its security wall to encompass them, carving strategic tracts of land from the ‘1967 border’. Each twist and turn of the wall is a bargaining chip at best, a fait accompli at worst. Carving farms in half (as, indeed, the Dajani’s farm in Qaffin has been carved), the wall makes the most of the scant water resources in the West Bank. The source of Lake Tiberius’ wealth (or the Sea of Galilee) is, as outlined in Olives, a mixture of rivers flowing down from Syria and Lebanon and aquifers that rise up into the bed of the lake. According to NATO, 90% of the West Bank’s water is used by Israel and the distribution of water in the area is ‘unfair’ and ‘restrictive’.