Water in Jordan

Jordan has about 82 cubic metres of total renewable water per person a year, far below the 500 m³ line of absolute scarcity.¹ Most of its water is pumped from aquifers at rates well beyond their safe yield.² Several of its main sources, the Yarmouk, the Jordan River and the Disi aquifer, are shared with Syria, Israel and Saudi Arabia (see Shared waters). Jordan’s national response is a desalination plant at Aqaba, with a conveyor to Amman, planned to deliver first water around the end of the decade.^3 4

In Jordan, water has long had to be caught, stored and moved. At Petra, the NabataeansNabataeans The people whose rock-cut capital city was Petra, between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. In Hellenistic and Roman times Petra became a major caravan centre for the incense of Arabia, the silks of China and the spices of India. Source: Petra, UNESCO World Heritage Centre settled an essentially arid area by engineering its water.⁵ In the first centuries BC and AD, channels, tunnels and diversion dams fed a large network of cisterns and reservoirs that held and conserved the seasonal rains.⁵ Intensive irrigation began in 1958, when Jordan started diverting the Yarmouk into the East Ghor Canal, later renamed the King Abdullah Canal.⁶ Today, most of Amman’s drinking water is pumped uphill from sources up to 325 km away (see Infrastructure).⁷

Moving water has not made more of it. Demand keeps rising: successive waves of refugees have accelerated population growth, while economic development and pressure to expand agricultural areas add to demand.⁸ Water is increasingly diverted from the Jordan Valley’s agricultural area to supply Amman,⁹ and groundwater levels are declining because of over-exploitation.⁷ Much of the water supplied also earns no revenue: in August 2026, the water minister put national non-revenue waterNon-revenue water The difference between the amount of water put into a distribution system and the amount billed to consumers. High levels reflect water lost through leaks, water not invoiced to customers, or both. Source: The Challenge of Reducing Non-Revenue Water in Developing Countries (Kingdom, Liemberger and Marin), World Bank, 2006 at 41%.¹⁰

One interactive map of Jordan's water, with switchable views built from real geodata and ordered from the natural setting to the engineered response. Climate & drought maps the aridity gradient against the published warming and drought projections. Demand shows where municipal demand is concentrated and growing. Infrastructure brings the physical system together: rivers, major dams, treatment plants, desalination, and the canals and conveyors that move water to the cities. Shared waters outlines the transboundary river basins and aquifers that Jordan shares with other countries, each drawn in full across the border; hover an outline for the countries that share it. Sources are cited under each view. Groundwater abstraction by basin is charted under Water resources.

Jordan covers about 88,780 km², east of the Jordan River.¹⁴ The Jordan Rift Valley, about 5,000 km², runs from Lake Tiberias, 212 m below sea level, through the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea,¹⁴ whose surface stood 441 m below sea level on 1 July 2026.¹⁵ It is the lowest valley in the world.¹⁶ East of it rise highlands of 600–1,600 m, cut by side wadis that drain to the valley.¹⁴ Beyond lies the Badia, a desert of about 69,000 km² that extends the Arabian Desert.¹⁴ The main surface basins are the Yarmouk and the Zarqa, together with the Mujib, Dead Sea, Hasa and Wadi Araba basins.¹⁴

Rainfall

Rain is scarce and falls in a short season. Over 91% of the country receives less than 200 mm a year.¹⁴ Station records range from 28 mm in the southern Badia to 570 mm at Ras Muneef in the northern highlands.¹⁶ In the Jordan Valley, rainfall drops from about 280 mm at Deir Alla to 71 mm at Ghor Safi.¹⁶ Rain-fed farming needs more than about 250 mm, which confines it to the northern and western highlands.¹⁶ The season runs from October to May. About 80% of the rain falls from December to March, peaking in January.¹⁶ The national average was 94 mm over 1937/38–2004/05, but only 80 mm in the last ten years of that period.¹⁴

In the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal’s ERA5 reanalysis, averaged over the whole of Jordan, about 82 mm of rain falls in a year (1991–2020). Station records and national averages use other sources and baselines, so their figures can differ (the text cites a national average of 94 mm over 1937/38–2004/05 from FAO). About 57% of the rain falls in January, February and March, and 6 months average less than 5 mm. Average rainfall in 1993–2022 was within 3% of the 1951–1980 level, though single years swing widely.

Temperature and trends

Mean annual temperature ranges from 13 °C in the southern Badia to 28 °C at Aqaba, with a national mean of 18.6 °C.¹⁶ The climate is semitropical in the Rift Valley, Mediterranean in the highlands and continental in the eastern desert.¹⁴ Station records show annual rainfall falling significantly, by 1.2 mm a year, while the decline was significant in every month of the rainy season except January.¹⁶ Since the 1960s, annual maximum temperatures have risen by 0.3–1.8 °C and minimum temperatures by 0.4–2.8 °C, depending on the region.¹⁷ Annual rainfall has declined by 5–20%, depending on the region. The World Bank warns that multi-year droughts will become the new normal.¹⁷ The report gives no period for that decline, and the country-wide reanalysis average under Rainfall above, which compares 1993–2022 with 1951–1980, shows no fall of that size.

The same reanalysis gives a mean temperature of 19.4 °C for 1991–2020 and a warming of about 0.43 °C a decade over 1971–2022. Station records and national reports use other sources and periods, so their warming rates can differ.

Projections

The third national communication projects warming by 2085 of about 2.1 °C under a moderate scenario and 4 °C under high emissions.¹⁶ Rainfall in 2070–2100 could fall by about 15% or 21% respectively, with larger declines in the west.¹⁶ The national average of summer maximum temperatures could exceed 42–44 °C, and droughts would become more frequent.¹⁶ The World Bank projects warming of up to 2.9 °C by 2050, and 30% less water per person by 2040.¹⁷

Projected change for Jordan

The table gives the CMIP6 multi-model median from the same World Bank portal, as change against 1995–2014. Projections cited in the text may use other models, scenarios or baselines, so their figures can differ.

A budget of about 1.2 billion cubic metres

In 2024 the Ministry of Water and Irrigation put total water use at 1,189 million cubic metres.² The sector abbreviates the unit to MCM, and one MCM is a billion litres. Groundwater supplied about 57% of it (677 MCM), surface water about 26% (314 MCM) and treated wastewater the remaining 17% (197.5 MCM).²

Several of the large sources are shared with other countries, making water management partly a matter of diplomacy. It also means some of these water resources are affected by decisions in Syria, Israel and Saudi Arabia, not only in Jordan.

Surface water: three stressed rivers

Surface water supplies about a quarter of the total, and the three principal rivers, the Jordan, the Yarmouk and the Zarqa, have all become unreliable. Upstream diversion and over-pumping in Syria and Israel reduce what arrives.¹⁸ The Lower Jordan’s lost flow is set out under Shared waters. The Yarmouk matters most for supply: FAO put it at around 40% of Jordanian surface water in 1997.¹⁹

The main rivers

The table ranks the rivers of Jordan by the largest natural flow they reach inside the country. Natural flow is the modelled long-term average before any withdrawals. For a heavily used river it measures what the river could carry, not what arrives today.

The dams on these rivers, from the FAO AQUASTAT inventory, are listed river by river under Infrastructure.

Groundwater: the mainstay, over-drawn

With surface water unreliable, most of Jordan's supply comes from underground. That is around 57% of the 2024 budget,² drawn from twelve mapped basins.⁷

Each basin has a safe yield: the amount that can be drawn each year and replaced by rain. For Jordan as a whole, the safe yield of renewable groundwater is estimated at about 275 MCM/yr, while total groundwater use was about 677 MCM in 2024, on the ministry’s newest water budget.² In its 2022 figures, the ministry says that ten of the country's 12 main aquifers were being depleted beyond their recharge volumes.⁷ The chart breaks the imbalance down basin by basin, on the ministry’s 2022 figures, when basin abstraction totalled 656 MCM. In the worst case, Azraq, abstraction in 2022 was about 2.7 times the safe yield, and Amman–Zarqa ran the largest deficit, about 75 MCM.⁷ Disi is a separate case. Its water is fossil water, rain that fell tens of thousands of years ago with nothing refilling it. Pumping there is mining rather than harvesting.

Non-conventional resources

Treated wastewater accounted for around 17% of the water budget in 2024² and was the fastest-growing source over 2012 to 2022.⁷ Almost all of it is reused in agriculture, which frees fresh water for drinking. The ministry’s wastewater reuse policy, which implements the National Water Strategy, expects treated volumes to rise from 186 MCM in 2019 to 235 MCM by 2030 as population and treatment capacity grow.²² The schedule for building the plants is the less certain half of that forecast. Treated wastewater has become a fixed component of the water budget, with about 195 MCM reused in 2023, Noon Post reported from the ministry’s figures,²³ and about 197.5 MCM in 2024 on the ministry’s Water Budget 2024.²

Water in Jordan is contested between sectors. On the ministry's 2024 figures agriculture used about 49% of supply, municipal and tourism use about 48%, industry around 3% and remote areas and livestock about 0.5%.²

The balance has shifted over two decades. FAO’s 2008 country profile put total withdrawal in 2005 at 941 MCM, of which agriculture took 65%, households 31% and industry 4%.⁶ By 2023 total demand had reached about 1.2 billion m³ on the ministry's figures, with agriculture at 623 MCM and household and tourism use at 527 MCM.²³ The AQUASTAT freshwater series charted below is a different series: it gives 866 MCM for 2005 and 950 MCM for 2022, against the ministry’s 1,127 MCM from all sources in 2022, so figures from the two should not be mixed.⁷ Refugees added pressure. Household demand in the northern governorates rose by about 40% during the years of hosting Syrian refugees.²³

Irrigation in the Jordan Valley

Intensive irrigation began in 1958, when Jordan started diverting the Yarmouk into the East Ghor Canal, later renamed the King Abdullah Canal. The canal was 70 km long in 1961 and reached 110.5 km after three extensions between 1969 and 1987.⁶ Irrigated farming covered about a third of the cultivated area in 2004. Drip irrigation served about 85% of equipped land in the Jordan Valley and 90% in the highlands.⁶ Agriculture's share of GDP fell from 6% in 1992 to 3% in 2007.⁶

Withdrawals over time

FAO’s AQUASTAT estimates put Jordan’s freshwater withdrawals at 451 million m³ in 1975 and 950 million m³ in 2022. Agriculture’s share of the total moved from 70% in 1979 to 52% in the latest estimate (2019).

Irrigation took 623 million m³ in 2023: 263 million from groundwater, 168 million from surface water and 192 million from treated wastewater, or 42%, 27% and 31%.²⁵ The split differs sharply by region. In 2021 the Jordan Valley irrigated with 29 million m³ of groundwater, 133 million of surface water and 133 million of reclaimed water, while the highlands relied mainly on groundwater, 181 million m³.²⁶ The ministry estimates that actual groundwater use for irrigation is 100 to 140 million m³ a year above the metered records, because of unlicensed wells.²⁶ In 2023 it counted 2,335 operating agricultural wells and backfilled 137 illegal ones.²⁵ The irrigated area was 896,000 dunums in 2021, about 41% of the planted area, with 306,000 dunums in the Jordan Valley and 589,000 in the highlands.²⁶ Withdrawals and basin balances are under Water resources and Water use.

Methods

AQUASTAT puts 81% of the 90,606 ha equipped for irrigation in 2018 under localised irrigation, 17% under surface irrigation and 2% under sprinklers.²⁸ The agriculture minister said in August 2023 that over 95% of irrigated agriculture relied on drip.²⁹ The National Water Strategy puts on-farm efficiency at around 60% and sets a target of 75% by 2032.²⁶

Policy

The strategy aims for non-conventional water to reach 45% of irrigation relative to freshwater by 2030, up from 31% in 2021, and for abstraction to reach safe yield by 2035 with no illegal wells. It expects an irrigation shortfall of about 364 million m³ a year by 2040, 38% of irrigation demand.²⁶ The ministry’s reallocation policy of 2016 caps freshwater for highland irrigation and allows irrigation to expand only where treated wastewater is available.³⁰ The cost of service for irrigation water is around JD 0.07 per m³ against an average tariff of around JD 0.012, which was set in 1994, and the Jordan Valley Authority’s cost recovery is around 40%.²⁶

Treated wastewater

In 2023 Jordan used 195 million m³ of its 215 million m³ of treated wastewater, and 192 million went to irrigation.²⁵ Most of it is reused indirectly: in 2021 around 130 of 186 million m³ came from the As-Samra plant, flowed into the King Talal Dam and then to the Jordan Valley.²⁶ Only about 9% of As-Samra effluent is used directly, by 55 farmers on 2,281 dunums.³¹ In 2019 the Water Authority had limited direct reuse to fodder crops and fruit trees, and Jordan prohibits irrigating vegetables eaten raw with it; unrestricted irrigation uses blended water.³¹ The reuse policy says that in the highlands treated water is to replace groundwater, not irrigate new land.²² The planned North Balqa plant is to make 13 million m³ a year of irrigation-grade effluent available.³² Plants are covered under Infrastructure; irrigation and reuse projects across the region are on the Agriculture & Food hub.

Jordan's modern water system is dams, pumps and pipes, and much of it moves water uphill to the high-demand area around Amman: about 90% of the capital’s drinking water comes from sources 125 to 325 km away and is lifted by up to about 1,200 m.⁷ A substantial share is unaccounted for: the ministry estimated non-revenue water at 50% of the 520 MCM of drinking water supplied in 2022, equivalent to about 260 MCM.⁷ In August 2026 the water minister put national non-revenue water at 41%.¹⁰ Non-revenue water means water put into the distribution system but not billed, including physical and administrative losses such as leakage and illegal use.⁸ In 2024 the government and Amman’s utility, Miyahuna, signed an agreement with IFC to prepare a performance-based contract to cut losses across a third of Amman’s network.³³ The National Water Strategy targets cutting non-revenue water to 35% once the national conveyance project operates and to 25% by 2040; getting there is mostly a question of capital and metering rather than of technique.⁸

Tracked projects

Open the project database for Jordan

The National Water Carrier, finally moving

The answer on the supply side is the Aqaba–Amman Water Desalination & Conveyance project, usually shortened to AAWDC. It pairs a 300 million m³/year desalination plant on the Red Sea with a conveyance of about 438 km north to Amman, as given in the project’s 2025 environmental and social impact assessment; it is the largest infrastructure project in Jordan’s history.³ The final technical and legal agreements were signed in April 2026, with financial close targeted for July³⁴ and still pending in September.⁴ Capital cost is about US$4.3 billion, or US$5.8 billion once financing is counted. The structure is a build-operate-transfer concession, under which the private side builds the works, runs them for an agreed period and hands them over.³⁴ Meridiam and SUEZ hold the project company,³ with Vinci and Orascom building.³⁵ Ground preparation has started. First water is planned around the end of the decade;⁴ until then, every dry year must be bridged from storage, wells and rationing.

The carrier itself grew out of the earlier Red Sea–Dead Sea concept, which would have used the same Aqaba intake to slow the Dead Sea's fall as well as supply drinking water. That version was shelved.³⁶ Financing for the scheme now under way comes from AIIB, EBRD, IFC, KfW, AFD and the Green Climate Fund,³⁵ the European Investment Bank³⁴ and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which approved a financing package in September 2026.⁴ Published cost figures vary: MEED recorded a US$3 billion contract award in January 2025,³⁷ the ministry estimated about US$2.5 billion in May 2025,²³ and the April 2026 agreement gave the capital cost above.³⁸ The figures are not stated on the same basis, so they are best not compared directly.

The Disi conveyance

The Disi Water Conveyance Project transports water some 325 km from a fossil aquifer on the Saudi border to Amman and the northern cities. Operational since 2013 at a total project cost its US lender put at US$987.6 million, it supplies roughly 100 MCM/yr.³⁹ The aquifer is shared with Saudi Arabia (see Shared waters).

Dams and reservoirs

Dry years bite hard. In 2021 six of Jordan's 14 dam reservoirs dried up as rainfall fell to 60% of the annual average.⁴⁰ The wet winter of 2025–26 reversed that, and King Talal Dam reached its full 75 MCM in March 2026.⁴¹

Wastewater treatment plants

Overexploitation has degraded groundwater quality. Many municipal and irrigation well fields have been abandoned, Dhuleil among them.⁶ The Disi aquifer, which supplies Amman, carries natural radioactivity. A 2009 study led by Avner Vengosh of Duke University sampled 37 wells and found radium above WHO levels in all but one.⁴³ Reports of the peak values differ, from up to 20 to 30 times the international thresholds.^43 44 The water is blended with other sources to reduce the radiation.⁴⁵

The Zarqa and the lower Jordan

The Zarqa River runs 72 km through Amman and Zarqa to King Talal Dam. Its pollution comes mainly from chemical spills by upstream factories and from sewage. Farms along it irrigate with the polluted water.²⁰ The river passes through an area holding more than 85% of Jordan's industrial plants.⁴⁶ The As-Samra plant upstream took in nearly 68% of the wastewater flowing across the country in 2021.⁴⁷ A US$28 million expansion was signed in July 2026.⁴⁸

The lower Jordan River has become a channel for waste, raw sewage, saline water and fishpond discharge.⁴⁹ The 1994 peace treaty obliged Israel and Jordan to stop discharging untreated wastewater into the Yarmouk and the Jordan within three years.⁵⁰ The 1987 agreement with Syria contains no water-quality provisions at all.⁴²

Reuse is one of Jordan's strengths. In the mid-2000s more than 80% of Greater Amman's sewage was treated and released to the Zarqa, then stored at King Talal Dam to irrigate the middle Jordan Valley.⁶ The health ministry is responsible for drinking-water safety.⁶

The reported indicators

On the latest values each country reports for SDG indicator 6.3.1, Jordan’s 77% (2024) ranks 6th of the 17 countries covered here that report it; years differ by country. The regional comparison is in the wastewater and reuse dashboard.

About 26% of Jordan's water resources are shared with neighbours, on the ministry's figures.²³ UNECE puts the figure for water resources shared with neighbouring countries at around 40%.⁵¹ The main shared systems are the Yarmouk with Syria, the Jordan with Israel, and the Disi aquifer with Saudi Arabia. In February 2026 Jordan joined the UN Water Convention, the second Middle Eastern state after Iraq.⁵²

The Yarmouk and Syria

Jordan and Syria signed their first Yarmouk agreement in Damascus on 4 June 1953. It planned a joint dam at Maqarin, with Jordan bearing 95% of construction costs and Syria taking 75% of the electricity.⁵³ A new agreement, signed in Amman on 3 September 1987, replaced it. Jordan would finance the Wehda dam, but the dam could store water only after 26 Syrian reservoirs listed in the annex, holding 134 MCM, had filled.^54 42 The 1987 agreement places no limits on groundwater abstraction. Because the aquifer is hydraulically connected to the river, pumping from wells can diminish its flow, at least in the Hauran Plain.⁴²

Upstream use outran the treaty. Satellite analysis identified 32 Syrian dams in the basin, with an estimated total storage capacity of 197 MCM.⁴² The Yarmouk's average flow, gauged near its confluence with the Jordan River, fell from 229 MCM a year in 1979–88 to about 40 MCM in 2008–15.⁴² The Wehda (Unity) Dam had an initial storage capacity of 110 MCM, while a second stage was planned to raise this to 225 MCM. Construction began in 2003⁵⁵ and the dam was completed in 2006 without its power-generating component.⁴² In July 2022 water expert Dureid Mahasneh put its contents at no more than 10–15 MCM, and Syria turned down Jordan's request for 30 MCM.⁵⁶

The change of government in Damascus reopened the file. In July 2025 a joint technical committee met at the dam, and Syria said it was ready to re-examine the 1987 shares.⁵⁷ In April 2026 the two states launched a study of the basin with Swiss support and a joint platform for water data.^58 59

Israel: the treaty and the add-ons

The 1955 Johnston Plan would have given Jordan 55% of the basin's water, but it was never signed.⁶ Water became a front line instead. In 1969 Israel attacked the East Ghor Canal on suspicion that Jordan was diverting too much.⁶

The 1994 peace treaty settled allocations in Annex II. Israel pumps 12 MCM from the Yarmouk in summer and 13 MCM in winter. It takes an extra 20 MCM in winter, in exchange for 20 MCM of Jordan River water delivered to Jordan in summer. Both sides undertook to find a further 50 MCM a year of drinking water.⁵⁰ Practice has departed from the text. Jordanian records show Israel pumping about 47 MCM a year from Lake Tiberias to the King Abdullah Canal, more than twice the 20 MCM in the treaty. Israel alone uses the excess flood flows.⁴²

In July 2021 the two foreign ministers agreed that Jordan would buy an extra 50 MCM a year;⁶⁰ the deal was signed that October.⁶¹ Israel renewed the deal in six-month steps, but it lapsed at the end of 2025.^62 63 In July 2026 Israel reportedly tied renewal to Jordan moderating its rhetoric and restoring full diplomatic ties.⁶⁴ A June 2026 IMF report, as cited by Noon Post, put the loss to Amman at 50 MCM a year.²³

Cancelled and failed deals

Two larger schemes failed. Jordan and Israel agreed in 2013 and 2015 to pipe Red Sea water north, sending part of it on to the Dead Sea.^36 65 On 17 June 2021 Jordan withdrew, concluding there was no real desire for the project on the Israeli side.³⁶ On 22 November 2021 Israel, Jordan and the UAE signed a declaration in Dubai. Jordanian solar power of 600 MW would be swapped for up to 200 MCM a year of Israeli desalinated water.⁶⁶ Hundreds protested in Amman.⁶⁷ On 16 November 2023 Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Jordan would not sign, because of the war in Gaza.⁶⁸

The Disi aquifer and Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia expanded extraction from the shared Saq–Disi aquifer in the 1980s to grow wheat. Its withdrawals were estimated at over 1,000 MCM in 2008. Jordan draws some 60 MCM for farming near the border.⁶⁹ On 30 April 2015 the two states signed an agreement in Riyadh. It bans groundwater-dependent activity in a protected zone within five years, limits use in a wider management zone to municipal supply, and creates a joint technical committee.⁷⁰ It sets no numerical limit on extraction.⁶⁹

The Dead Sea

The Jordan once carried about 1.3 billion m³ a year into the Dead Sea. A 2013 UN-ESCWA estimate put the flow at 20–200 MCM.⁷¹ The lower Jordan has lost 95% of its historical flow in 50 years, EcoPeace's director said in 2022.⁴⁹ The Dead Sea fell from about 398 m below sea level in 1976 to about 430 m in 2015, and more than 1,000 sinkholes appeared in 15 years.⁷² At COP27 in November 2022 Israel and Jordan signed a declaration on restoring the river.⁴⁹

The record

Shared river basin

The agreements

Joint bodies

• Joint Syrio-Jordanian Commission (JSJC)Jordan · 1953 · Jordan, Syria
• Joint Water Committee between Jordan and Israel (JWC3)Jordan · 1994 · Israel, Jordan

Shared aquifers

• Arava Valley / Wadi Araba Alluvial AquiferIsrael · data moderate
• Basalt Aquifer System (South): Azraq-Dhuleil BasinSyria · data good
• Basalt Aquifer System (West): Yarmouk BasinSyria · data good
• Saq-Ram Aquifer System (West) / DisiSaudi Arabia · data good
• Tawil Quaternary Aquifer System: Wadi Sirhan BasinSaudi Arabia · data good

The Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) sets policy and oversees the sector. Under it, the Water Authority of Jordan runs water and wastewater, and the Jordan Valley Authority manages the valley's irrigation. Service delivery runs through utilities: Miyahuna serves Amman; Yarmouk and Aqaba Water cover their own regions. The private sector has taken on more of the work over the past two decades. As-Samra was delivered as a build-operate-transfer concession. The Aqaba–Amman carrier is structured as a public-private partnership (see Infrastructure).

Jordan's water future turns on four pressures. Climate change is reducing recharge and raising demand at once. Financial capacity is the second: the sector needs heavy investment while tariffs must remain affordable to households that already struggle to pay them. Transboundary reliability is the third, and the one Jordan controls least. Efficiency is the fourth, and the cheapest of the four to address, since the network losses set out under Infrastructure are the fastest available win.

The National Water Strategy 2023–2040 frames the response: desalinate at Aqaba, expand reuse, cut losses, and move tariffs toward cost recovery. Desalination and reuse are mainly engineering problems. Cutting losses also requires tackling leakage and illegal use, while tariff reform remains difficult.