ABSTRACT
Jordan, a kingdom in the heart of the arid and semi-arid Middle East (Map 2.1, Plate 1), is so water strained that its blue water resources (1016mcm/yr) make a per capita share of 180 cubic metres per year in the year 2007. The green water resources add 866mcm per year on average (155m3/cap/year) and the grey water of 90mcm per year add another 16m3/cap/year. 1 The total is about 351m3/cap/year. Compared to the need per capita, computed at 1700m3/cap/year, in 2007 Jordan possessed only 21.8 per cent of the water resources it needed. The balance, or about 1349m3/cap/year, was closed by food and industrial imports in the form of what the author calls ‘shadow water’ (Haddadin, 2006, 2007). Maps 2.2 and 2.3 show the surface and groundwater basins of the country respectively.
