[1] We apply systems analysis to estimate household water use in an intermittent supply system considering numerous interdependent water user behaviors. Some 39 household actions include conservation; improving local storage or water quality; and accessing sources having variable costs, availabilities, reliabilities, and qualities. A stochastic optimization program with recourse decisions identifies the infrastructure investments and short-term coping actions a customer can adopt to cost-effectively respond to a probability distribution of piped water availability. Monte Carlo simulations show effects for a population of customers. Model calibration reproduces the distribution of billed residential water use in Amman, Jordan. Parametric analyses suggest economic and demand responses to increased availability and alternative pricing. It also suggests potential market penetration for conservation actions, associated water savings, and subsidies to entice further adoption. We discuss new insights to size, target, and finance conservation.

This research shows a case from Jordan where geospatial techniques were utilized for irrigation water auditing. The work was based on assessing records of groundwater abstraction in relation to irrigated areas and estimated crop water consumption in three water basins: Yarmouk, Amman-Zarqa and Azraq. Mapping of irrigated areas and crop water requirements was carried out using remote sensing data of Landsat 8 and daily weather records. The methodology was based on visual interpretation and the unsupervised classification for remote sensing data, supported by ground surveys. Net (NCWR) and gross (GCWR) crop water requirements were calculated by merging crop evapotranspiration (ETc), calculated from daily weather records, with maps of irrigated crops. Gross water requirements were compared with groundwater abstractions recorded at a farm level to assess the levels of abstraction in relation to groundwater safe yield. Results showed that irrigated area and GCWR were higher than officially recorded cropped area and abstracted groundwater. The over abstraction of groundwater was estimated to range from 144% to 360% of the safe yield in the three basins. Overlaying the maps of irrigation and groundwater wells enabled the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) to detect and uncover violations and illegal practices of irrigation, in the form of unlicensed wells, incorrect metering of pumped water and water conveyance for long distances. Results from the work were utilized at s high level of decision-making and changes to the water law were made, with remote sensing data being accredited for monitoring water resources in Jordan.

One might think that locations of settlements through history depended on the existence of a nearby permanent water source. Wåhlin thinks that anthropologists and geographers seem to have missed that people in settlements in many parts of the Middle East were able to create for themselves a near-permanent water supply in places where nature was not kind enough to place a river or a spring. Several sites in Jordan provide examples of these creations. Despite an arid to semi-arid climate, several civilizations have started and flourished in these conditions. This paper summarizes the types of systems that people have used through history to develop reliable water supplies in this part of the world. Jawa was a settlement in northern Jordan during the Bronze Age that built an extensive hydraulic system. At Um El Jimal, a city in northern Jordan during the Byzantine era, deflection dams, canals and reservoirs provided a local water supply. Neabateans excelled in water management using cut-stone reservoirs in their capital, Petra, and their empire flourished more than 2500 years ago in what is now southern and central Jordan. Underground cisterns found in Umayyad desert castles in different parts of the country reveal similar activities during the Islamic era. Examining how water resources were managed long ago can provide relevant information in facing the water-resources challenges of today in arid lands.