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Jordan is extremely water scarce, making careful water resources planning and management essential. This study considers the water-supply-enhancing effects of a significant urban investment, the Jo...

There is a growing demand for integrating an assessment tool to select wastewater treatment alternatives based on sustainability in the Jordanian wastewater sector. The sector in Jordan has a unique and critical situation that has raised concerns among stakeholders, including donors, and international and national organizations, to carefully select a sustainable treatment system for each case. The Jordanian government set a tool to distinguish between treatment systems, and this tool is mainly focused on financial criteria. However, the sector needs to integrate assessment tools with a wider consideration of other sustainability criteria. Usually, stakeholders are not equipped with a clear methodology to perform sustainability assessments. Therefore, this study proposes and develops a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) tool to evaluate wastewater treatment alternatives from a sustainability perspective for a case study in Jordan—Al Azraq town. Firstly, the study explored the decision and organizational context of the wastewater sector through several interviews. Secondly, assessment criteria and indicators were proposed to compare three proposed treatment alternatives. Finally, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied with composite scores to evaluate wastewater treatment alternatives. Finally, The results of the composite scores indicated that French Constructed Wetland (FCW) was the best option for this case study, with a score of 3.13, followed by Stabilization Pond (SP) as the second sustainable option, with a score of 2.67, and lastly, Activated Sludge (AS), with a score of 2.07. Several conclusions have been highlighted during the process development, such as the importance of selecting sustainability indicators carefully, and engaging stakeholders during the design and implementation of the assessment.

About eighty percent of wastewater is discharged into the environment untreated. Many challenges are decelerating solving the global sanitation problem, such as the financial limitations and lack of technical capacities. Parallel to this, many countries are facing a growing demand on their limited water resources. Higher water demand and limited availability leads to over-abstraction and deterioration in the availability and quality water resources. In this situation, wastewater can be a new water source. Therefore, there is a growing interest in finding low-cost, easy-to-operate and sustainable sanitation solutions. Constructed wetlands (CWs) in recent years have proved their capability in the sanitation sector as an appropriate sanitation system in different contexts, CWs have proved their ability to treat several types of wastewaters for several decades. Several benefits and facts, such as the low construction and operational costs of CWs, low-energy, and less operational requirements, have raised the interests in CWs as a treatment technology. Several studies have investigated CWs suitability based on different sustainability indices (technical, social, environmental, etc.). In this paper, a comprehensive review covers the definition, types, treatment processes, sustainability criteria, limitations, and challenges of CWs. The paper also focuses on climate change resilience and circular economic approach under the technical and financial criteria, respectively.

High water consumption and specific soil requirements warrant a long-term planning for date palm cultivation. Hence, this study presents a detailed procedure to calculate water and land balances that assess the suitability for date palm cultivation in three districts of the West Bank. It applies crop response functions to relate spatially explicit land suitability and salinity levels to net revenues. Furthermore, it compares net present values and benefit–cost ratios under various discount rates and salinity levels to assess economic feasibility. Date palm cultivation in Jericho-Al Ghoor is economically achievable, but additional land amendments are required for expansion in Nablus and Tubas districts. Prevailing average salinity levels have minor negative influence on future date palm developments.

Water in Jordan is scarce, yet key to its economic development. A fast growing population and expanding agricultural sector create demands for new water resources. We present a Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model for the Jordan Valley (JV) to evaluate alternative water supply options. WEAP accommodates the extensive primary and secondary spatial data sets behind our empirical analysis and allows the simulation of various water supplys and demand scenarios. This paper reports on the implementation and calibration of the WEAP model against dam operating rules, showing that it is possible to reproduce historical dam volumes accurately enough by analysis. The paper then describes five alternative water supply scenarios for the JV: business-as-usual, increasing treated wastewater in irrigation, climate change, and two combined scenarios—climate change with increasing reuse, and altered patterns of agriculture to calculate the impact on the demand-supply gap by the year 2050.

Pressing water scarcity in Jordan rapidly increases the demands of marginal water resources for the agricultural sector. Water management studies reveal that no single source could fully solve the nation’s water shortage and many integrated actions are needed to ensure water availability, suitability and sustainability. Yet, among these options treated wastewater has the largest potential to augment water supply in the near future, thereby narrowing the gap between available freshwater and total demand. Indeed, treated wastewater could be a valuable source for irrigation in the agricultural sector and an increasing percentage of irrigated areas, especially in the Jordan Valley, are currently using treated wastewater. With a fast growing population and expansion of the irrigated areas to meet food demand, the pressure on water resources in Jordan remains of imminent importance. Hence, an urgent call to analyze the current and potential role of treated wastewater seems justified. Under the umbrella of the project on the Sustainable Management of Available Water Resources with Innovative Technologies (SMART) funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research in Germany, an investigation has been carried out in the Jordan Valley to estimate the current wastewater reuse quantities and the potential to increase its utility for agricultural production. In general, the reuse as percentage of total treatment is applied for national and international comparisons. Yet, this index is of limited use for policy decisions as it does not reflect potentialities of wastewater use. Therefore, this study introduces a wastewater reuse index (WRI) that reflects the actual proportion of wastewater reused from the total generated wastewater. We found that the WRI in Jordan steadily increased from 30% in 2004 to 38 in 2007. Efficient use of treated wastewater requires the application of new technologies in Jordan like dwellings connected to the sewer system, decentralization of treatment plants to rural and urban settlements and prevention of high evaporation rates from stabilization ponds.

In eastern Mediterranean countries including Palestine, the demand on water is growing rapidly due to rapid population growth, urbanization and socioeconomic development. Both the West Bank and Gaza Strip are facing a series of waste water and sanitation-related problems, large-scale discharge of untreated waste water, leaking of collected waste water from sewer systems and cesspits, water treatment plants that do not function or function only badly and uncontrolled reuse of untreated waste water by the irrigation sector. This paper has four objectives: 1)To demonstrate the link between waste water and health and show the profound influence ofwater supply and quality on public health in Gaza. 2) To highlight the environmental and health impact resulting from poor waste water treatment in Palestine. 3) To describe the basic classification of water-related diseases in Palestine, mainly Gaza Strip. 4)To describe how improvement and proper management in water treatment will lead to improvements in health and a reduction in morbidity and mortality rates. The paper also assesses the environmental and human health impacts associated with the current practices of waste water management and sanitation in Gaza, especially: Soil and groundwater pollution resulting from discharge of untreated waste water; Direct human health risks as a result of exposure to waste water in open systems; Indirect human health risks as a result of consumption of polluted crops and fish. In this paper I focus on the Gaza Strip only. Currently, about 70%-80% of the domestic waste water produced in Gaza is discharged into the environment without treatment, either directly at the source, after collection from cesspits or through the effluent of the sewerage system or overloaded treatment plants. Most of the waste water flows into the sea; a small part infiltrates and contaminates the soil and the groundwater. Moreover, the discharge causes public health risks through direct exposure as well as through reuse of untreated waste water on irrigated lands. Diseases related to contaminated drinking water (poor water treatment) constitute a major burden on the health of people in Palestine and are among the leading causes of ill-health. Sustainable health, especially for children, is not possible without an effective and adequate water supply and healthy water treatment.