- Dr Fathi Shaqour, University of Jordan; Ismail Hashem, Hydrotech International Consulting Co.; John Webb, La Trobe University
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The two recent Gulf wars have caused severe damage to the environment in Jordan, particularly impacting on the sustainability of water resources. Jordan is a small country of about 90000 km2, with about 6 million inhabitants. More than half a million used to work in Kuwait and other Gulf states, but had to leave and permanently settle in Jordan following the first Gulf War. There was a further influx of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from Iraq in 2003 (second Gulf war), worsening the problems. The rapid increase in population imposed stresses on the limited water resources and struggling treatment plants in Jordan. This induced serious problems of declining water tables to unrestorable drawdown levels as a result of overpumping, as well as deterioration of groundwater quality because overloaded treatment plants became inefficient and their effluent contaminated the groundwater.
Groundwater modelling was carried for the main hydrological basins in Jordan to assess the situation. Two scenarios simulated the conditions and the remediation of the induced problems up to the year 2030. The first was a do nothing scenario: continue exploiting groundwater from aquifer systems as at present, with consideration of the normal growth rates in population and their water demands. The second scenario was a self-restoration scenario: complete stop of groundwater abstractions for all purposes, leaving a chance for the aquifer systems to recover their original condition with time. This recovery would rely mainly on natural annual groundwater recharge. Both scenarios showed increases in groundwater salinity of up to 6500 ppm and up to 3000 ppm respectively.
It is clear that the Gulf wars have resulted in unrestorable damages to Jordan’s water resources, so their sustainability is under threat and great efforts are needed to augment the water supply.
BIO:
Dr Fathi Shaqour is an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Geology and Environment at the University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan, Currently academic visitor at both Monash University and LaTrobe University. Dr. Shaqour received his B.S. in Geology and M.Sc. in Hydrogeology from the University of Jordan, and his Ph.D. in Engineering Geology from Leeds University. He worked in both consulting in geotechnical engineering and academic fields. His research mainly covers aspects related to engineering and environmental geology, geotechnical engineering, and hydrogeology. His current research focuses on the geotechnical characterization of geomaterials from Jordan, in addition to groundwater issues.