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Abstract

Jordan’s natural water scarcity has been exacerbated in the last two decades by decreasing precipitation, population growth, refugee influxes, and increasing water use. Current renewable water resources cover only two-thirds of the demand, causing water shortages and over-exploitation of groundwater resources.The Community Water Model (CWatM), a new large-scale, open-source hydrological and water resources model developed by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), was set up at 5’ spatial resolution for Jordan. The model was calibrated using GRACE and observations from two gauge stations to assess water scarcity up to 2050. Results from the calibrated model were aggregated into 12 surface water basins. Climate change projections were obtained from four Global Circulation Models GCMs (HadGem2-ES, IPSL-CM5A-LR, GFDL-ESM2M, and MIROC-ESM-CHEM). Water demand for agriculture, domestic, livestock, and industry were calculated within CWatM. The Water Exploitation Index (WEI) was calculated for all basins in Jordan with a focus on densely populated basins, such as Amman-Zarqa Basin, and basins with large agricultural areas, such as the Azraq Basin.The initial results of this research indicate that water stress in Jordan will increase considerably, furthering the gap between supply and demand significantly by 2050. Coping with increasing water stress in Jordan would require improving current water management practices in irrigated agriculture by expanding the use of treated wastewater for irrigation and eliminating illegal abstractions. In urban areas, developing new water resources such as desalinated water can improve water availability for the domestic sector.