Water Planning in Jordan

Abstract

This paper present a shift in water planning in Jordan from supply-side water management to more integrated and demand-driven water management. Assessment of existing water supply and demand is presented and strategies are outlined. Potential available water resources and uses are presented. Strategies to meet unsatisfied water demand are presented. These include use of nonconventional water resources, privatization, efficiency enhancement in distribution systems, and demand management. Scenarios for sustainable water management are developed. Each scenario was based on combinations of the role of government in the water sector and the national financial situation. Comparisons among these scenarios were performed for the case of Jordan and a set of recommendations are stated.     

Comparative Evaluation Of Surface Water Availability,Wastewater Reuse And Desalination In Saudi Arabia

ABSRTACT

There is a growing concern in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to exploit water resources of acceptable quality to meet demands in domestic, industrial, and agricultural sectors. The agricultural water need, which constitutes approximately 84% of the total demand, was estimated to be 7430 million cubic meters in 1985. The annual domestic and other demands amounted to 1400 million cubic meters for 1985. Various alternative supplies to meet these demands are surface water, renewable groundwater resources, reclaimed wastewater, desalinated water, and non-renewable groundwater. Due to excessive withdrawal of water from deep aquifers, considerable drawdown has recently been noticed.

This paper reviews the existing and future trends in developing surface water resources, reclamation of waste-water from various towns and cities and its use, and the role of desalination plants in the coastal regions of the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea. These alternatives are evaluated and compared in economic terms. Cost-capacity relationships are developed for various alternatives which will be used in developing long-term plans for optimum allocation of available resources in different parts of the Kingdom.     

Towards Sustainable Management of Scarce Water Resources in Botswana

Abstract

Proper management of scarce water resources has in recent years become necessary to maintain sustainable societies. This article discusses the management of water resources in Botswana. It highlights the amount of water resources available, relating it to the demand, and observes that the current trend of exploiting these resources will not be sustainable in the long run unless the major strategies suggested herein are adopted. It also looks at the administration of water and water resources in Botswana, focusing on the shared water resources. Government policies and strategies towards sustainable management of scarce water resources are also discussed. The author draws particular attention to the water tariff structure, noting that the prevailing water tariff system promotes sustainable management of water resources.     

Statistical Domestic Water Demand Model for the West Bank

Abstract

The water balance in the West Bank shows a severe deficit. Scenarios and strategies are formulated in order to overcome the deficit problem. These include options for better management of the existing water resources and the enhancement of new resources. This paper focuses on demand modeling as one of the key issues for effective water management. Although past literature about demand modeling is comparatively rich for different regions in the world, this research provides a unique study, due to the past political situation in the Middle East, for water demand modeling in the West Bank. The developed statistical domestic water demand model will assess the factors which influence domestic water use, and determine the parameters that may help in demand management. Rammallah City is used as a case study to illustrate the proposed framework of the analysis. The developed model indicates that water utility authorities can use price as a tool to ration water or encourage reduced water consumption in households.     

Social Science Training for Engineers—Experiences from the USA

ABSTRACT

This paper puts the accent on field measurements of the terms of the hydrological cycle, i.e., precipitation, evapotranspiration, run-off and infiltration, in order to evaluate the available water storage in surface reservoirs, in soils, in aquifers for short and long term planning.

Methodological and technological improvements illustrate in this paper not only the difficulties in obtaining reliable field hydrological data but also the fact that the behavioural knowledge of each term of the hydrological cycle is compulsory in order to determine the limits of the socio-economic development which depends upon the quantity of water resources available and in order to prevent eventual irreversible degradation of the environment.

No universal model exists because a model depends not only on the meteorological, hydrological andgeological conditions of the area under study but also on the planner's objectives concerning urban, industrial, navigational, agricultural and/or recreational activities. The studies of water resources are, therefore, in a permanent stage of pre-management. This is due to the fact that they have to be constantly adapted to new management conditions.

This becomes more and more imperative since water resources studies have been, and still are, undertaken too often in order to solve specific and isolated problems arising from short-sighted and/or short term planning and management.     

Integrated Assessment of Water Resources Potential in the North China Region

Abstract

Potential assessment of water resources development (PAWRD) is very important for regional water management, water allocation, water transfer, and economic planning, especially for today's China, which is under a rapid economic growth, a continued expansion of population, and an increasingly deteriorating eco-environment. In this work, the southern part of Hathe River (SPHR) is selected as the representative area of the North China Region for a case study based on considerations such as available data, geographic characteristics, administrative boundaries, and the state of water shortage. A growth pattern of regional water resources development is presented. A fuzzy assessment model is established and applied to determine the growth stage, an indicator for water resources development potential. Seven assessment factors, selected based on the conditions of supply, demand, and use efficiency of water subjected to the regional physical, social, and economic settings, include irrigation rate of arable land, exploitation rate of water resources, the water-saving level, a water supply and demand modulus, the water supply per capita, and the ratio of eco-environmental water use. These factors are integrated into the fuzzy assessment model, which is shown to be capable and effective for potential assessment. The assessment results demonstrate the potential of water resources development is little in SPHR and are substantiated by the necessity of the middle route of the South-North Water Transfer (SNWT) in the long run. It is also suggested at present that promoting water saving and strengthening water demand controls would be the most feasible and effective solution to mitigate water shortage stress of SPHR before the SNWT scheme is implemented. PAWRD provides a scientific tool for water-demand management and water-saving improvement, as well as a necessary basis for decision-making for economy planning and water transfer design.     

Facing Water Scarcity in Jordan

Abstract

Jordan is extremely water-scarce with just 167 m³ per capita per year to meet domestic, industrial, agricultural, tourism, and environmental demands. The heavy exploitation of water resources has contributed to declines in the levels of aquifers and the Dead Sea. Rapid growth in demand, particularly for higher quality water for domestic, industrial, and tourism uses, is significantly increasing pressure on agricultural and environmental uses of water, both of which must continue to adapt to reduced volumes and lower quality water. The agricultural sector has begun to respond by improving irrigation efficiency and increasing the use of recycled water. Total demand for water still exceeds renewable supplies while inadequate treatment of sewage used for irrigation creates potential environmental and health risks and presents agricultural marketing challenges that undermine the competitiveness of exports. The adaptive capability of the natural environment may already be past sustainable limits with oasis wetlands having been most seriously affected. Development of new water resources is extremely expensive in Jordan with an average investment cost of US$4 to $5 per cubic meter. This paper examines four integrated water resources management (IWRM) approaches of relevance to Jordan: water reuse, demand management, energy-water linkages, and transboundary water management. While progress in Jordan has been made, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation continues to be concerned about the acute water scarcity the country faces as well as the need to continue working with concerned stakeholders to assure future water supplies.     

Water Resources In Egypt: Future Challeges and Opportunities

Abstract

Water is one of the most important inputs for economic development. As the demand increases, so too does the importance of water. This is clearly the case in Egypt, where rainfall is rare and the governmentally enforced quota for withdrawal from the Nile River has not changed since 1959. The water demand has multiplied as a result of population growth, agricultural expansion, as well as industrial development and a rise in the standard of living. In this paper, a vision for the future water status in Egypt is presented. This vision is based on a perception of the current status of the available water resources. The water uses, the water use efficiency, the institutional and legislative frameworks of water management, and the strategies and policies to rationalize water use and to augment water supply are discussed. The local, regional and international governing and controlling factors of water utilization and management in Egypt are also analyzed and discussed. Three future water scenarios for year 2020, each reflecting alternate programs to develop the water systems and to rationalize the water uses, are presented. All scenarios showed that Egypt will suffer considerable water shortages in the near future. Recommendations to help overcome anticipated water challenges and to optimize the available opportunities are provided.     

A Study on how Changes in Land Use Impact Water Resources in Taiwan

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the in-depth preliminary research of the various supply and demand problems facing the water resources in Taiwan, especially the problem caused by rapid change in land usage, which is creating an increasing scarcity of water resources supply. This development is causing a change in the hydrologic environment, which in turn hastens the deterioration of the quality of living environment; hence, there is a need for tracing the root cause of the problem in order to come up with fast countermeasures. Therefore, this study takes the angle of the hydrologic cycle to find out the fundamental reason for the serious imbalance occurring in water resources supply and demand. This paper shall also propose solutions for the reference of future national water resources planning projects.     

The Role of Small Reservoirs in a Water Scarcity Scenario: a Computational Approach

This paper presents the evaluation and management of water resources at the basin scale, focusing on small reservoirs. Due to a lack of knowledge on these untapped resources, a semiautomatic procedure for their surface area estimation is presented. Multispectral images from the Pleiades satellite were used to extract water bodies from a combination of different bands. In particular, the normalized difference water index (NDWI) was used to evaluate the presence or absence of water. This methodology was applied in a test area located in the upper Tiber River Basin. The performance for identifying and analysing small reservoirs was determined by comparing the satellite information with a reference database. The potential volume available from the investigated small reservoirs was compared with the water deficit derived from a decision support simulation model at the basin/subbasin scale, which studies water allocation for multipurpose uses. Five irrigation districts were analysed. For three of these districts, more than 60% of the annual deficit can be balanced with the volume stored in small reservoirs.

To date, water scarcity conditions have been increasingly frequent, so resilience in water resource management is a key requirement. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the recovery and reuse of small reservoirs to strongly support water use, particularly irrigation and environmental uses.

     

Dissemination of Generalized Water Resources Models in the United States

ABSTRACT

Federal water agencies and other entities in the United States have invested extensive effort during the past three decades to develop generalized computer models for simulating water resources systems. A great deal of expertise, time, and expense was required to develop these models but they are now available to the professional water management community worldwide at nominal cost. With recent advances in computer technology, most people working in the water resources field have access to desktop computers providing all the hardware capabilities needed to execute the powerful array of available software. Many of these software packages are widely used by public agencies and private firms throughout the United States and in other countries. This paper highlights the availability and role of generalized computer modeling packages and outlines the institutional setting within which the models are disseminated throughout the water management community.     

Groundwater in Water Resources Planning: Conjunctive Use

ABSTRACT

Many water resources planning specialists underrate or overlook groundwater resources. In many cases, the reasons which are usually expressed belie a lack of confidence in their potential and in the ability of today's technology to predict their behavior. The area occupied by aquifers and the fact that they account for 30% of stream discharges, are strong arguments in favor of utilizinggroundwater resources. Likewise, with present groundwater evaluation techniques and the availability of models and simulation methods, the impact of long-term groundwater exploitation can be evaluated with as great a degree of accuracy as the methods used for surface water. Very often groundwater resources are economically more favorable than surface water; however, in regions where water resources are scarce, the problem should not be one of competition but collaboration. The correct approach is the conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources. Through conjunctive use additional water resources can be obtained, additional means of water storage, distribution and treatment can be made available, as well as achieving greater efficiency in water resources system management.     

Sustainable Water Supply and Demand Management in Semi-arid Regions: Optimizing Water Resources Allocation Based on RCPs Scenarios

Climate as one of the key factors in water resources management affects the amount of water in the hydrological cycle, which subsequently impacts the level of water availability. Considering the challenges that the South Alborz Region, Iran is currently facing in supplying water for various consumers; in this study, the climate change adaptation scenarios are investigated for sustainable water supply and demand. This study uses a procedure in which five different adaptation approaches, under RCPs scenarios, were established using the WEAP model to assess the impacts of various adaptation strategies on increasing the balance between water supply and demand over current and 2020s accounts. The findings suggest an imbalance between supply and demand in the current situation with the greatest imbalance in domestic use while the minimum in the industrial sector. The results of assessing adaptive scenarios show that various scenarios have different effects on balancing the water supply and demand by different consumers; on the other hand, the scenarios that directly affect domestic water demand have the greatest effect on minimizing the gap between supply and demand in the region; therefore, the options for decreasing the population demand along with diminishing the losses in the domestic water distribution network are the most effective alternatives for balancing supply and demand under all of the climate scenarios. The findings of this research indicate that adaptive management with the focus on restricting demand helps actively management of water resources in the regions with scarce water resources.

     

Ralph Pentland and Chris Wood,Down the drain: how we are failing to protect our water resources

Abstract

The importance of water in satisfying many consumption needs, the vagaries related to its natural occurrence, and the stress on the environment resulting from the development of human societies are serious. The future will depend on the sustainable development of all the natural, institutional, and financial resources available. Manageable mathematical optimization techniques are an extremely important aid to the decision-making process, contributing to a more efficient use of these resources. The advances made in operations research in the second half of the 20^th century have helped to solve many of the problems related to the rational utilization of various types of resources. Two particularly sensitive systems must be addressed in the context of satisfying a population's water requirements, if optimized planning and management are the goals. This paper concentrates on the application of suitable optimization techniques in the development and management of groundwater systems and water distribution systems. The implications of using optimization techniques are described and the models that have been developed for application in similar cases are evaluated for the benefit of water development practitioners. Analysis of the methodological advances achieved and the reliability associated with decisions reached through operation research methods suggest that the gap between research and practice in the planning and managing of aquifers and water distribution systems may be narrowing.     

Assessment of Water Resources and Salinity Intrusion in the Mekong Delta

Abstract

A methodology is presented for the assessment of water resources and salinity intrusion in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The flow and water salinity at different locations in the river network have been dynamically assessed by the developed three-step approach in which the hydrodynamic, advection-dispersion models, harmonic analysis, and regression techniques have been employed in the development of the relationships between the boundary conditions (upstream inflows and tides at river mouths) and the harmonic constituents of flow and water salinity. These relationships were subsequently used to determine the parameter values of harmonic constituents of flow and water salinity at specific locations under various hydrologic conditions and water allocation alternatives as needed for water management purpose. With known harmonic parameters, the flow and water salinity at the locations can be predicted by a harmonic analysis method and the river water available for agricultural use can then be determined. The advantage of this methodology is that the river water can be dynamically assessed without performing the hydrodynamic and advection-dispersion simulations in the water resources management process. Due to the limitation of data availability, a preliminary assessment of groundwater resources has been included. The results indicate that the use of groundwater as supplemental resources for agricultural production is possible     

Variation and Trends in Agricultural Drainage Water Reuse in Egypt

ABSTRACT

A substantial quantity of agricultural drainage water flows annually from the Nile Delta to the Mediterranean Sea and North Lakes. The volume and salinity of this water vary both with time and space. Policies for developing water resources in Egypt and maximizing its use include the reuse of agricultural drainage water for irrigation. This implies that water of lower quality than the Nile water will be used in irrigation. The reuse of this water as a reliable resource is limited by its quality, which in turn determines the quantity that can be used.

During the past decade Egypt started an ambitious program towards the goal of achieving higher water use efficiency to face the increasing water demands. The future improvement of the irrigation system, the better allocation of available water resources and the efficient utilization of irrigation water will affect the quantity and quality of agricultural drainage water: The start of this program was associated with a sharp decrease in the natural flow of the River Nile. The prevailing operational and management conditions had decreased the irrigation and drainage discharges and increased the salinity of drainage water

In this paper the historical discharge and salinity data about the drainage water in the Nile Delta will be analyzed to determine the trends and tendencies of their changes. The effect of management of Nile water releases from the High Aswan Dam on drainage water quantities and qualities is discussed. This study is carried out on a regional scale, covering the east, the middle and the west parts of the Delta.     

Institutional Capacity Building within the Water Resources Sector of Developing Countries

Abstract

Part 1 of this paper analyzes the concepts of institutional capacity building and of integrated water resources management, on the basis of recent publications. The authors, building on the work of others, combine this into a conceptual framework for institutional capacity building in the water resources sector. A matrix approach is developed that allows the analysis of project activities, projects and possibly even complete sector programs. At the same time various aspects of process orientation of projects and programs are distinguished and described. The result is a set of analysis tools specifically oriented towards the evaluation of institutional capacity building projects and programs in the water resources sector. Part 2 presents a number of case studies and shows the application of the set of analysis tools. The same set of tools can also be used for the design of such projects or programs, but this is not covered in the present papers.     

Seminar on Water and Energy,Stockholm, Sweden,August 21, 2005

Abstract

In Europe the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) will have major implications for water resources management. Part of the Directive requires Member States to implement a comprehensive system of controls (licences) on the allocation and abstraction (withdrawal) of surface and groundwater resources. This paper describes the development of a procedure to help assess and set abstraction licences for agricultural irrigation. The methodology is described with reference to Scotland, a country with limited abstraction control previously and where irrigation is supplemental to rainfall. The methodology combines spatial climatic information using a Geographical Information System (GIS) with data derived from a water balance computer model. The procedure enables the volumetric irrigation demand in a ‘design’ dry year for a given site to be estimated, taking into account local variations in climate, soil type, land use and irrigation practices. The approach provides a scientifically robust framework to allow the regulatory authority to assess the ‘reasonable’ water requirements of individual irrigators and hence develop allocations to satisfy the range of competing demands (e.g. agriculture, industry, and environment) on water resources. The methodology is applicable in other temperate countries where water abstraction controls are required and where appropriate datasets are available. The application of the procedure and its methodological limitations are described.     

Wastewater Reuse as Means to Optimize the Use of Water Resources in the West Bank

Abstract

The increase in demand for the limited raw water resources in the Palestinian Territories has led to the proposals for use of treated wastewater as one alternative for alleviating water shortages and for optimizing the use of water resources. Wastewater reuse is a multi-discipline and important element of water resources development. Wastewater usage releases high quality water for drinking and other purposes. Quantitative, economic, and social aspects related to wastewater reuse in the West Bank are discussed. Through analyses of the estimated cost and expected water quantities, the paper investigates the economic feasibility of wastewater reuse. Social acceptance is elicited by means of questionnaires, which have been applied to farmers and inhabitants in different areas of the West Bank. Wastewater reuse can compensate for about 10 percent of irrigated agriculture, which contributes 35 percent of the total value of the Palestinian agricultural sector. The paper presents an analysis of the main aspects of wastewater reuse and defines an approach to the beneficial use of wastewater as a component that should be considered in the strategy for the overall management of water resources in the Palestinian Territories.