Jordan is an excellent example of a country dealing with water scarcity. Due to the country's climate and lack of adequate rainfall and water sources, Jordan's water use vastly exceeds its available water resources. Geography Intern Paige Rushbrook wrote an article about water scarcity, with Jordan as the case study.
Explore Geography
Comments
About 1958 I was in Jordan to start up an oil refinery in Zarka. I slept and ate (two meals) in the capital Amman at the Hotel Philadelphia a short distance from King Hussein’s palace compound. I met an English teacher who taught children in the royal compound. Getting in was quite a ritual.
But the point of this comment is that I visited the UN refugee camp at the biblical Jericho. At that time people in the camp had never known what it was to work a day in their life. They sat there year after year. They were fed and housed by aid money. Jordan didn’t want them; the new country of Israel didn’t want them.
At that time half of the Jordanian national budget was US aid. I drove across the bridge where the Jordan River entered the Dead Sea twice a day. Even then there was not much flow left and I was aware of distribution problems.