AMMAN — The Kingdom is being deprived of
40 percent of the water it should receive from Syria and Israel under
international agreements, said Saad Abu Hammour, president of the Miyahuna
board of directors, according to Al-Ghad News.
اضافة اعلان
Abu Hammour, a former prime ministerial advisor,
called for restructuring the water and irrigation sector, establishing a water
resource committee along the lines of other countries, and expanding water
harvesting projects to the highest level in a speech on Sunday to the Risk
Management Committee of the Engineers Association.
He stated the importance of reviewing the
international agreements with Syria and Israel, and for a national project to
improve and compensate for water loss through cooperation with civil society
and relevant experts, both foreign and local.
Jordan is currently the second-most water-scarce
country in the world. The most important reasons for this scarcity are the lack
of water sources, the absence of strategic projects necessary for supplying
water, and the effects of climate change that Jordan has witnessed in recent
years, according to Abu Hammour.
The diversion of the Jordan River estuaries and the
construction of dams has led the Dead Sea to shrink, he pointed out, especially
after the suspension of work on the Red-Dead Canal, which was meant to supply
the Dead Sea with additional water.
Abu Hammour called for creating a ready-to-execute
plan for supplying Jordan with water and speeding up the National Water
Conveyance Project, in order to obtain 300 million cubic meters of water.
The symposium at the Engineers Association was
titled “Droughts, Dams, and the Water Crisis.” It dealt with topics including
Jordan’s dam infrastructure, the impact of climate change on water supplies,
rain forecasts in the current season, and emergency plans for flooding, dam
collapse, and drought.
For his part, Engineers Association president Ahmad Samara
Al-Zu’bi said that the association is ready to establish a Red Sea desalination
project, in order to replace the declaration of intent signed between Jordan,
the UAE, and Israel. Under that agreement, Israel would provide Jordan with
water in exchange for Jordan providing Israel electricity.
Read more National news
.jpg)
.jpg)
