Impact on Groundwater in Jordan to Water Savings Technologies

The USAID/Jordan Water Innovations Technologies (WIT) is implemented by Mercy Corps and partners including ICBA and it is designed to increase water conserved in Jordan by driving the adoption of new water-saving technologies and practices in agriculture and at the household level. The purpose of this study was to:

1. Provide WIT Team with a baseline dashboard on crop types, water use, over-irrigation and groundwater aquifers availability and salinity in Azraq and Mafraq, and
2. Simulate changes in groundwater level in response to adoption of irrigation water saving technologies in Azraq and Mafraq during the period 2019-2023, under an assumption of no change in crop type patterns.

Scenarios were developed to answer a series of "What if" questions as to the response of groundwater level (i.e. Irrigation amounts are increased by 20%). This scenario analysis supported the ICBA and WIT team in defining sub-localities of priority intervention that the project should target in order to achieve the highest impact on saving water while sustaining crop productivity.