Introduction
Water scarcity is perhaps the most enduring feature attached to Jordan. From policy reports to media coverage, the framing is familiar: Jordan is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, with renewable freshwater supplies far below the threshold of absolute scarcity.[i]
This description is factually correct, but it risks reducing a complex reality to an environmental inevitability. Scarcity in Jordan is not simply the result of climate, geography, or demography. It is equally the product of political choices, institutional arrangements, and economic structures.[ii] To understand why Jordanian households still receive water only once or twice a week, why agriculture consumes such a disproportionate share of national resources (almost 50%), and why desalination projects dominate policy agendas and the suggested solutions, we must examine the political economy of water.
This essay traces how water has been governed in Jordan since statehood, situating today’s crisis within a longer trajectory of allocation bargains, donor dependence, and regional geopolitics. It argues that water scarcity in Jordan has been shaped—sometimes even manufactured—by political decisions that privilege stability and patronage over efficiency and equity. The result is what might be called “scarcity by design”: a system in which scarcity is managed and distributed in ways that reinforce existing power structures.
Scarcity and the State
Jordan became independent in 1946. Thereafter, the state emerged and consolidated under conditions of chronic water scarcity. From its earliest years, water played a dual role: as a material necessity for survival and as a political resource for buttressing authority.[iii]
Development projects in the 1950s and 1960s centred on irrigation schemes in the Jordan Valley, which were justified as engines of modernisation but also functioned as instruments of state control.[iv] By providing access to water and land, the Jordanian leadership bound key tribal and rural constituencies to the Jordanian project, reinforcing loyalty through patronage.[v] The licensing of highland wells further reinforced water as a political currency.[vi] As agriculture expanded into the uplands, often with heavy subsidies and weak enforcement of groundwater abstraction limits, politically connected families and landowners secured enduring entitlements. These entitlements created structural imbalances that persist until today: agriculture consumes more than half of Jordan’s freshwater while contributing only a small fraction of GDP and employment (even when considering the whole supply chain of the agricultural sector).[vii]
Urbanisation, which accelerated at pace across the 1970s, brought a different form of water politics. As Amman and other cities expanded, municipal networks were extended but operated under a rationing model. By the 1980s, the practice of intermittent supply had become institutionalised. Piped water would reach households only once or twice a week, requiring families to store water in rooftop tanks and cisterns.[viii] This system normalised scarcity in everyday life, while shifting the burden of coping on to households themselves. It also generated new markets: tanker deliveries, private filtration systems, and storage technologies became integral parts of the urban water economy. Scarcity, in other words, not only endured but was commodified.
Throughout, refugee flows have reinforced these dynamics. The arrival of successive waves – Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, Iraqis in the 1990s and 2000s, Syrians after 2011 – magnified demand pressures and accentuated the language of crisis. Refugees were often provided with donor-financed infrastructure, especially in camps, but their presence strained municipal systems and deepened perceptions of scarcity. Water thus became a site where questions of national identity, fairness, and resource allocation intersected.[ix] The refugees / water scarcity link was expressly emphasised at COP27, when King Abdullah II launched the Climate/Refugees Nexus Initiative, which highlighted the interconnected challenges of climate change and refugees, especially for countries like Jordan which host a large amount of refugees and displaced people.[x]
The Politics of Allocation
At the heart of Jordan’s water economy lies a fundamental allocation dilemma: how to divide the water supply among competing sectors?
Agriculture has historically enjoyed privileged access to water, even as its economic contribution has declined. Irrigation in the Jordan Valley and the highlands remains politically sensitive; attempts to reallocate water to cities often encounter resistance from farmers who invoke both economic necessity and historical entitlement. Likewise, enforcement against illegal wells has repeatedly faltered when it confronts politically influential constituencies.[xi] Urban consumers, by contrast, have had few successes in contesting rationing. Intermittent supply has become part of the social contract, producing a peculiar form of collective adaptation. Wealthier households mitigate scarcity through private investments in storage and tanker purchases, while lower-income families bear disproportionate burdens, spending a larger share of their income on coping strategies: For instance, in Amman, wealthier households often install large rooftop tanks and can afford tanker deliveries costing 25–40 JOD each, while poorer families with only small 1,000-liter tanks may exhaust their supply within days and end up spending as much as a fifth of their monthly income just to secure water. The very persistence of intermittency reflects a political compromise: it allows the state to stretch limited supplies without confronting powerful irrigation interests or raising tariffs to cost-recovery levels.[xii]
Non-revenue water (NRW) illustrates the political (and economic) character of scarcity. Officially defined as water lost through leakage, metering errors, or theft, NRW represents around half of the total water supply. While often portrayed as a technical issue, high NRW is in fact sustained by political realities—fear of antagonising particular communities most of all. Indeed, illegal connections are in many cases tolerated because they offer a mechanism for avoiding social unrest. So long as political costs outweigh prospective gains, failures to reduce NRW should be expected to continue.[xiii]
Zooming out, then, it can be appreciated that baked into the political economy of water in Jordan is increasing inequality amongst the population. Farmers with access to subsidised irrigation water enjoy privileges unavailable to urban households. Wealthier families can purchase tanker water to bridge supply gaps, while poorer households cannot. Refugees often find themselves caught between humanitarian provision and municipal rationing, amplifying tensions in host communities. Scarcity, in short, is not distributed evenly; it is mediated through power relations.
Regional Dependence and the Diplomacy of Water
Naturally, Jordan’s water economy cannot be understood without reference to the regional environment. The kingdom’s rivers and aquifers are shared with neighbouring countries, making transboundary politics a central aspect of domestic water supply.
The 1994 peace treaty with Israel institutionalised water sharing arrangements between the two countries, granting Jordan fixed allocations from the Jordan (Photo 1) and Yarmouk Rivers and committing Israel to transfer specified volumes annually.[xiv] Over time, Jordan has also purchased additional water from Israel, particularly during drought years. These transactions underscore Jordan’s dependence on its neighbour, tying domestic water security to the state of bilateral relations. While technically successful, this arrangement is politically fragile, as water cooperation is often unpopular among the Jordanian public.
Comparatively speaking, Jordan’s water relations with Syria have been less stable than those with Israel. The 1987 Syria-Jordan agreement on the Yarmouk River envisioned cooperative arrangements. However, the river has long since been heavily dammed and diverted upstream, reducing flows into Jordan.[xv] Moreover, political tensions and conflict in Syria has limited until recently possible prospects for cooperative management.[xvi]
In recent decades, megaprojects have embodied the kingdom’s search for sovereign solutions. The Red Sea–Dead Sea conveyance plan, once promoted as a trilateral cooperation scheme linking Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, was ultimately abandoned due to financial, technical, and political obstacles. Its successor, the Aqaba-Amman desalination and conveyance project – commonly known as the National Carrier – represented a more unilateral strategy. By desalinating Red Sea water and pumping it hundreds of kilometres north to Amman, Jordan aimed to secure a large, independent supply. However, the project relies on external financing and international contractors, reminding us that sovereignty in water is always partial. Moreover, due to political reasons, this project too is yet to advance beyond the drawing board.[xvii]
In 2021, a UAE-brokered water-for-energy deal was announced between Israel and Jordan. Per the terms of the deal, Jordan was to export renewable electricity (solar energy) to Israel in exchange for desalinated water: a classic example of the ways water and climate diplomacy can come together. Alas, this venture too has stumbled under the weight of a fraught geopolitical moment. In late 2023, amid regional conflict and domestic backlash, Amman paused discussions altogether. The episode illustrates how regional turbulence can upend the development of critical infrastructure. It also shows that matters of justice, equity, and public opinion cannot be sidestepped forever, even where policymakers consider themselves traversing technical and apolitical domains.[xviii]
Donors, Finance, and Structural Dependence
If regional geopolitics shape Jordan’s water supplies, donor politics shape its water governance. Indeed, the sector has long been relying on international aid, with bilateral donors, multilateral development banks, and UN agencies financing infrastructures, reform programs, and emergency responses.[xix]
Donor presence reflects both humanitarian concern and geopolitical interest: supporting Jordan is seen as a way of ensuring the stability of an ally in a conflict region.[xx] Aid has been key in financing building wastewater treatment plants (like the As-Samra Plant), rehabilitating networks, and subsidising emergency supply during refugee influxes. Yet reliance on aid also constrains domestic autonomy. Donor priorities – whether promoting privatisation, cost-recovery tariffs, or digital metering – often set the reform agenda. National strategies are written with donor audiences in mind, ensuring continued flows of finance.[xxi]
The fiscal fragility of Jordan’s water utilities reinforces this dependence. Tariffs are set below cost-recovery levels for both political and social reasons. Raising prices risks unrest, especially when service quality is poor. As a result, utilities accumulate debts, and the government must step in with subsidies. This cycle leaves little room for independent investment, making major projects dependent on loans and grants. In this sense, water governance in Jordan is donor-governed: local actors often have to operate within parameters set by international financiers.[xxii]
Reform, Resistance, and the Politics of Efficiency
When it comes to reforms, policies, and strategies, Jordan has been quite successful in drafting and approving strong and comprehensive documents.[xxiii] National water strategies and master plans have regularly outlined ambitious goals and furnished well-conceived operational plans. Recently, the focus has been on reducing non-revenue water, modernising metering, expanding wastewater reuse, and improving institutional performance. The latest strategies also incorporate and discuss issues around the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, climate change, and gender. On paper, these reforms promise efficiency and sustainability. The challenge, however, is in implementation. And here again it is politics rather than technical feasibility which abides.
Shutting down illegal wells or prosecuting water theft means undermining and challenging existing interests, risking social backlash. Reallocating water from agriculture may result in opposition from farmers and their allies. Moreover, tariff reforms would result in public discontent, especially when framed as donor-imposed austerity. In each of these cases, the state has to balance the need for reform against the priority of maintaining stability.[xxiv]
As mentioned, NRW exemplifies these dynamics. Engineers often emphasise that reducing NRW is the cheapest way to create new water supply. Nevertheless, every attempt at sharp enforcement runs into obstacles: metering fraud, collusion between officials and offenders, and the political calculus of tolerating illegal connections in marginalised areas or where influential people live. As a result, targets are rarely met.
The persistence of intermittent supply also reflects these politics. Technically, continuous water supply could be achieved in parts of the network if losses were reduced and tariffs adjusted. But the political risks of imposing stricter enforcement and higher prices outweigh the potential benefits. Thus, intermittent supply continues as a mechanism of managed scarcity.
Conclusion
Jordan’s water crisis is real, but it is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is also the outcome of decades of political and economic decisions which have structured scarcity in ways that serve certain interests while disadvantaging others. By protecting irrigation entitlements, tolerating over-abstraction, under-pricing water, and relying heavily on donor finance, successive governments have created a system where scarcity is inevitable and its effects unevenly distributed.
Looking forward, the National Carrier project offers the promise of a more secure and sovereign water supply. The technical merits of the project, however, do not offer a workaround for deeper political economy dilemmas. Desalination will raise costs, posing new challenges for tariff design and social equity. Donor dependence will persist, as external financing remains important. Regional geopolitics will continue to shape flows and options, reminding Jordan of the limits of water sovereignty.
True water security for Jordan therefore requires more than new infrastructure. It demands confronting the political bargains that underpin allocation: focusing on reducing NRW, prioritising demand side solutions, balancing urban and agricultural demands, enforcing rules on groundwater use, reforming tariffs while protecting vulnerable households, and managing donor relationships without surrendering autonomy. These are not technical challenges but political ones.
Water scarcity in Jordan is best conceived as scarcity by design. It is a condition sustained by political choices as much as by hydrological constraints. Recognising this fact is the first step toward imagining solutions that go beyond managing shortages to addressing the deeper structures that produce them.
This publication has been supported by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung. The positions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
[i]https://www.mwi.gov.jo/EBV4.0/Root_Storage/AR/EB_Ticker/National_Water_Strategy_2023-2040_Summary-English_-ver2.pdf
[ii] Hussein, H. (2018). Lifting the veil: Unpacking the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan. Environmental science & policy, 89, 385-392; Hussein, H. (2018). Tomatoes, tribes, bananas, and businessmen: An analysis of the shadow state and of the politics of water in Jordan. Environmental Science & Policy, 84, 170-176; Yorke, V. (2016). Jordan’s shadow state and water management: prospects for water security will depend on politics and regional cooperation. In Society-Water-Technology: A Critical Appraisal of Major Water Engineering Projects (pp. 227-251). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
[iii] Massad, J. A. (2001). Colonial effects: The making of national identity in Jordan. Columbia Univ. Press.
[iv] Molle, F. (2005). Historical transformations of the Lower Jordan River Basin in Jordan: changes in water use and projections (1950-2025). IWMI Books, Reports
[v] Massad, J. A. (2001). Colonial effects: The making of national identity in Jordan. Columbia University Press; Hussein, H. (2018). Tomatoes, tribes, bananas, and businessmen: An analysis of the shadow state and of the politics of water in Jordan. Environmental Science & Policy, 84, 170-176
[vi] Wojnarowski, F. (2025). Contested flows: An ethnographic contribution to narratives of groundwater over abstraction in the central Jordanian highlands. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 25148486251321331; Al Naber, M., & Molle, F. (2017). Controlling groundwater over abstraction: state policies vs local practices in the Jordan highlands. Water policy, 19(4), 692-708.
[vii] Hussein, H. (2018). Lifting the veil: Unpacking the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan. Environmental science & policy, 89, 385-392; Hussein, H. (2018). Tomatoes, tribes, bananas, and businessmen: An analysis of the shadow state and of the politics of water in Jordan. Environmental Science & Policy, 84, 170-176; Yorke, V. (2016). Jordan’s shadow state and water management: prospects for water security will depend on politics and regional cooperation. In Society-Water-Technology: A Critical Appraisal of Major Water Engineering Projects (pp. 227-251). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
[viii] Rosenberg, D. E., Talozi, S., & Lund, J. R. (2016). Intermittent water supplies: Challenges and opportunities for residential water users in Jordan. The Private Sector and Water Pricing in Efficient Urban Water Management, 166-182; Sigel, K., Klassert, C., Zozmann, H., Talozi, S., Klauer, B., & Gawel, E. (2017). Urban water supply through private tanker water markets: An empirical market analysis of Amman, Jordan (No. 02/2017). UFZ-Bericht; Mustafa, D., & Talozi, S. (2018). Tankers, Wells, Pipes and Pumps: Agents and Mediators of Water Geographies in Amman, Jordan. Water Alternatives, 11(3).
[ix] Hussein, H., Natta, A., Yehya, A. A. K., & Hamadna, B. (2020). Syrian refugees, water scarcity, and dynamic policies: how do the new refugee discourses impact water governance debates in Lebanon and Jordan?. Water, 12(2), 325; Farishta, A. (2014). The impact of Syrian refugees on Jordan’s water resources and water management planning (Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University); Alshoubaki, W. E., & Harris, M. (2018). The impact of Syrian refugees on Jordan: A framework for analysis. Journal of International Studies (2071-8330), 11(2).
[x] https://jordantimes.com/news/local/kingdom-takes-‘holistic-approach’-climate-refugee-nexus-initiative
[xi] Hussein, H. (2016). An analysis of the discourse of water scarcity and hydropolitical dynamics in the case of Jordan (Doctoral dissertation, University of East Anglia).
[xii] Rosenberg, D. E., Talozi, S., & Lund, J. R. (2016). Intermittent water supplies: Challenges and opportunities for residential water users in Jordan. The Private Sector and Water Pricing in Efficient Urban Water Management, 166-182.
[xiii] Al-Addous, M., Bdour, M., Alnaief, M., Rabaiah, S., & Schweimanns, N. (2023). Water resources in Jordan: A review of current challenges and future opportunities. Water, 15(21), 3729; Hussein, H. (2016). An analysis of the discourse of water scarcity and hydropolitical dynamics in the case of Jordan (Doctoral dissertation, University of East Anglia).
[xiv] Haddadin. (2000). Negotiated resolution of the Jordan-Israel water conflict. International Negotiation, 5(2), 263-288; Haddadin, M. J. (2012). Diplomacy on the Jordan: International conflict and negotiated resolution (Vol. 21). Springer Science & Business Media.
[xv] Haddadin, M. (2009). Cooperation and lack thereof on management of the Yarmouk River. Water International, 34(4), 420-431; Hussein, H. (2017). Whose ‘reality’? Discourses and hydropolitics along the Yarmouk River. Contemporary Levant, 2(2), 103-115; Zeitoun, M., Abdallah, C., Dajani, M., Khresat, S. E., Elaydi, H., & Alfarra, A. (2019). The Yarmouk tributary to the Jordan River I: Agreements impeding equitable transboundary water arrangements; Zeitoun, M., Dajani, M., Abdallah, C., Khresat, S. E., & Elaydi, H. (2019). The Yarmouk tributary to the Jordan River II: Infrastructure impeding the transformation of equitable transboundary water arrangements. Water Alternatives, 12(3), 1095-1122.
[xvi] Hussein, H. (2025). Yarmouk Treaty could ease Jordan’s water crisis. Science, 389(6762), 789-789.
[xvii] Hussein, H. (2017). Politics of the Dead Sea Canal: A historical review of the evolving discourses, interests, and plans. Water International, 42(5), 527-542; Mansour, H., & Reiffenstuel, A. (2022). The Jordan, Israel, and UAE Water-for-energy Deal: Potential and Pitfalls of Energy and Water Sharing-Agreements in the Middle East. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.
[xviii] Abu Zreig, M. et al., (forthcoming).
[xix] AbuHussein, R. (2024). The impact of donor support on public financial management and fiscal reform in developing countries: the case of Jordan (Doctoral dissertation, Heriot-Watt University).
[xx] McBride, M. (2023). Motives Behind US Foreign Aid Projects: The Case of Jordan (Doctoral dissertation, Master’s thesis. Central European University—Private University, Department of International Relations. Vienna, Austria); Schuetze, B. (2019). Promoting democracy, reinforcing authoritarianism: US and European policy in Jordan (Vol. 57). Cambridge University Press.
[xxi] Bonn, T. (2013). On the political sideline? The institutional isolation of donor organizations in Jordanian hydropolitics. Water Policy, 15(5), 728-737.
[xxii] Abdel-Hadi, G. (2024). The Impacts of Corporatisation on the Efficiency of Water Utilities: An Analysis of Water Supply in Jordan (Doctoral dissertation, University of London).
[xxiii] Hussein, H. (2019). An analysis of the framings of water scarcity in the Jordanian national water strategy. Water international, 44(1), 6-13.
[xxiv] Hussein, H. (2018). Tomatoes, tribes, bananas, and businessmen: An analysis of the shadow state and of the politics of water in Jordan. Environmental Science & Policy, 84, 170-176