Impact on Groundwater in Jordan to Water Savings Technologies

The USAID/Jordan Water Innovations Technologies (WIT) project is designed to increase water savings 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 the WIT Team with a baseline on crop types, water use, over-irrigation, and groundwater aquifer availability and salinity in Azraq and Mafraq areas to inform program interventions and 2) simulate changes in groundwater levels in response to adoption of irrigation water saving technologies in Azraq and Mafraq during the period 2019-2023, under an assumption there will be no changes in crop types. The study applied a series of “what if” questions to understand the response of groundwater levels under different scenarios (i.e., Irrigation amounts increased by 20 percent). This scenario analysis supported the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) and the WIT teams to determine the target locations with the highest potential for the WIT interventions to impact water savings while sustaining crop productivity.