Nezar Hammouri

Community based adaptation options for climate change impacts on water resources: The case of Jordan

Abstract A strategic vision to ensure an adequate, safe and secure drinking water supply presents a challenge, particularly for such a small country as Jordan, faced with a critical supply-demand imbalance and a high risk of water quality deterioration. In order to provide sustainable and equitable long-term water management plans for the future, current and future demands, along with available adaptation options should be assessed through community engagement. An analysis of available water resources, existing demands and use per sector served to assess the nation’s historic water status. Taking into account the effect of both population growth and rainfall reduction, future per sector demands were predicted by linear temporal trend analysis. Water sector vulnerability and adaptation options were assessed by engaging thirty five stakeholders. A set of weighed-criterions were selected, adopted, modified, and then framed into comprehensive guidelines. A quantitative ratio-level approach was used to quantify the magnitude and likelihood of risks and opportunities associated with each proposed adaptation measure using the level of effectiveness and severity status. Prioritization indicated that public awareness and training programs were the most feasible and effective adaptation measures, while building new infrastructure was of low priority. Associated barriers were related to a lack of financial resources, institutional arrangements, and data collection, sharing, availability, consistency and transparency, as well as willingness to adapt. Independent community-based watershed-vulnerability analyses to address water integrity at watershed scale are recommended.

Assessment of the urban sprawl on agriculture lands of two major municipalities in Jordan using supervised classification techniques

The growing populations in urban areas are continuously changing the surrounding natural ecosystems. Jordan is a country with limited resources and witnessing rapid population growth rates and urban advancement towards their agricultural lands. The aim of this research is to investigate the spatial and temporal urban expansion on the agricultural lands of Greater Amman (GAM) and Greater Irbid (GIM) municipalities for the period 2003–2015. Geographic Information System and ENVI-supervised classification technique were used to classify Landsat images of municipalities’ lands into urban, agricultural, and undeveloped lands. In 2015, the urban area of GIM land increased by 70% of that in 2003. The newly urbanized area represented 12% (39km2) of the total GIM land. The GIM land’s conversion rate to urban area was 1% (3.24km2). In 2015, the urban area of GAM land represented 41% of the municipality’s land where 16% (128km2) is the newly urbanized land with an annual land conversion rate of 1.3% (10.7km2). This sprawl was mainly on agricultural lands where 18 and 50% of the 2003 agricultural lands of GIM and GAM, respectively, were eliminated by 2015. The existed agricultural lands in GIM by 2015 represented 38% of the total municipality lands while only 14% of the total GAM land is agricultural land. The annual agricultural land recession rates in GIM and GAM were 1 and 1.1%; therefore, their agricultural lands are expected to be eliminated by 2053 and 2028, respectively. These rates of losing agricultural lands are alarming and need to be regulated through sustainable and recent urban planning approaches.