Rida Al-Adamat

Gis As A Decision Support System For Siting Water Harvesting Ponds In The Basalt Aquifer/Ne Jordan

Water harvesting is a must and not an option for Jordan in the near future. The available water resources are limited and barely satisfy the current growing demands. In the basalt aquifer/NE of Jordan, there is a possibility to construct water harvesting ponds to assist the livestock owners in villages and towns in watering their livestock which will ease the pressure on the existing water resources. This research was based on the use of GIS techniques to select the optimum sites for water harvesting ponds within the basalt aquifer. Buffering, Union and arithmetic operations in GIS were all used in analysing the data based on different socio-economic and physical criteria. The outcomes of the GIS analysis resulted in selecting 72 suitable sites within the study area. These sites could be used as a guideline to the decision makers in Jordan when they decided to establish a water harvesting pond in the area. This will save time and money which could be directed to the construction of the actual water harvesting ponds.

An examination of land use change due to irrigated agriculture in north-eastern Jordan using geoinformatics

The Jordanian government has encouraged irrigated agriculture since the early 1990s by providing low cost loans to drill private wells. The impacts of this practice on land use change were examined within a small (362 km2) area of the Jordanian Badia using Geoinformatics. Aerial photographs, SPOT and Landsat TM imageries were used, in a GIS environment, to map and examine changes in the farming patterns since 1990. Field surveys and questionnaires were used to ground truth the remotely sensed data. The results indicate that the cultivated area has increased from just 28.5 ha in 1990 to over 1000 ha in 2000 and that the number of farms has increased from 2 to 32 over the same time period. Furthermore, farm locations are moved annually restricted by the position of the well and land availability; this also causes land use change.

Potential Impacts on Surface Water Quality from the Utilization of Oil Shale at Lajjoun Area/Southern Jordan Using Geographic Information Systems and Leachability Tests

Abstract Surface water is one of the major water resources for drinking and agricultural purposes in Jordan. It is the largest contributor to the irrigation sector and it is the second largest source for domestic consumption. Jordan also has a huge amount of oil shale that exists in the Southern and Eastern parts of the country. It is estimated that Jordan has a reserve of 50 billion tons of oil shale. The oil shale deposits in these locations are shallow and near the surface and can be utilized by an open cut mining method. The ash is considered one of the most important factors in selecting suitable and more economical utilization technology for Jordanian oil shale. Oil shale ash is considered one of the main environmental challenges and barriers, which stand in the way of developing oil shale industry in Jordan. The main concern in this case is that ash might reach nearby surface water resources in the area. This study aimed to evaluate the risk of pollution of surface water resources in Lajjoun area/Southern Jordan as a result of oil shale development. It assessed the potential impacts on surface water quality from the utilization of oil shale using geographic information systems and leachability tests conducted on oil shale ash that might result from two possible utilizations of oil shale; producing electricity through direct burning of oil shale and extracting oil from oil shale. It was found that surface water resources in the Lajjoun area have a medium-low to high susceptibility to pollution, and the flow direction from the Lajjoun area could reach Al-Mujib dam in 4 h. Also, the leachability tests showed that there will be substantial amounts of Ca, Mg, Na, K, Cl, SO4, HCO3, Fe, Cr, Cd, and Pb as possible leachates to surface water from both types of oil shale utilizations: oil extract and electricity generation.

Geo-structural Analysis Accompanied by GIS Vulnerability Mapping Validated by Hydro-chemical Modeling in Determining Spatial Expansion of Landfills: Case Study from Jordan

Dumpsites have to be carefully sited, since they can harm groundwater quality, especially in countries like Jordan, that depends totally on groundwater resources. The northern part of Jordan witnesses an accelerating population growth because of refugees’ growth, according to the political situation in the region. Dumpsites have to be accordingly expanded. This study investigates two dumpsites in two areas in order to determine safe expansion directions, utilizing DRASTIC index for groundwater vulnerability against pollution and using GIS environment. Geo-structural analysis supported the results with more reality, while hydrochemical analysis and water flow directions of groundwater enabled validating the results.