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Climate change impacts on surface water resources in arid and semi-arid regions: a case study in northern Jordan

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Abstract

Given Jordan’s limited water resources and the doubling of its population over the last two decades, the gap between water demand and supply has been constantly increasing. Climate change is anticipated to worsen this situation by jeopardizing existing water resources. In the present study, SWAT was used to assess the impacts of climate change on water resources in the northern regions of Jordan. Global climate models (GCM) were used to assess the future impacts of climate change on water resources in the study area. The analyses of three different GCM-generated datasets indicate that stream flow rates are expected to decrease by up to 22 % by the year 2080. This decrease will be particularly severe in the months of maximum peak flow (February and March), perhaps reaching as much as 35–40 %. A minor increase in stream flow rates is expected to occur in some months. Based on these results, impacts of climate change are projected to raise water deficits in Jordan. Therefore, it is crucial to review Jordan’s 2008–2022 National Water Strategy.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their deep appreciation to the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development for supporting this research and funding the first author’s (Dean of Research, The Hashemite University, Jordan) sabbatical leave They also wish to thanks McGill University’s Department of Bioresource Engineering for hosting this research, as well as Dr. Wael Zuraiq at The Hashemite University for language revision.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, 13115, Jordan

    Nezar Hammouri

  2. Department of Bioresource Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, McGill University, Ste Anne de Bellevue, Montreal, Canada

    Jan Adamowski & Shiv Prasher

  3. Meteorology and Climate Expert, Mideast Aviation Academy, Amman, Jordan

    Muwaffaq Freiwan

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  1. Nezar Hammouri
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  2. Jan Adamowski
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  3. Muwaffaq Freiwan
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  4. Shiv Prasher
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Correspondence to Nezar Hammouri.

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Hammouri, N., Adamowski, J., Freiwan, M. et al. Climate change impacts on surface water resources in arid and semi-arid regions: a case study in northern Jordan. Acta Geod Geophys 52, 141–156 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40328-016-0163-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40328-016-0163-7

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