Integrated water resources management and modeling at multiple spatial scales in Jordan

Water shortages from intermittent public supplies are a major and expanding problem in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Yet individual users, utility managers, and government officials can improve access or cope with shortages in many ways. New supplies, more efficient use of existing resources, long-term investments to expand infrastructure and reduce leakage, and short-term measures to flexibly transfer, ration, or curtail some uses represent several different approaches for management. This paper reviews three separate systems analysis that use stochastic optimization with recourse. Analysis for individual residential users, the water utility serving 2.2 million residents in the capital Amman, and the entire kingdom comprising Amman and 11 other governorates identify complementary actions to be undertaken by individual users, utility managers, and government officials.