Jordan is one of the most water‐scarce countries in the world. Delivering sufficient water and wastewater services to meet the needs of a growing population and national economic development targets is a significant challenge. Clearly, determining how to allocate water efficiently and equitably demands detailed information on the country’s water resources and water use.
This challenge has been met with the establishment of a detailed metering system; and by a thorough accounting system, which relates physical water flows to the economy and enables an environmentally extended input-output analysis. Those two elements have been joined and made operable within a extensive Water Information System (WIS).
Data are collected and analysed via the system that brings together raw data from across the country, including real-time meter and telemetry data, and stored in a centralized database for analysis. A range of software-based analysis and planning tools such as Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP), the Water Information System and ArcGIS have been integrated into the national planning and operations processes. A key aim of the water information system is to compile physical and monetary data on water use and supply and on environmental protection and management expenditures, all disaggregated according to International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) specifications.
These data are further analysed to serve multiple purposes. They can be disaggregated to give a more detailed picture of water use in products and activities; they can be used to elucidate the physical flows of water in the economy; they can be analysed using environmentally extended input-output analysis to deliver policy-relevant analysis of indirect water use by final demand categories; they can support the development of environmental resource and flow accounts; and they can be used to prepare modified national accounts that include consumption of national resource stocks and impacts of pollution.
However, there are challenges in generating all these data and indicators in particular on the relevant time and space scales. Existing administrative data are often insufficiently developed to support the elaboration of environmental accounts for resources and flows. Multiple new surveys will be needed to deliver physical and monetary data on water use and supply and on environmental protection expenditure that are compatible with national accounts. To address these needs and support the preparation of physical and economic water accounts, which began in 2006; the project envisages three new water surveys, addressing industry, agriculture and households.
Further work of the Ministry of Water Infrastructure (MoWI) experts in cooperation with the Department of Statistics (DoS) is needed to link national methodologies to the System of Economic and Environmental Accounts – Water (SEEA–W). To support recent initiatives to develop a national water information system for multiple governmental stakeholders, existing agreements on data sharing will be reviewed and modified to ensure lasting cooperation among data providers. These actions should help enable the national water information system to make an important contribution to the development of a more comprehensive Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS), through a strategic cooperation with the Ministry of Environment.
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