Transformative change of Jordan’s water system: reconfiguring competitive water users into mutual service providers

By 2050 and without fundamental policy change, demand for freshwater will exceed renewable supply by a factor of four in Jordan. A water-allocation game was designed to let stakeholders reallocate water and attempt to close the gap between demand and renewable supply, making use of supply augmentation and reutilization options that were defined with stakeholders. Stakeholders who played the game grasped that agriculture will have to completely shift to wastewater reuse in order to preserve precious freshwater resources for the drinking water supply. This paper reflects on the transformation needed to turn competing water users into mutual service providers.