Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the Lower Jordan Valley: SMART Sustainable Management of Available Water Resources with Innovative Technologies

  • Autor:

    Klinger J, Schlager P, Liesch T, Ali W, Goldscheider N (Eds.)

  • Quelle: KIT Scientific Publishing
  • Datum: 2012
  • Supply of the growing global population with sufficient clean drinking water under changing environmental conditions is one of the crucial challenges of mankind. In many regions of the world, groundwater from wells and springs is the quantitatively most important and qualitatively best water resource. Water is not only used for drinking, but also and increasingly for irrigation in agriculture, in the energy sector, and for many other purposes. Ecosystems need water of sufficient amount and quality, at the same time they protect and contribute to the natural cleaning and storage of water in many ways. Under the funding program “Integrated Water Resources Management” (IWRM), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) supports the development of adapted planning instruments for a sustainable use of water as well as the adaptation of water management strategies to variable climatic, economic, and social conditions in developing and threshold countries. In total, 18 IWRM projects are sponsored by the BMBF. The SMART project is one of them. It has been sponsored by the BMBF since 2006. SMART stands for “Sustainable Management of Available Water Resources with Innovative Technologies”, the investigation area is the Lower Jordan Valley. SMART is a multilateral, interdisciplinary research project of 25 partners from universities, research establishments, and decision-relevant institutions in the target region, e.g. water ministries and water suppliers, as well as companies and external experts from Germany, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. It is the paramount objective to develop concepts for an integrated water resources management (IWRM) in the Lower Jordan river catchment area. As the Jordan Valley is an arid region it suffers under natural conditions from water scarcity. In the future, this situation will even be aggravated by climate change and population growth. The SMART project has the objective to increase the amount of available water significantly and sustainably. All available water resources, i.e. groundwater and surface water as well as processed wastewater, salt water, brackish water, and flood water, are investigated by the project.