In Jordan thousands of people have been hospitalized over the past few months suffering from severe diarrhoea due to water contamination caused by Jordan’s worn out water network and worsened by the government’s strict water rationing programme, pumping water to households only once or twice a week. "When water is pumped through the leaking network, a large volume of water returns to the network after pumping has stopped, bringing with it bacteria and other sources of disease," said Salameh Hiari, a water expert at the University of Jordan. According to Hiari, the only way to end this predicament is to renew the water network and find a permanent water source. The government has an ambitious project to pump water from Disi Aquifer in the south to Amman. Another project involves linking the Dead Sea with the Red Sea by a 250-km long canal, and constructing a desalination station. According to Nael Zu'bi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Water, the Jordanese government has spent nearly US$ 270 million (EUR 184 million) on renewing Amman’s water supply network and a further US$ 150 million (EUR 102 million) on water projects in other areas. The country would need US$ 1.2 billion (EUR 818 million) to improve the entire network.

Related news: Jordan: US$ 600 million project to end water shortage, Source Weekly, 09 Nov 2007

Source: IRIN, 19 Nov. 2007

Tags: water quality, water resources management, water-related diseases