Stakeholder Participation in Prioritization of Water Supply and Demand in Jordan

Stakeholder participation in prioritization of water supply and demand was developed to assist water resource entities and water users on decision making when coping with water scarcity, climate change and contaminated water in Zarqa River Basin, Jordan. The basin was selected for CrITERIA project to represent a case study of semi-arid area in the Mediterranean. The paper demonstrates a participatory approach of integrating stakeholders’ experience and their active involvement in water management. Issues related to prioritization of water demand were identified, and the opinions of stakeholder were ranked according to their role in securing supply and improving supply reliability. The most important issues were ranked according to number of opinions out of the total. Findings showed that water management issues was the major issue in the basin and represents 86% of the stakeholders opinions, followed by water supply as 82% to less extent by water demand as 77% and quality as 68%. Most of the stakeholders agreed that management issues are the major cause of water scarcity. Like expected, water problems in Jordan are 50% associated with poor management and 50% due to water scarcity.