Jordan and Israel signed a declaration of intent on Thursday to rehabilitate and improve the water system of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, in Jordan, the second country with the most water scarcity in the world, official sources reported.
The signing of this declaration of intent was made on the sidelines of the COP27 climate summit, which is being held in the Egyptian city of Sharm el Sheikh, by the Jordanian Minister of Water and Irrigation, Mohamed al Nayar, and the Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection. Tamar Zandberg.
The signing of the declaration of intent was produced with “the objective of seeking the rehabilitation of the Jordan River, whose flow has decreased to 7%, causing a drop in the level of the Dead Sea by almost one meter per year,” according to the ministry’s statement. jordanian
This issue has led Jordan to “mobilize the support of the international community to save the Dead Sea, which represents a common heritage of humanity,” the note notes.
In addition to water resources, the statement of intent also addresses “rehabilitating the environment” of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, as well as “creating job opportunities that reflect improved quality of life and providing more water to residents in both banks of the Jordan River, including the Palestinians.
Under the 1994 peace treaty between the two countries, Israel agreed to supply Jordan with 50 million cubic meters of water flowing from Lake Tiberias into the Jordan River.
However, in 2021, the Jordanian government was forced to buy additional amounts of Israeli water due to the scarcity that the country is experiencing, whose water needs were estimated at 109 million cubic meters in 2019, due to the marked drop in rainfall. .
According to the UN, Jordan is the second most water-scarce country in the world, and its annual renewable water resources are less than 100 cubic meters per person.