A strategic vision to ensure an adequate, safe and secure drinking water supply presents a challenge, particularly for such a small country as Jordan, faced with a critical supply-demand imbalance and a high risk of water quality deterioration. In order to provide sustainable and equitable long-term water management plans for the future, current and future demands, along with available adaptation options should be assessed through community engagement. An analysis of available water resources, existing demands and use per sector served to assess the nation’s historic water status. Taking into account the effect of both population growth and rainfall reduction, future per sector demands were predicted by linear temporal trend analysis. Water sector vulnerability and adaptation options were assessed by engaging thirty five stakeholders. A set of weighed-criterions were selected, adopted, modified, and then framed into comprehensive guidelines. A quantitative ratio-level approach was used to quantify the magnitude and likelihood of risks and opportunities associated with each proposed adaptation measure using the level of effectiveness and severity status. Prioritization indicated that public awareness and training programs were the most feasible and effective adaptation measures, while building new infrastructure was of low priority. Associated barriers were related to a lack of financial resources, institutional arrangements, and data collection, sharing, availability, consistency and transparency, as well as willingness to adapt. Independent community-based watershed-vulnerability analyses to address water integrity at watershed scale are recommended.

It is difficult to give an unambiguous answer for the question presented in the title. J.B. Glubb considered himself to be a friend of Arabs and the Arab issue. At the same time he was a loyal officer of the British Army. He did not see any contradiction in this. J.B. Glubb began his work in the Transjordan Emirate in 1931. In the beginning he commanded the border guard made of Bedouins and since 1939 the whole army of Transjordan, namely the Arab Legion. During World War II he considerably developed these armed forces. In 1946 Transjordan gained independence. Despite this J.B. Glubb maintained his command over the Arab Army until 1956. In 1948 he commanded the army during the conflict with Israel that was coming into being. During his military service he attempted to care about the interests of the House of Hashimites. Basically, he associated the Arab issue with the interests of this house. He believed that it was possible to permanently combine Arab interests viewed in that perspective with the influence of the British in the Middle East. Such reasoning turned out to be an absolute misconception. The officer was becoming more and more hated by a large part of Arabs. For many he was a symbol of being enslaved by the British. His reasoning of the Arab issue was becoming an anachronism. Eventually, he became a nuisance also for the Hashimites. Therefore, in march 1956 young king Husayn took the command from him and removed him from Jordan. Despite such ending of his military and political career one must admit that he was one of more interesting figures of the late British Empire.

This article examines the short- and long-run effects of water price, system input, income, temperature on domestic water demand for Amman area over the period of 1980–2012. An empirical, dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model for water demand is developed on a yearly basis. This approach is capable of testing and analysing the dynamic relationship with time series data using a single equation regressions. Results show the ability of the model to predicting future trends (short- and long-run association). The main results indicate that water demand in limited water environment is partially captured in the long-run by the amount of water reaching the customer. The short- and long-run elasticities of water price (–0.061, –0.028) and high temperature (0.023, 0.054) indicate inelastic behaviour on water demand both in short- and long-run, while the lagged water price has a significant effect on demand. Income represented by gross domestic product (GDP) slightly affects water consumption in the long-run and insignificantly in the short-run (0.24, 0.24). Water consumption is strongly linked to consumption habits measured by lagged billed amount 0.35, and is strongly linked to amount of supplied water both in short- and long-run (0.47, 0.53). These results suggest that water needs should be satisfied first to allow controlling water demand through a good pricing system.
Moreover, the association identified between demand and water system input, and the lesser elasticities of water price and other explanatory variables confirm the condition of water deficit in Amman area and Jordan. The results could be rolled out to similar cities suffering scarce water resources with arid and semi-arid weather conditions.