OUTRIDER (3/4/2023)
By the dry riverbeds of northeast Jordan, Jehad Al-Masied sat down and remembered a time when water would flow.
“When we were kids, we learned to swim here,” he said as he walked to the edge of a now-empty reservoir surrounded by dark basalt ruins last December.
Winter rain used to stream down Syria’s mountains to the north of Jordan and fill the ancient reservoirs of Umm el-Jimal, an archaeological site more than 2,000 years old in the volcanic plains of northeast Jordan. But over the last few years, water has become increasingly scarce.
“It’s getting drier and drier. Temperatures keep rising and it rains less,” said Al-Masied, who also goes by the nickname Abu Sliman and lives in Umm el-Jimal working as a guide at the archaeological site.
The Middle East is being hard-hit by climate change as rainfall grows more unpredictable, rising temperatures accelerate evaporation and the land grows drier. Over increasingly hot summers, tensions have escalated as pipes ran dry. Abu Sliman remembers a summer when there was no water supply in his region for more than two weeks, prompting riots. Protestors blocked roads and burned tires, demanding access to water.
Jordan’s worsening water crisis offers a glimpse of challenges that loom elsewhere, as climate change is already affecting water access worldwide, causing more severe droughts and water shortages. Prolonged droughts are followed by short-term heavy rain, as increasing global temperatures make water evaporate in larger amounts leading to more intense rains and flash floods (…)