What is the solution if King Talal Dam, the most important dam in Jordan, irrigates the Jordan Valley's crops?!

Weather of Arabia - The head of the Jordan Valley Farmers Union, Adnan Khaddam, said that 6 water dams in Jordan have dried up out of 17 dams, namely: Al- Walah, Al-Mujib, Wadi Karak, Al-Tanour, Wadi Shuaib, and Zaqlab Dam.

He pointed out that " King Talal Dam, which is the most important dam in Jordan, has reached the line of danger ." And that "the current stock of King Talal Dam is 19 million cubic meters of sediment water (silt) out of 75 million cubic meters," according to Khaddam.

What is the solution if King Talal Dam, the most important dam in Jordan, dries up?!

Here we present a proposal by Prof. Dr. Muhammad Al-Farajat, in which he addressed an important issue related to the consequences of the drought of King Talal Dam, which supplies about 80% of the areas and agricultural units for irrigation purposes. The Jordan Valley is an integral part of our food basket and our food security , which may affect the availability of vegetables in the market and the rise prices in exchange for a decrease in supply and an increase in demand.

And put forward by Dr. Muhammad Al-Farajat has six steps that the Ministry of Water, the Ministry of Agriculture, Farmers Associations and the Jordan Valley Authority must cooperate to implement to solve the problem, which are:

1. Transferring part of the daily pumping quota from the water of the Al-Desah conveyor Amman to the dam, and this will not affect much due to the entry of winter and the low domestic demand for water, as well as due to the low tourist season in Amman and the low demand for water, corresponding to the increase in pumping quantities from the source (Al-Desah wells) .
2. The people in Amman and Zarqa are requested to reduce the use of detergents of all kinds, to enable an increase in the efficiency of sewage treatment in the Khirbet Al Samra plant, which feeds the dam.
3. A plan is being drawn up to purchase water from private wells in the Jordan Valley to supply the rest of the farmers.
4. Jordan Valley farmers are asked to rationalize the irrigation process as much as possible, and manage their farms to be able to live with the temporary situation.
5. Farmers in the rest of the kingdom are being asked to increase and diversify agricultural production, in anticipation of a production crisis in the Jordan Valley.
6. Develop a recovery and support plan for Jordan Valley farmers for whom agriculture is the source of their income,

And we ask him, the Almighty, to provide kindness to us, our conditions, our children and our crops, kindness to our lawful affairs, and kindness to all His creatures, for He is generous, Hearing, He responds to supplications,,,

The beginning of the dryness of the dams, what if the winter delay?

As written by Dr. Muhammad Al-Farajat published an article about a month ago in which he warned of this crisis, and it is as follows:

Some dams in the Kingdom began to see clearly signs of water depletion, and this is not surprising at the end of each summer, especially with the increase in temperatures and evaporation, in addition to the increased demand for water for irrigation purposes, in exchange for the expansion of the cultivated areas, which depend on dam water, King Talal Dam On which 80% of the northern Jordan Valley depend, for example.

The long-term mid-season weather monitoring talks about light weather events, and they will not contribute much to supplying dams through the flow, especially since the land is thirsty and a large part of any precipitation will go in addition to evaporation as ground leaching.

If the heavy rains do not fall, you can supply a dam like King Talal. By the end of the 10th and every 11th of this year, the dams may not be able to supply our crops, especially when we take the quality into consideration. Certainly, the waters of the bottom of a lake dam like King Talal Dam will not flow. Which is supplied daily by treated water from the Khirbet As-Samra plant, in addition to the runoff of rainwater in the surface basin of the dam in the winter season.

The irrigated areas in the agricultural units in the Jordan Valley constitute a large part of the Kingdom’s food basket and our national food security, as well as a source of income for the farmers, as it is their daily work between cultivation, irrigation, picking, packaging and marketing.

Any production shortage in vegetables will lead to an insane increase in prices, in front of a citizen who already suffers from low salaries, in addition to the challenges of poverty and unemployment.

The Ministry of Water has to deal with the matter alongside the Ministry of Agriculture, in order to avoid any emergency or crisis that may loom on the horizon, and may rise to an economic and social crisis with political repercussions, at a time when we are all striving to overcome the epidemic crisis and its various consequences, in addition to moving forward with political and economic reforms that the country needs.

Groundwater in the region constitutes good alternatives with desalinating salt from it until the crisis is overcome, in addition to rationalizing what remains of the dams’ water, in addition to trying to increase and improve the treatment efficiency at the Khirbet Al Samra plant, whose treated water is supplied by the King Talal Dam, which, as mentioned above, narrates 80% of the plantations Northern Valleys.

"The Ministries of Water and Agriculture, the Jordan Valley Authority, the Meteorology Department, the Central Vegetable Market and the Farmers' Associations, you are now one team to overcome any crisis, and we trust you a lot."