Via ReliefWeb, an AFP report: Syrian refugees draining water-poor Jordan dry. Excerpt:
Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled from carnage and violence at home to neighbouring Jordan are draining the desert kingdom's meager water resources, officials and experts say.
It is a new challenge for Jordan, one of the world's 10 driest countries, where desert covers 92 percent of its territory and the population of 6.7 million is growing by 3.5 percent a year.
The tiny Arab country has given refuge to waves of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees because of regional conflicts over the past decades, and now the kingdom is hosting up to 120,000 Syrians.
"The majority of Syrian refugees are concentrated in the northern cities of Mafraq, Irbid, Ramtha, Jerash and Ajlun. All of these areas already suffer from water shortage," Fayez Bataineh, secretary general of the Water Authority, told AFP.
"They add pressure to our limited water resources, and we need to be extra careful and wisely manage these resources."
Years of below-average rainfall have created a shortfall of 500 million cubic metres (17.5 billion cubic feet) a year, and the country forecasts it will need 1.6 billion cubic metres of water a year by 2015.
"Each Syrian refugee needs at least 80 litres of fresh water a day, so 9,600 cubic metres per day for 120,000 people. The cost of this subsidised water supply is 13,000 dinar ($18,000) a day, not to mention other related expenses," said Adnan Zubi, assistant secretary general of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.
By way of comparison, per capita water consumption in Canada is 330 litres a day. And that is also the rate of consumption in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which burns a lot of oil to run desalinization plants.
