Overview of Middle East Water Resources
Surface Water
Zarqa River
The Zarqa River is the third largest river in the region in
terms of its annual discharge and its waters are extensively
used for municipal water supply, irrigation, and
industrial needs. The watershed encompasses the most
densely populated and industrialized area on the east side
of the Jordan River. The area of the Zarqa River watershed
is about 3,900 km2 and has two main branches-
the Amman-Zarqa draining the higher rainfall areas of
the Eastern Escarpment of the Jordan Rift Valley and
parts of the Jordan Highland, and the Wadi Dhuliel
draining the more arid areas of the Jordan Highland and
Plateau. The mean rainfall for the watershed is 273 mm,
and the median annual streamflow is 63.3 MCM.
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Zarqa River below New Jerash Bridge
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The river is controlled by the King Talal Dam, which
was completed in 1970 to provide a storage capacity
of 55 MCM and raised in 1987 to provide 86 MCM.
Connected through a canal and pipes to the King
Abdullah Canal, the river provides irrigation for a further
8,400 hectares of land. Withdrawals for water supply
from aquifers in the upper Amman-Zarqa groundwater
basin have reduced the natural baseflow of the Zarqa
River. The flow characteristics have been further modified
by the discharge to the river of treated domestic
and industrial wastewater that compose nearly all of the
summer flow and substantially degrade the water quality.
Flow characteristics of Zarqa River are measured above
the King Talal Dam at New Jerash Bridge where the
drainage area is 3,100 km 2 . The Zarqa River is perennial
with typical monthly flows of 2 to 3 MCM during the
summer and 5 to more than 8 MCM during the winter.
The maximum observed flood occurred on November
29, 1979 (1980 water year) and produced a single day
volume of 2.5 MCM.
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Hydrographs. Left: Median annual volume by watershed. Right: Annual volume, 1964-97.
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Water Data Banks Project,
Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources,
Middle East Peace Process
Overview of Middle East Water Resources
Information about this document.
