The Jordan River Basin is the most important water resource shared between the Middle East countries: Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Its surface water and groundwater have been highly exploited and fought over throughout history. The diverse climate over its area results in spatially variable precipitation and evapotranspiration, thus, variability of water generation and consumption. The basin is considered a closed one with no outlet except for an inter-basin transfer from Lake Tiberias through the National Water Carrier to Israel.

To be able to manage the water resources in a sustainable manner, it is important to understand the current state of the water resources. However with limited up-to-date ground observations, in terms of duration, completeness and quality of the hydro-meteorological records it is difficult to draw an appropriate picture of the water resources conditions.

This report describes the rapid water accounting study for the Jordan River Basin developed in collaboration with IHE Delf, using WaPOR, FAO’s portal to monitor Water Productivity through Open-access of Remotely sensed derived data.

Read the publication "Water accounting in the Jordan River Basion"

For more information on WaPOR, visit the WaPOR website