The Secretary-General of the Jordan Valley Authority, Manar Mahasneh, said on Saturday that the current stockpile of dams used for irrigation purposes is close to the stock recorded last year, and the amount of storage in dams that are used for drinking purposes is very weak.

Mahasneh explained through “The Kingdom”, that the Al-Wahda and Mujib dams, which are used for drinking, have a “very weak” reservoir, as the storage volume in the Mujib dam is approximately 800,000 cubic meters, and the volume of water stored in it last year was better, and the Al-Wehda dam currently contains approximately 14 million cubic meters. Last year, storage was 24 million cubic meters.

The current storage volume in the King Talal Dam used for irrigation is 43 million cubic metres, and last year it was 44 million cubic metres.

Mahasneh said that the biggest challenge is the storage of the Wahda dam in the first place and the Mujib dam, in light of the dependence mainly on the Wehda dam for drinking purposes, and there are other sources, namely the Al-Makhida wells in the north and the quantities of water that Jordan obtains from Lake Tiberias.

She said that the quantity (50 million cubic meters) that Jordan obtained from Israel outside the peace agreement, was enhanced during the summer period, and it began supplying the King Abdullah Canal in September of last year, and it compensated for the shortfall in the Unity Dam.

The Ministry of Water and Irrigation said, on Saturday, that the recent atmospheric depression raised the volume of cumulative rain falling from the beginning of the season on all governorates of the Kingdom until the morning of Friday 4/3/2022 to 69.5%, about 5700.5 million m3 from the long-term annual rate of 8.1 billion m3.

He added in a statement, that “the highest percentage of precipitation recorded during the 24 hours accompanying the depression until Friday morning in Irbid / Al-Hosn was 24.4 mm, as the storage of live dams on Saturday morning amounted to 82.603 million cubic meters, with a total storage rate of 29.4%.”