Jordan's water crisis deepens as Israel supply deal expires and desalination project faces hurdles

In his speech to parliament on November 2, 2026, Jordan’s King Abdullah emphasized the importance of water management with the words “Water, water, water,” defining water security as a pillar of national sovereignty. The king declared that Jordanians’ right to access water would not be held hostage to any circumstances. When the king of Jordan spoke these words from the parliamentary podium in Amman, dressed in military uniform, it was clear that this was a calculated strategic statement.

He did not mention Israel by name, but many commentators in the region linked his remarks to political tensions surrounding the water supply. Jordan’s concerns stem from the fact that the kingdom relies heavily on external sources for its water supply. Under the 1994 peace treaty, Israel committed to regularly supply Jordan with 50 million cubic meters of water per year. In the past, the kingdom was sold an additional 50 million cubic meters annually under a special arrangement, but that agreement expired at the end of 2025 and has not been renewed, returning Israeli supplies to the baseline level.

The agreement was not renewed because Israel decided not to provide water as a goodwill gesture beyond what is required under the peace treaty, in light of Amman’s sharp diplomatic attacks on Israel in the international arena. To understand the scale of the pressure on the royal palace, one must understand the reality in Jordan. Jordan is considered one of the three driest countries in the world. While the international threshold for absolute water scarcity is 500 cubic meters per person per year, Jordan’s average has plunged to less than 80.

In the capital, Amman, water flows from taps just once a week for a few hours. Residents are forced to store water in huge tanks on their rooftops, and the kingdom’s population, which has doubled to more than 11 million in recent years, largely due to the influx of Syrian refugees, is pushing its infrastructure to the brink of collapse. But the crisis also stems from poor domestic management: some 41% of the kingdom’s drinking water is simply lost, due to old, leaking pipes and illegal connections that the authorities struggle to police.

Meanwhile, the agricultural sector consumes about half the country’s water to irrigate water-intensive crops such as bananas in the heart of the desert, even though it contributes less than five percent of national output. To break free from this dependence, Jordan is betting everything on the National Water Carrier project in Aqaba. But work on the ground is still in the initial planning and infrastructure stages of a lengthy timeline of at least five years, and the taps are not expected to open before 2029.

The engineering plan is extremely ambitious: a massive desalination plant will be built on the Red Sea coast, pumping 300 million cubic meters of water a year through a 450-kilometer pipeline. The water will have to make an arduous climb through the desert north to Amman. This is precisely where the energy paradox comes into play: transporting water from Aqaba to Amman requires massive pumping stations. To avoid overloading the electricity grid, the engineering plan includes the construction of a dedicated solar power plant with a capacity of approximately 281 megawatts in the south of the country.

Yet this renewable energy will supply only about 30% of the pumps’ power needs, while the remaining 70% will still be drawn from the national electricity grid, which relies largely on natural gas. And the cost? More than four billion dollars. So can this thing actually work? On paper, yes. From an engineering standpoint, the pumps will work and the pipeline will carry water. But in the reality of the Middle East, pumping insanely expensive desalinated water into a network that loses more than forty percent along the way is like filling a leaky bucket with liquid gold.

Jordan is heavily in debt, and if the government dares to raise water prices for its citizens to plug the budget gap, the streets of Amman will erupt. So is Jordan gambling on its future here? Absolutely. But it’s not just betting on itself—it’s also betting on the tranquility of our eastern border. The big question is what will happen when push comes to shove if the project falters: can geography really be escaped, or will Israel ultimately have to turn on the tap again to safeguard the stability of both countries?

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