Water scarcity impact of climate change in semi-arid regions: a case study in Mujib basin, Jordan

Jordan is confronting a severe water scarcity because of its reliance on a highly fluctuating annual precipitation. The impact of climate change on freshwater resources is of primary concern as it may elevate water shortage problem. Therefore, climate change has to be adequately addressed in order to attain proper management and sustainable use of available water resources. In this paper, incremental scenarios of climate change have been deployed to assess foreseen impacts of climate change on water resources in Mujib, a groundwater basin in central Jordan by the aid of Soil and Water Assessment Tool hydrological model. Ten incremental scenarios representing dry, normal, and wet events are tried. Findings indicate that dry scenarios lead to about 20 to 50 % reduction in annual precipitation and surface runoff. However, wet scenarios estimate annual precipitation and surface runoff to increase up to fourfold the baseline values.