“This year the increase (in demand) compared to previous years is around 70 to 80 percent,” Suleiman told Reuters. The rooftop tanks where his customers store their water now pepper the city’s landscape. While climate change has brought drier weather to the Middle East, Jordan has fared worse than its neighbors. “Rainfall did not exceed 60 percent of the average,” said Water Ministry official Omar Salameh. Jordan’s population has doubled in the past 20 years, with waves of refugees, including more than one million Syrians, taken in.

Source: Egypt Independent September 02, 2021 17:48 UTC