Jordan is facing significant challenges related to water scarcity, including overexploitation of groundwater, increasing demand, and wasteful practices. Despite efforts to manage water resources, inadequate planning has resulted in ongoing water security concerns and deteriorating water quantity and quality. To address water stress, Jordan has implemented measures such as desalination, dam construction, and water conservation initiatives. However, water stress remains high, necessitating a comprehensive strategy that includes short-term demand-side interventions and long-term supply-side reforms. Financial and governance challenges hinder the implementation of these measures, requiring private investment and coordination among stakeholders. This paper provides a comprehensive review of Jordan’s water resources, analyzing current trends, challenges, and opportunities. The aim is to offer insight into the current situation and propose sustainable management approaches. The findings will be valuable for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders working towards addressing Jordan’s complex water challenges and securing a sustainable water future for its citizens.

Water scarcity poses significant challenges in arid regions like the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) due to constant population growth, considering the effects of climate change and water management aspects. The desalination technologies face problems like high energy consumption, high investment costs, and significant environmental impacts by brine discharge. This paper researches the relationships among water scarcity, energy-intensive desalination, and the development of renewable energy in MENA, with a particular focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. It examines innovations in solar-powered desalination, considering both solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal technologies, in combination with traditional thermal desalination methods such as multi-effect distillation (MED) and multi-stage flash (MSF). The environmental impacts associated with desalination by brine discharge are also discussed, analyzing innovative technological solutions and avoidance strategies. Utilizing bibliometrics, this report provides a comprehensive analysis of scientific literature for the assessment of the research landscape in order to recognize trends in desalination technologies in the MENA region, providing valuable insights into emerging technologies and research priorities. Despite challenges such as high initial investment costs, technical complexities, and limited funding for research and development, the convergence of water scarcity and renewable energy presents significant opportunities for integrated desalination systems in GCC countries. Summarizing, this paper emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches and international collaboration by addressing the complex challenges of water scarcity and energy sustainability in the MENA region. By leveraging renewable energy sources and advancing desalination technologies, the region can achieve water security while mitigating environmental impacts and promoting economic development.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels installation has become one of the major technologies used for energy production worldwide. Knowledge and competitive prices are the main reasons for the spread usage and expanded exploiting of PV systems. Accordingly, this creates several challenges for manufacturers and customers, mainly, the quality of PV panels to withstand environmental conditions during service lifetime. Hence, the quality of PV panels is a vital aspect. By thinking of PV power plants, it appears that some factors should be considered, like the developing microcracks (µcracks). An issue like that increases the chances of having power loss during the operation phase. Notably, µcracks develop in different shapes and orientations; the variation depends on what causes them. This study is a presentation and summary of data collected from different projects in Jordan to describe the effect of each µcracks shape on power loss, aiming to give decision makers an indication to decide whether to replace the faulty panels or not, depending on their own conditions and projects sizes. Hence, in this study, it was found that the µcracks have impacted power loss differently and recorded power reduction of percentages of 0.82–3.21% for poly-crystalline technology. Variation in power degradation depends on the module situation; whether it is stocked in facility or operated on-site. In the mono-crystalline technology case, the power losses varied between 0.55% and 0.9%, with the exception of some samples from both technologies that have effects other than microcracks, which affected power severely. Furthermore, a general overview is provided for µcracks before installation.

Water scarcity remains the major looming challenge that is facing Jordan. Wastewater reclamation is considered as an alternative source of fresh water in semi-arid areas with water shortage or increased consumption. In the present study, the current status of wastewater reclamation and reuse in Jordan was analyzed considering 30 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The assessment was based on the WWWTPs’ treatment processes in Jordan, the flowrates scale, and the effluents’ average total dissolved solid (TDS) contents. Accordingly, 60% of the WWTPs in Jordan used activated sludge as a treatment technology; 30 WWTPs were small scale (<1 × 10⁴ m³/day); and a total of 17.932 million m³ treated wastewater had low TDS (<1000 ppm) that generally can be used in industries with relatively minimal cost of treatment. Moreover, the analysis classified the 26 million m³ groundwater abstraction by major industries in Jordanian governorates. The results showed that the reclaimed wastewater can fully offset the industrial demand of fresh water in Amman, Zarqa, and Aqaba governorates. Hence, the environmental assessment showed positive impacts of reclaimed wastewater reuse scenario in terms of water depletion (saving of 72.55 million m³ groundwater per year) and climate change (17.683 million kg CO_2Eq reduction). The energy recovery assessment in the small- and medium-scale WWTPs (<10 × 10⁴ m³/day) revealed that generation of electricity by anaerobic sludge digestion equates potentially to an offset of 0.11–0.53 kWh/m³. Finally, several barriers and prospects were put forth to help the stakeholders when considering entering into an agreement to supply and/or reuse reclaimed water.

The current research focuses on assessing the potential of municipal solid waste (MSW) conversion into biofuel using pyrolysis process. The MSW samples were taken from Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp. The physical and chemical characteristics of MSW were studied using proximate and elemental analysis. The results showed that moisture content of MSW is 32.3%, volatile matter (VM) is 67.99%, fixed carbon (FC) content is 5.46%, and ash content is 24.33%. The chemical analysis was conducted using CHNS analyzer and found that the percentage of elements contents: 46% Carbon (C) content, 12% Hydrogen (H₂), 2% Nitrogen (N₂), 44% Oxygen (O₂), and higher heat value (HHV) is 26.14 MJ/kg. The MSW pyrolysis was conducted using tubular fluidized bed reactor (FBR) under inert gas (Nitrogen) at 500 °C with 20 °C/min heating rate and using average particles size 5–10 mm. The products of MSW pyrolysis reaction were: pyrolytic liquid, solid char, and gaseous mixture. The pyrolytic oil and residual char were analyzed using Elemental Analyzer and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The results of FTIR showed that oil product has considerable amounts of alkenes, alkanes, and carbonyl groups due to high organic compounds contents in MSW. The elemental analysis results showed that oil product content consists of 55% C, 37% O₂, and the HHV is 20.8 MJ/kg. The elemental analysis of biochar showed that biochar content consists of 47% C, 49% O₂, and HHV is 11.5 MJ/kg. Further research is recommended to study the effects of parameters as reactor types and operating conditions to assess the feasibility of MSW pyrolysis, in addition to the environmental impact study which is necessary to identify and predict the relevant environmental effects of this process.