The exigencies of the global community toward Earth system science will increase in the future as the human population, economies, and the human footprint on the planet continue to grow. This growth, combined with intensifying urbanization, will inevitably exert increasing pressure on all ecosystem services. A unified interdisciplinary approach to Earth system science is required that can address this challenge, integrate technical demands and long-term visions, and reconcile user demands with scientific feasibility. Together with the research arms of the World Meteorological Organization, the Young Earth System Scientists community has gathered early-career scientists from around the world to initiate a discussion about frontiers of Earth system science. To provide optimal information for society, Earth system science has to provide a comprehensive understanding of the physical processes that drive the Earth system and anthropogenic influences. This understanding will be reflected in seamless prediction systems for environmental processes that are robust and instructive to local users on all scales. Such prediction systems require improved physical process understanding, more high-resolution global observations, and advanced modeling capability, as well as high-performance computing on unprecedented scales. At the same time, the robustness and usability of such prediction systems also depend on deepening our understanding of the entire Earth system and improved communication between end users and researchers. Earth system science is the fundamental baseline for understanding the Earth’s capacity to accommodate humanity, and it provides a means to have a rational discussion about the consequences and limits of anthropogenic influence on Earth. Without its progress, truly sustainable development will be impossible.
Groundwater is the main source of drinking water supply in Jordan. Over the past 30 years, many wellfields have been drilled and expanded to cover increasing drinking water demand caused by natural population growth, development of life standards and as a result of the influx of refugees to Jordan. In particular, northern Jordan groundwater resources have been severely depleted. Therefore, water suppliers and utilities have been increasingly challenged to meet water demand and deliver water of adequate quality and quantity to households in a timely manner. Meeting these objectives requires good data management, proper maintenance of groundwater wells, and effective wellfield management plans. We developed a novel monitoring strategy that allows the collection of relevant data for wellfield managers (e.g., yield, static and dynamic water level, as well as energy consumption). The new monitoring system, implemented in 2017, has greatly enhanced data availability in comparison to the situation between 2012 and 2016. The data are used in an operational decision support tool based on simple interpretation of the field observations. The implementation of the project was done using both bottom-up and top-down approaches for the Wadi Al Arab wellfield. Our results evidence that (i) simple strategies can lead to a significant improvement of wellfield management, reducing the maintenance time of the wells though appropriate monitoring (from an average of four days/maintenance/well in 2012 to less than one day/maintenance/well in 2017); (ii) the joint combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches leads to an effective implementation of the monitoring system; (iii) the simplicity of the proposed monitoring strategy makes it suitable for further implementation in other wellfields in Jordan and countries in a similar situation of both data and water scarcity.
In 2017, a comprehensive review of groundwater resources in Jordan was carried out for the first time since 1995. The change in groundwater levels between 1995 and 2017 was found to be dramatic: large declines have been recorded all over the country, reaching more than 100 m in some areas. The most affected areas are those with large-scale groundwater-irrigated agriculture, but areas that are only used for public water supply are also affected. The decrease of groundwater levels and saturated thickness poses a growing threat for drinking water supply and the demand has to be met from increasingly deeper and more remote sources, causing higher costs for drilling and extraction. Groundwater-level contour lines show that groundwater flow direction has completely reversed in some parts of the main aquifer. Consequently, previously established conceptual models, such as the concept of 12 “groundwater basins” often used in Jordan should be revised or replaced. Additionally, hydraulic conditions are changing from confined to unconfined; this is most likely a major driver for geogenic pollution with heavy metals through leakage from the overlying bituminous aquitard. Three exemplary case studies are presented to illustrate and discuss the main causes for the decline of the water tables (agriculture and population growth) and to show how the results of this assessment can be used on a regional scale.
Water scarcity drives governments in arid and semi-arid regions to promote strategies for improving water use efficiency. Water-related research generally also plays an important role in the same countries and for the same reason. However, it remains unclear how to link the implementation of new government strategies and water-related research. This article’s principal objective is to present a novel approach that defines water-related research gaps from the point of view of a government strategy. The proposed methodology is based on an extensive literature review, followed by a systematic evaluation of the topics covered both in grey and peer-reviewed literature. Finally, we assess if and how the different literature sources contribute to the goals of the water strategy. The methodology was tested by investigating the impact of the water strategy of Jordan’s government (2008–2022) on the research conducted in the Azraq Basin, considering 99 grey and peer-reviewed documents. The results showed an increase in the number of water-related research documents from 37 published between 1985 and 2007 to 62 published between 2008 and 2018. This increase should not, however, be seen as a positive impact of increased research activity from the development of Jordan’s water strategy. In fact, the increase in water-related research activity matches the increasing trend in research production in Jordan generally. Moreover, the results showed that only about 80% of the documents align with the goals identified in the water strategy. In addition, the distribution of the documents among the different goals of the strategy is heterogeneous; hence, research gaps can be identified, i.e., goals of the water-strategy that are not addressed by any of the documents sourced. To foster innovative and demand-based research in the future, a matrix was developed that linked basin-specific research focus areas (RFAs) with the MWI strategy topics. In doing so, the goals that are not covered by a particular RFA are highlighted. This analysis can inspire researchers to develop and apply new topics in the Azraq Basin to address the research gaps and strengthen the connection between the RFAs and the strategy topics and goals. Moreover, the application of the proposed methodology can motivate future research to become demand-driven, innovative, and contribute to solving societal challenges.
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