2 Squeezed Dry: the Historical Trajectory of the Lower Jordan River Basin Mauro Van Aken,1* François Molle2** and Jean-Philippe Venot3*** 1University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy; 2Centre IRD, Montpellier, France; 3International Water Management Institute, Accra, Ghana; e-mails: *
[email protected]; **
[email protected]; ***
[email protected] Introduction response options are interdependent and reveal the political and contested nature of The lower Jordan River basin (LJRB) provides resource sharing and water management (Molle a fascinating tale of coupled social and environ- et al., 2007). This chapter describes how these mental transformations of a waterscape. In this processes, constrained by the drastic natural semi-arid to desert area, water is an essential conditions of the basin, have unfolded since determinant of life, cultural values, social struc- the late 1950s and explores possible futures. tures, economic activities, power and politics. The trajectory of this basin from a nomadic agro-pastoral Bedouin culture to an urbanized Features of the Lower Jordan River Basin region where water circulation is highly artifi- cial, illustrates how a particular resource The Jordan River is an international river endowment is valued, mobilized, shared, used which drains a total area of about 18,000 km². and fought for. Its three headwater tributaries originate in This chapter first recounts past water Lebanon and Syria and flow into Lake Tiberius, resource development in the LJRB – defined as a freshwater reservoir now used almost exclu- the Jordanian part of the Jordan River basin, sively by Israel (Fig. 2.1). The Jordan River downstream of Lake Tiberius – and dwells on then flows southward before discharging into the specific relationships between water, local the Dead Sea.