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Msc Thesis Romana Gaspirc MSc Thesis WATER DISCOURSES AND THE IMPLICATIONS ON THE REHABILITATION OF THE JORDAN RIVER Romana Gaspirc Wageningen, June 2007 Thesis supervisor: Arthur Mol Environmental Policy Group Social Science Group Wageningen University “Water Discourses and the Implications on the Rehabilitation of the Jordan River” Romana Gaspirc 780222-250-080 “No part of this thesis may be reproduced without contacting the Environmental Policy Group” Supervisor: Second reader: Prof. dr. ir. Arthur P.J. Mol Assist. Prof. Aarti Gupta Environmental Policy Group Environmental Policy Group Wageningen UR Wageningen UR Hollandseweg 1 Hollandseweg 1 6706 KN Wageningen 6706 KN Wageningen The Netherlands The Netherlands Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Front cover: Bridge over Jordan River at Three Bridges site (Photo: Romana Gaspirc) Acknowledgements I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to: Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands: Prof. dr. ir. Arthur P.J. Mol for the time and supervision, important advices and feedback, and for evaluation of the project; Assist. Prof. Aarti Gupta for providing second opinion and evaluation of the final project; Dr. ir. Bas J.M. van Vliet for important guidance in the initial phase of the project; Dick Legger for always being wonderful study advisor in the first year; Andre van Amstel for continuing supervisor’s work in the second year; and many others… CROSS - The Dutch governmental organisation: For enabeling my studies through MATRA (the Social Transformation Programme for Central and Eastern Europe) scholarship. The Netherlands: MATRA and other international study colleagues who have enabled me precious cultural leaning and support during my studies; wonderful Dutchmen: Ms. Sjoerd, Jos and Hank, Rob Pietersen, and others Israel, Jordan and Palestinian Territories: Shahar Dayan, his family, and friends – for always being my right hand and always being there where I needed support and help; Mikhael Eran – for unselfishly sharing his time and precious knowledge of Jordan River Basin with me; Friends of the Earth Middle East – Gidon, Mira, Munqeth, and Mona, without you guys large part of this work would be dry and pale; EMPOWERS – Firas Abd-Alhadi, Fadi Shraideh, and Mufleh Abbadi, for unselfishly taking personal care for my research and providing me with data, Firas – thank you for reading my final work; Middle Ghor Directorate – Yousef Al Sakran and Rakan Al-Faour for sharing their precious time and knowledge on Jordanian agriculture, and for the gift – strawberries Irbid – Mustafa family for taking care of me and loving me; Amman – Mohammad Abu Shadi, Mohammad, Sherrie, Haroun, Natasha and Haddad family, and others; Dr. Abdel Rahman Tamimi – for sharing with me important aspects and feelings of Palestinians toward the Jordan River Basin. … and my sincerest thanks goes to all the interviewees and others who selflessly gave their time and patience in assisting my understanding and the complexities of the Jordan River Basin policies. I am thankful to God Almighty I had opportunity to experience the Jordan River and its wonderful people. Romana Gaspirc Wageningen, June 2007 ABSTRACT In the face of growing environmental awareness worldwide and due to the exhaustion of their natural resources, nations in the Middle East are becoming aware of their potential water sources and implications that unsustainable water diversion policies have had. Water has always been a scarce resource in Jordan River basin, which has been heavily overused to sustain growing Jewish and Arab populations in water scarce region in the past decades. Jordan River has been a subject to unilateral water diversion projects until the water agreement has been achieved between Israel and Jordan with agreement on the Peace Treaty in 1994. The Treaty contains two “water” articles. In Article 6 Israel and Jordan have recognized each other’s rightful allocations on the Jordan (and Yarmouk) River, and in Article 18 they have agreed to cooperate on ecological rehabilitation of the Jordan River. Closer look at the articles reveals that Article 6 continues the policies of “water to man” and “nothing to the nature”, thus Article 18 stands in contravention to it; rehabilitation would require at least minimum amounts of fresh water flowing in the river bed. Short preliminary research showed that Jordan River is nowadays in very poor ecological condition, with sewage and saline water discharging into it, and lack of fresh water flow, which has had its devastating impact further downstream on the Dead Sea. Therefore, the scope of our research was to investigate the water discourses that take place in discursive battles among Israeli and Jordanian transboundary water policy key-players and stakeholders, and implications these discourses are likely to have on the current policies and state-of- the-art of the Jordan River. The approach of discourse analysis has been undertaken in order to analyse 36 interview accounts and 214 newspaper’s articles. Interviewing and newspaper’s survey took place in Israel and Jordan. Finally, three distinctive story lines have been identified, and story line 1 as the sanctioned discourse, where more than half of the interviews have been ascribed to it, many of them key-players in the transboundary water policy. It has been found that sanctioned discourse enables and maintains the policies of “water for man” and “nothing for the nature” to continue, which have had devastating impact on the Jordan River and Dead Sea. Two alternative discourses consist of environmentalists and opponents of the Peace Treaty. It has been concluded that the strength of sanctioned discourse, water scarcity and the region’s unresolved “high politics” questions represent main impediments to sustainable and integrated regional approach that would be likely to promote and enhance the rehabilitation of the Jordan River. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION: DISPUTE OVER JORDAN RIVER ...................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Jordan River Basin Hydropolitics: Before the Peace Treaty 1994 .................................................................. 1 1.3 Treaty of Peace 1994 between Israel and Jordan ......................................................................................... 3 1.4 Problem statement: Article 6 vs. Article 18.................................................................................................... 6 1.5 Purpose of the study: Research Objectives and Questions ........................................................................... 6 1.5.1 Research objectives............................................................................................................................. 6 1.5.2 Main research questions....................................................................................................................... 7 1.5.3 Sub-research questions........................................................................................................................ 7 2 THEORETHICAL BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................. 9 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 9 2.2 Discourse and discourse analysis ................................................................................................................ 9 2.3 Conceptual framework............................................................................................................................... 13 3 JORDAN RIVER: BACKGROUND OF THE DISPUTE................................................................................... 15 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 15 3.2 Hydrogeology of the Jordan River .............................................................................................................. 15 3.3 Utilization of the Jordan River..................................................................................................................... 17 3.4 Increase of population in the region............................................................................................................ 18 4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY............................................................................................... 21 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 21 4.2 Investigation of water sectors and water policy arenas................................................................................ 21 4.3 Direct observation...................................................................................................................................... 22 4.4 Literature research and documents review ................................................................................................. 24 4.5 In-depth interviews and newspapers’ articles survey................................................................................... 25 4.6 Newspapers’ articles survey and interview questions’ topics ......................................................................
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