Water Sector Policy for Wastewater Management and Reuse 2023.

This Wastewater Management and Reuse Policy is a new initiative from the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, designed to establish clear rules for the efficient and sustainable management of scarce water resources. It outlines the necessary measures to achieve national goals for long-term water security. This Policy specifically aims to improve wastewater management and reuse from both existing centralized and future decentralized treatment plants. It will serve as the primary reference for decision-makers when planning wastewater infrastructure projects, encompassing both centralized and decentralized systems, and for determining appropriate reuse schemes. The ultimate goal is to successfully implement this Policy and ensure the substitution of freshwater by utilizing treated effluent across various sectors.
The overall objective of the document is to detail the necessary technical, institutional, and legislative measures to maximize treated wastewater reuse efficiency, recognizing that effective wastewater treatment is crucial for public health, sustainable water resources, and environmental protection, all of which significantly impact economic and social well-being. Its main strategic objectives are (i) Sustainable Development: to seek wastewater management infrastructure that allows Jordan to live within its environmental limits and that helps ensure a strong, healthy and just society balancing its environmental, social, and economic development; (ii) Public Health and Environmental Protection: to meet the commitments under the National Water Strategy and the Sustainable Development Agenda by providing suitable collection and treatment systems to protect public health and limit pollution of the environment; (iii) Coping with Water Scarcity: to use water efficiently across all sectors and ensure sustainable consumption of freshwater and to significantly reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity; (iv) Improving quality of life: especially in suburban and rural areas by enhancing local water availability by seeking opportunities to recycle and reuse water and to recover raw materials; (v) Improving Wastewater Services: to establish efficient wastewater management services by continuously updating or developing standards for network and technology performance, treated effluent quality, operation and maintenance of sewage networks as well as for disposal and treatment facilities including decentralized wastewater treatment units that could be adopted as a technical solution to address hot spot issues; (vi) Public Participation: to support and strengthen the participation and ownership of local communities in improving water and sanitation management, through enforcing as well the behavioral change mechanisms and engaging all society segments in the process, while stressing gender and women roles in the wastewater management; (vii) Private Sector Participation: in managing decentralized wastewater treatment units, as well as the centralized wastewater treatment plants; (viii) Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts: to seek adaptation measures to climate change effects, which are becoming more apparent in decreasing rainfall amounts, and changing its distribution and patterns across the kingdom.
Sustainable wastewater management infrastructure hinges on the water sector's ability to effectively plan, implement, and operate. This includes establishing clear reuse standards for farmers, ensuring efficient operation and maintenance, and fostering strong community ownership for decentralized systems. It further necessitates the enforcement of building standards to prevent infiltration, implementing regulations to end unsafe disposal practices, and developing staff capacity and technology to curb illegal dumping and connections. By introducing decentralized wastewater management systems, the Ministry aims to address pollution in urban and suburban hotspots currently underserved by centralized systems. This approach seeks to protect groundwater from untreated wastewater, offer cost-efficient collection and treatment through a combination of centralized and decentralized options, and provide local alternative water resources for safe reuse, particularly in suburban and rural areas. Moreover, decentralized systems will increase sewerage connection rates where centralized solutions are technically or economically unfeasible, ultimately ensuring cost-efficient infrastructure development via lifecycle cost comparisons.