Combining GIS with multicriteria decision making for siting water harvesting ponds in Northern Jordan Rida Al-Adamat a, * , Abdullah Diabat a , Ghada Shatnawi b a Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Al Al-Bayt University, Baghdad Street, Mafraq 25113, Jordan b Natural Resources Authority, P.O. Box, 7, Amman 11118, Jordan article info Article history: Received 14 February 2009 Received in revised form 5 May 2010 Accepted 12 July 2010 Available online 3 August 2010 Keywords: Boolean GIS Harvesting Jordan Ponds WLC abstract Jordan is characterised as a ‘water scarce’ country. It is considered as one of the lowest countries in the world on a per capita basis. The available water resources per capita are falling as a result of population growth and are projected to fall from less than 160 m 3 per capita per year at present to about 90 m 3 per capita per year by 2025. Water harvesting has been practiced in Jordan for thousands of years. There are indications of early water harvesting structures believed to have been constructed over 9000 years ago. There is a need to establish water harvesting projects at various places in Jordan to collect more surface water for domestic, agricultural and livestock watering usages. The selection of best sites for water harvesting schemes must be based on certain criteria that take into consideration the socio-economic and the physical characteristics of the targeted area. This research aimed to use both the Weighted Linear Combination and the Boolean techniques within GIS environment to select suitable areas in Northern Jordan for establishing water harvesting ponds. This resulted in having ca. 25% of the study area (64,184.8 ha) with high potential for constructing water harvesting ponds. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Jordan is characterised as a ‘water scarce’ country. According to Winpenny (2000),a ‘water scarce country’ is one with less than 1000 cubic meters of fresh water per person per year. According to Jordan Ministry of Environment (2006), Jordan is classified among few countries in the world with limited water resources. It is considered as one of the lowest countries in the world on a per capita basis. The available water resources per capita are falling as a result of population growth and are projected to fall from less than 160 m 3 per capita per year at present to about 90 m 3 per capita per year by 2025. This will put Jordan according to the Ministry in the category of an absolute water shortage. The water scarcity in Jordan is known to be the most important constrains to the Jordan growth and development (Jordan Ministry of Environment, 2006). Rainfall in Jordan varies between 50 mm in the Eastern and Southern areas and 600 mm in the Northern area with more than 90% of Jordan receive less than 200 mm of rainfall per year (Jordan Ministry of Environment, 2006). Water harvesting is adapted in arid and semi-arid countries where rainfall is either not sufficient to sustain a good crop and pasture growth or where, due to the erratic nature of precipitation, the risk of crop failure is very high. Water harvesting can significantly increase plant production in drought prone areas by concentrating the rainfall/ runoff in parts of the total area (Prinz, 1996). In many arid countries, runoff water harvesting systems support the livelihood of the rural population (Ouessar et al., 2008). The sustainability of water har- vesting systems was in the past based on the ‘fitting together’ of the basic needs of the farmers, the local natural conditions and the pre- vailing economic and political conditions of the region (Prinz, 1994). Local communities in arid and semi-arid countries need scientific and institutional support to start new water harvesting projects, because the failure of water harvesting projects in the past was sometimes due to technical failures (Prinz, 1996). Awareness of the role of water harvesting in improving crop production was raised throughout the world in the 1970s and 1980s, when widespread droughts in Africa threatened agricultural production (Nasr, 1999). Nasr (1999) argued that most Middle East and North Africa countries have appropriate technologies to combat desertification such as rainwater harvesting, but these technologies are not used sufficiently due to insufficient knowledge of the socio-economic contexts, incorrect identification of the causes of the arid land problems and ineffective management of natural resources such as water. In Jordan, water harvesting has been practiced for thousands of years. According to Prinz (1996), in Jordan, there are indications of * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ962 6 487 1101x2773; fax: þ962 6 487 1232. E-mail address: ridaali@aabu.edu.jo (R. Al-Adamat). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Arid Environments journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaridenv 0140-1963/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2010.07.001 Journal of Arid Environments 74 (2010) 1471e1477