Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 2012, 4, 127-132 doi:10.4236/jwarp.2012.43015 Published Online March 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jwarp) Runoff Estimation for Suggested Water Harvesting Sites in the Northern Jordanian Badia Saad AlAyyash 1 , Rida Al-Adamat 1* , Hani Al-Amoush 1 , Odeh Al-Meshan 2 , Zahir Rawjefih 3 , Akram Shdeifat 1 , Adnan Al-Harahsheh 4 , Mohammed Al-Farajat 1 1 Al al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan 2 Jordan Badia Research Programme, Amman, Jordan 3 Jordan University for Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan 4 Mutah University, Karak, Jordan Email: ridaali@aabu.edu.jo Received December 5, 2011; revised January 12, 2012; accepted February 17, 2012 ABSTRACT Jordan is characterized by severe weather conditions, therefore great temporal and spatial variations in rainfall; runoff and evaporation amounts are expected. Water harvesting has been practiced in Jordan throughout history for both irri- gation and household purposes. A major research project was carried out in the Jordanian Badia on site selection criteria for rain water harvesting systems based on the integration between indigenous knowledge and the use of Geo-infor- matics. This work was followed by conducting a geophysical and soil investigation for five potential sites. In this study, GIS was used to investigate the potential of having enough runoff in the five selected sites to establish water harvesting dams based on rainfall, evaporation data and catchments’ areas for the selected sites. It was found that the estimated runoff that could be harvested on annual basis at these sites varies between 0.2 Million Cubic Meters (MCM) in Alaasra site to 0.82 MCM in Al-Manareh (Al-Ghuliasi) site. This indicates that these sites have the potential for small scale wa- ter harvesting that could be utilized by local livestock owners in the area to water their livestock. Keywords: Water Harvesting; Rainfall; Runoff; Badia; Jordan 1. Introduction Historically, arid lands have not invested in hydrological data acquisition such as flood volumes and rates, rainfall intensities and volumes, etc. Hydrological data collection such as rainfall intensities and flood volumes started in Jordan not long ago and it is concentrated in the humid parts of the country. In the last few years, the Badia started to receive more attention in documenting natural resources. This was as a result of the high population pressure in the limited urbanized areas of the country and the need to utilize the Badia for future development. Daily and annual rainfall recorders were installed on a very limited scale over the Badia. Flood volumes were not recorded in the Badia areas except in very few cases where limited time records were taken in small areas for specific projects [1]. Jordan is a developing country situated off the south- eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea between longi- tudes 35˚ and 39˚ East and latitudes 29˚ and 33˚ North (Figure 1). It is bounded in the North by Syria, in the East by Iraq and Saudi Arabia, in the South by Saudi Arabia and in the West by the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. Its area is about 90,000 km 2 and consists of various distinctive topographic units trending in a north-south direction. These units are the rift valley, high lands and the arid lands-desert region. Jordan is characterized by severe weather conditions, therefore great temporal and spatial variations in rainfall; runoff and evaporation amounts are expected [2]. Water harvesting has been practiced in Jordan throughout his- tory for both irrigation and household purposes [3,4]. Reference [5] conducted a research on site selection criteria for rain water harvesting systems in the Jordanian Badia based on the integration between indigenous knowledge and the use of Geo-informatics. This research was based on the fact that water resources in Jordan are very limited and the country needs an intensive work to come up with more water resources to cover the sharp increase in water consumption for all sectors. A total of 200 stakeholders were invited from within the local communities in the Badia to provide the research team with some constrains that from their point of views are vital in choosing the suitable sites for water harvesting in their region. Also, they pointed out to certain locations within the Badia that could be utilized as a water har- vesting sites based on their knowledge of the area as Copyright © 2012 SciRes. JWARP