Ammon News -

A project to rehabilitate a water supply network serving 30,000 citizens in the Faqou' district of the Karak governorate was launched Thursday.

The $6.5 million project, funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), aims at improving water supply and reducing water loss resulting from decrepit networks in the Faqou' district, said Bashar Bataineh, Secretary General of the Jordan Water Authority.

The Water Supply Network Rehabilitation project will be implemented over the course of 21 months, he noted, adding that it involves the construction of a 1,500 cubic meters water reservoir and installing 2,760 home water connectors and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.

Minister of Water and Irrigation Mohammad Najjar, who launched the project this morning, said that several projects are underway to provide additional sources of water and reduce water loss, stressing that the ministry has plans and programs in place to achieve this goal by the summer of 2022 across the Kingdom.

Despite the challenges the water sector is facing, the ministry's plans include providing additional water sources and upgrading others to up supply efficiency, cut water loss and power usage, roll out autonomous energy sources in the water sector, boost operation efficiency to meet people's needs fairly and reasonably, he added.

Najjar underlined that the plan prioritizes finding unconventional water sources, pointing to the National Water Carrier Project to secure sustainable water sources with a 300 million cubic meters capacity and switch to around the clock water supply.

He pointed out that the standards for the reuse of sewage water for irrigation have been amended to leverage it in various agricultural areas.

In this regard, Najjar commended the ongoing cooperation between Jordan and South Korea, more specifically the KOICA.

For his part, South Korean ambassador Lee Jae-wan stated that his country is committed to expanding cooperation and providing further support over the coming years to enable Jordan to address water challenges, climate change and rain scarcity in line with the 2016-2025 Jordanian plan.