Jordan water crisis worsens as Mideast tensions slow action

From a hillside in northern Jordan, the Yarmouk River is barely visible in the steep valley below, reduced from a once important water source to a sluggish trickle overgrown with vegetation. Jordan’s reservoirs are only one-fifth full, a record low, and vital winter rains are becoming more erratic.

Jordanians don’t need scientists to tell them that they live in one of the world’s driest countries in the center of the planet’s most water-poor region. But addressing the problem would require cross-border cooperation, a commodity as scarce as water in the Jordan River basin shared by Jordan, Israel, the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.