Azraq Oasis Restoration — Partial Rewetting of Jordan's Only Wetland Reserve

Azraq was historically a roughly 25 km2 desert oasis wetland fed by natural springs. Groundwater over-extraction to supply Amman and irrigate farmland dried the main springs by 1992, and the wetland's open water shrank to just 0.04% of its former area.
The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) has managed the Azraq Wetland Reserve since the 1990s, pumping groundwater back into the reserve under a 1994 restoration plan that set a target of reviving 10% of the oasis's historic extent. In 2020 a micro-project funded by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the French Global Environment Facility (FFEM), coordinated through the Mediterranean Alliance for Wetlands network, rehabilitated degraded pools and resumed pumping.
The reserve now receives about 500,000 m3 of water per year, and its open water area grew roughly 5% following the 2020 works. By December 2020, 650 individuals of the endemic Azraq killifish had been collected from surviving pools and reintroduced. RSCN reports increased bird diversity, including regular sightings of the common kingfisher drawn back by the returning fish, and the reserve now supports paid livelihoods — rangers, monitoring and ecotourism work — for around 60 local families.
RSCN's own reporting is candid that restoration remains partial: only about 10% of the oasis's historic extent has been revived, pumping has been reduced but not brought down to the basin's sustainable safe yield, and the underlying over-abstraction pressure on the Azraq aquifer persists.

Read the full analysis: https://medwetmanagers.net/a-success-story-restoration-of-the-azraq-wetland-jordan/