Faculty Publications

The Impact Of Drought On Food Security And Sustainability In Jordan

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Agricultural drought, Food security, Jordan, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Sustainability

Journal/Book/Conference Title

GeoJournal

Abstract

Jordan is a food-deficit country. Jordan’s population reached approximately 10 million in 2019 and has an annual growth rate of 3.3%. This increase will exert heavy pressure on the kingdom’s fragile natural resource base. The total imports of food commodities still exceed exports, so Jordan is a deficit country with respect to its food supply chain. Data from the Marfraq governorate were used to evaluate the effect of drought on food security in Jordan. This governorate was chosen because most of its land receives low levels of precipitation. The crops selected for analysis were rain-fed crops: olives, wheat, and barley. The precipitation data series were examined for normality distribution, and they were found to be normally distributed. Six drought severity classes were estimated by the Mafraq Governorate during 1995–2017. The highest drought occurrence was near normal drought (15 observation years), followed by moderate drought (3 years), extreme drought (2 years), and very wet and moderately wet (1 year each). The quantitative analysis for the effect of a drought occurrence on crop production was estimated using a regression equation with the assumption of increasing the average temperatures by 1 °C, 2 °C, and 3 °C. A conceptual model was designed to evaluate the impact of agricultural drought on some components of food security in Jordan. The standardized regression coefficients were estimated using the path analysis method. The total effect of drought on food availability was 0.68 standard deviations; the effect for food access was 7.01 standard deviations, and food utilization was 14.63 standard deviations. Climate change, especially drought occurrence, has a negative effect on food security. Crop yields are reduced with high temperatures. Additionally, weeds cover the land, and pest numbers increase, causing more damage. Crop production decreases substantially with low precipitation levels or long droughts. A drought’s indirect effects are evident through changes in irrigation water availability. The main purpose of this research is to understand the impact of drought on food security in Jordan by evaluating the drought effect on agricultural production and sociodemographic-economic aspects.Please confirm if the author names are presented accurately and in the correct sequence (given name, middle name/initial, family name). Author 2 Given name: [Mohammad Samir] Last name [El-Habbab]. Also, kindly confirm the details in the metadata are correct.

Department

Department of Management

Original Publication Date

1-1-2022

DOI of published version

10.1007/s10708-022-10702-8

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