Conference // "Social Water Studies in the MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) Region: State of the Art and Perspectives", Amman/Jordan

Relevant work on water can address such diverse issues as: water use and management in agriculture, water supply and sanitation, coordinating among different water uses and water planning, water infrastructure development, ground and surface water use, water re-use, water harvesting and recycling, water pollution control, (Strategic) Environmental Impact Assessment, trans-boundary water management, hydro-politics and the political ecology of water, water governance, collective action in water management, the water-agriculture-food-energy nexus, water and tourism development, fisheries, climate change induced changes in water use and its social implications, etc. Social studies dealing with environmental issues aspire to integrate the perspective of differentdisciplines, such as anthropology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, and to combine it with appropriate content from the natural and technical sciences. The aim of such an interdisciplinary approach to environmental issues is to gain a deeper understanding of human behaviour and organisation, not abstracting it from its underlying social, political and economic structures and cultural aspects. Recently, convenors of this conference initiated a dialogue and reviewed social scientific work on water in the MENA region. This process revealed that technical knowledge and discourse about water management in the region has been vast, while the social scientific aspects of social water studies have been receiving much less attention. At the same time, water use and management problems in the region are rarely addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective. Nevertheless, as the last 30-40 years of social science and interdisciplinary international scholarly work on water management and use have shown, adopting an interdisciplinary perspective can help answering key questions concerning the way individuals and societies address water, what the underlying reasons are and, last but not least, what contributes to and what counteracts sustainable water management. The workshop pursues the following three objectives: -Taking stock of social science and interdisciplinary research on water in the region. -Exchanging among internationally renowned scientists on water research elsewhere and discussing the way social sciences, its most innovative methodologies and interdisciplinary work can contribute to our understanding of water issues. -Exploring if and how underlying aspects related to education and research in the MENA region influence the role of social science approaches and interdisciplinarity in water research and further examining societal preparedness to address these issues from a social science perspective.

Co-conveners

- Majed Abu Zreig, Manar Fayyad, Loay Salhieh, Serena Sandri, KiwanSuhil German Jordanian University - Susanne Hofmann-Souki, Andreas Thiel, Matthias Weiter, Dimitrios Zikos Humboldt-Universitätzu Berlin, Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences - Abbas Al Omari, Sayed Khattari Jordan University, Water Energy and Environment Center (WEEC)

Programme

{documents/events/2014/jordan-conference/jordan-water-conference2014.pdf|Download programme PDF, #s}

Sunday, 28 September 2014

8:30 - 9:30 Registration 9:30 - 11:00 Opening -Welcoming note by Serena Sandri and Andreas Thiel -Greeting words by Prof. Natheer Abu Obeid - GJU President -Greeting words by HE Ralph Tarraf - German Ambassador -Keynote presentation: Sari Hanafi "The Broken Cycle between Academic Research and Policy" -Keynote intervention by HRH Prince El Hassan Bin Talal 11:00 - 12:00 Coffee Break 12:00 - 13:30 Panel Discussion: "The potential of social water studies in the MENA region" Moderated by Munjed Al Sharif (GJU) Speakers: -Hazem Al Naser -Ralf Klingbeil -Khalifa Abdelkawi -Abdelrahman Tamimi -Ines Dombrowsky 13:30 - 14:30 Lunch Break 14:30 - 16:00 Panel Session I: "Policies of Transforming the Water Sector in the MENA Region" Moderated by Abbas Al-Omari (WEEC) 14:30 - 15:00 "Managing of Drinking Water and Sanitation in the Arab Countries" Khalifa Abdelkawi 15:00 - 15:30 "Water and Inter-Gerenational Justice in the Arab Region" Ralf Klingbeil 15:30 - 16:00 "Studying the Southern European Water Management Transformation from an Instituionalist Presprective" Andreas Thiel & Dimitrios Zikos 16:00 - 16:30 Coffee Break Session 2: "Policies of Transforming the Water Sector in the Mediterranean" Moderated by Anton Mangstl (GJU) 14:30 - 15:00 "Service Delivery and State Institutions in the Palestinian Territories (case study water sector)" Abdel Rahman Tamimi 15:00 - 15:30 "55 years of cooperation between BGR and Jordan - from a pure technical to an integrated approach" Toll Mathias 15:30 - 16:00 "Measurement of Decentralization and Commercialization Reforms in the Yemeni Urban Water and Sanitation Sector and Evaluation of Current Institutional Change" Mohammad Al-Saidi 16:00 - 16:30 Coffee Break 16:30 - 18:00 Panel Session 3: "Education About Water" Moderated by Matthias Weiter (HU) 16:30 "Social Aspects in Water Management: Engineering Education and Practices" Aly El-Bahrawy 17:00 "The role of education in elevatingwater, energy, and climate awareness among youth" Anas Zyadin 17:30 "Enhancing the Curricula of Spiritually-Based Values and The Awareness Level Related to Water for Sharia'ah Students — A Jordanian Experience" Hana Baddad 18:00 - 18:15 Break Session 4: "Water management and transitions" Moderated by Susanne Hofmann-Souki (HU) 16:30 "Turning water scarcity into opportunities: The role of social attributes and a pathway for transition" Aymen Frija 17:00 "Challenges and Opportunities associated with the Sustainable Development of the Lower Jordan River Valley" 17:30 "Social Marketing: Towards Empowering Jordanian Local Communities in Water- Energy Demand Management" Aymen Frija 18:00 - 18:15 Break 18:15 - 19:00 Keynote presentations & discussion: "Interdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity, Transition and Water" By Engelbert Schramm, Institute for Social- Ecological Research, Frankfurt, Germany 19:30 Dinner at Campus

Monday, 29 September 2014

9:30 - 11:00 Keynote presentations & discussion by Anas Malik, Xavier University, Cincinnati, USA, and Martin Keulertz, Purdue University, Indiana, USA "Institutional Approaches to Water Management in Islamic Contexts" Anas Malik "The role of virtual water in MENA countries: geopolitical risks, tradeoffs and the role of social development Purdue University, Indiana" Martin Keulertz 11:00 - 11:30 Coffee Break 11:30 - 13:00 Sessions 5 "The behavioral dimension of urban Water Use" Moderated by Dimitrios Zikos (HU) 11:30 "Modeling Household Water Consumption from an Institutional Perspective — The Case of Jordan" Christian Klassert 12:00 "A social Marketing Program to Enhance Water Conservation through Promoting the Use of Dual Flush Toilets" Bayan Athamneh 12:30 "The Behavioral Dimension of Household Water Conservation in Jordan: Exploring the Role ofPsychological, Socio-Demographic, and Cultural Determinants" Kim Zietlow 13:00 - 14:00 Lunch Break Session 6: "The water crisis in local Palestine" Moderated by Abdel Rahman Tamimi (PHG) 11:30 "Willingness to use, to pay and to maintain treated water cycle" Hasan Jawad Shoqeir 12:00 "The impacts of the water crisis in the Auja area Jericho on the socio — economic life" Alai Bitar 12:30 "Water supply subsidy a tool for poverty alleviation for extreme poor families in Palestine" Samhan Samhan 13:00 - 14:00 Lunch Break 14:00 - 15:30 Session 7: "Dynamic, political large scale contexts and water management" Moderated by Kiwan Suhil (GJU) 14:00 "Community Based Adaptation to Water under Climate Change as a tool for Conflict Transcendence in the Nile River BasinBy" Lama El-Hatow 14:30 "Dynamic political contexts and evolving power asymmetries: the cases of the Blue Nile and the Yarmouk Rivers" Hussam Hussein and Matia Grandi 15:00 "Climate changes and its impact on security water and international immigration in the Northern Africa (Using the new information and communication technologies)" Abdelmalik Saloui 15:30 - 16:00 Coffee Break Session 8: "Local groundwater governance in the MENA region I" Moderated by Qasem Abdelal (GJU) 14:00 "A review of groundwater governance in the MENA region" Alvar Closas 14:30 "Water Governance and the Rule of Local Water Communities (LWCs)" Taha Taher 15:00 "Self-governance of a small aquifer by farmers'associations: the case of Bsissi Oued El Akarit in Tunisia"# Iheb Frija 15:30 - 16:00 Coffee Break 16:00 - 17:30 Session 9: "Large infrastructures and water" Moderated by Andreas Thiel (HU) 16:00 "The Red Sea Dead Sea Conveyance Project: Between Panacea and Pariah" Christine Bismuth 16:30 "The Sociopolitical Aspects of Water Scarcity in Jordan" Nasim Barham 17:00 "Contested nature: The implementation of Tangier's modern water supply from an Urban Political Ecology perspective" Valérie Viehoff 17:30 - 17:45 Break Session 10: "Local groundwater governance in the MENA region II" Moderated by Loay Qweider (GJU) 16:00 "Collaborative Research To Assess the Degradation of Groundwater Resources in Al-Mujaylis, Tihama Coastal Plain, Yemen" Wahib Al-Qubatee 16:30 "Who or what acts collectively? Improved irrigation and water scarcity in the Egyptian Delta" Edwin Rap 17:00 "Performance measurement of the irrigation waterusers' association in Tunisia: A Data Envelopment Approach" Iheb Frija 17:30 - 17:45 Break 17:45 - 19:00 Wrap-up & Closing Chairs: Manar Fayyad (GJU) and Matthias Weiter (HU) 19:00 Transfer to the hotel 19:30 Dinner at the hotel