Summary

This study analyses natural resource governance taking the case of competition for groundwater in Azraq, Jordan against the backdrop of the 2030 Agenda. In doing so, it: • adopts a social-ecological system (SES) perspective to emphasise the interactions and interdependencies between the human and natural worlds. The study is rooted in the social sciences but given the need for interdisciplinary approaches to tackle intertwined socioecological challenges, it also considers natural science insights. • consistently and systematically applies the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and the concept of Networks of Adjacent Action Situations (NAAS) to capture the complexity of the SES. It makes the NAAS concept practically applicable for studying action situations (ASs) and their exogenous variables at various levels of society – which few studies have attempted. • adds a political dimension to the NAAS frame by including aspects of power to address a shortcoming in the literature. Aspects of power are represented in the concepts of wasta (nepotism) and the “social contract”. • assesses how the SES performs against the 2030 Agenda. It analyses system outcomes of the relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 6, 8 and 15. It also presents an operationalisation of the 2030 Agenda’s core principles – leaving no one behind (LNOB), interconnectedness and indivisibility, multi-stakeholder partnerships and inclusiveness – and evaluates the system dynamics against this backdrop. • builds upon a comprehensive literature review, a social network analysis (SNA) and 67 semistructured interviews conducted between February and April 2020. This study finds: • At the local level, the Azraq aquifer is an example of an unsustainably used common-pool groundwater resource, which is exploited at least 260 per cent above its safe yield. The original wetland and its diverse ecosystem have largely disappeared; the remainder is artificially maintained. The main line of conflict runs between a heterogeneous group of farmers who use groundwater for irrigation, and the central government, which relies on the aquifer for the national domestic water supply and has recently started to more strictly regulate access, albeit inconsistently. • At the national level, a stable supply of freshwater for domestic use sourced from aquifers like Azraq is a pillar of social stability, which is of paramount importance due to the regional instabilities. Water authorities prioritise domestic water over groundwater-based irrigation agriculture that often yields low economic returns. But they face a powerful agricultural lobby that is intertwined with Jordan’s legislative and executive organs. This case study highlights the virtually non-existent discourse about water allocation and the Jordanian social contract that provides elites in the monarchy with privileges, including access to water for desert farming. It also shows that the participants and content of the social contract are slowly changing.