This document summarizes land use and soil challenges in Jordan. It outlines that over 91% of Jordan's land is rangeland, with agriculture making up just 5.7% of total land area. The document then describes different agro-zones in Jordan and issues they face like soil degradation, erosion, and salinity. It notes that the steppe and badiah areas used for rangeland also experience desertification, plant cover deterioration, and soil erosion. The document concludes by outlining some of Jordan's priorities and main obstacles to sustainable soil management, which include limited water resources, lack of integrated land and water management across sectors, and financial and skills shortages.

1. Country presentation
(Jordan)
By (Dr. Mahmoud Alfraihat)
Rome
13 June 2018

2. Land Use In Jordan
Utilization Pattern Area Thousand/H % of Total area
Range land 8070 91
Building & Public Utilities 170 1,9
Forestry 70 0,8
Land registered as Afforested 60 0,7
Agricultural lands 510 5,7
Water Surface 500 0,5
Total 89,278 100

3. Agro-Zones in Jordan
1- Jordan Valley (JVA):
The soil has different properties sensitive to degradation and salinity.
The Soil of JVA facing various risks, such as salinity, contamination, and
deterioration of soil qualities.
2- Highlands:
a. Rainfed Areas:
Face problems with soil erosion mainly by water, urbanization, fragmentation
of landholdings and pollution. Areas need reclamation and attention to keep it
sustainable for agricultural use.
b. Irrigated Area :
Deterioration of quality of water used for irrigation, depletion of groundwater (
over-pumping). Soil conservation measures required to protect soil production.

4. Steppe and Badiah:
Used as Range Land and facing following multiple challenges
such as:
Desertification, salinization and recession of plant cover, land
cover deterioration, soil erosion.
Possible management solutions:
Integration of water harvesting, developing suitable soils to
increase the rangeland production and enhance land cover , use of
dry sludge.

5. Achievements
• Training workshops in collaboration with FAOJO, IUCN and
ICARD conducted on the application WOCAT LADA tools for
documenting land management practices for scaling up SLM.
• SLM Network meetings to share the information with other
potential organizations in NENA region.
• Regional SLM Steering Committee meeting and review of SLM
technologies during 3-6 December 2017, Amman, Jordan.
• Training workshops on digital soil mapping to support the
development of the soil information system (Amman and Morocco
2016-2017)

6. Achievements
• Training on soil organic carbon (SOC) in Amman
December 2017. (Adopting Soil Carbon Accounting
Model).
• Finished and produced the Carbon map and report for
Jordan 2017.
• Finished and submitted data collection with summary
report to be used in second SOC training in Amman this
month from 19-21/06/2018, (Adaptation practical
training on Soil Carbon).

7. Priorities
• Conservation of soil and agrobiodiversity, awareness, extension of sustainable
land management. This can be achieved by liaison with stakeholder groups such as
farming organisations, by training and development of research partnerships with
NGO’s, by education using media sources.
• Continue developing capacities with partners agencies on related issues such as
SOC, DSM, SLM, and soil data management.
• Promote cross departmental and cross sectoral national contribution and
resources mobilization for better sustainable land management and food security.
• Implementation and adoption of suitable land use policies to protect land
resources, direct urbanization towards land with low agriculural value. Better
governance can reduce fragmentation, pollution, degradation, salinization and
erosion.
• Management of land resources in rainfed and irrigated areas mitigating the
impacts of soil degradation by using modern technology methods of irrigation and
water harvesting.

8. Main obstacles to the implementation of activities on soil
• More than 91% of the country is dominated by arid climate.
• Decrease of average yearly rainfall seriously affects the rainfed areas, and
agricultural land depends on the availability of water recourses.
• Mapping of the critical characteristics in terms of erosion, pollution and
degradation etc has not commenced.
• Improving land reclamation, water use efficiency and water productivity
are vast challenges for soil sustainable management.
• Increase demand for fresh water domestically is seriously affecting
agriculture activities by limiting expansion of agricultural lands.

9. Main obstacles to the implementation of activities on soil
• Land use allocation, water allocation for agriculture utilization are supervised
by different sectors/department - water resources are managed by Ministry of
Water Irrigation.
• Land use allocation currently is not under the mandate of the Ministry of
Agriculture.
• Lack of financial support for soil survey and data collection.
• Skills shortage - lack of technicians and experts in soil survey and land
management.

10. Thanks for
your attention