The overall objective of WATERUN is to develop an innovative methodology to contribute to the implementation of urban water runoff management plans in cities based on the concept of Water Sensitive Urban Design. For this reason, the co-operation between the different work packages and project partners is an inevitable feature of the WATERUN project. In this context, the University of Jordan (UJ) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) are combining their project activities in the Amman case study.
UJ is conducting urban runoff monitoring campaigns in 3 main selected catchments in Amman (Figure 1) to investigate the impact of different urban activities on runoff water quality. The first catchment is the City Mall (14.32 km2), which includes the Sweileh Industrial Zone with an area of 1.03 km2. The second catchment area is called Jordan University (5.7 km2) and includes mainly residential areas. The last catchment area is called Jordan Str. 2 (5.3 km2), which is still under development. Sampling and analysis will take place at upstream and downstream culverts of the selected catchments and samples will be analysed for PAHs, heavy metals, nutrients and organic matter.
Figure 1: Selected catchments in Amman
The results of the sampling and monitoring campaigns will help the project to better understand the current situation and to include the current situation as a baseline scenario in the modelling.
Meanwhile, the UFZ is working on the development of the urban hydrologiy model following the principles of managing stormwater at the block scale. Urban blocks within the selected catchments in Amman are automatically delineated (preprocessed) revealing information such as sealed area, green area and potential areas for the Nature Based Solutions (NBS) (Figure 2). These block attributes are necessary for the hydrologic modelling and planning of the NBSs for reducing urban water runoff in the case study.
Figure 2: Urban blocks within one catchment. Illustrated are the sealing degree and potential areas for the NBS for each block.
Authors : (24/02/2024)
UFZ- Ganbaatar Khurelbaatar, Daneish Despot, Maria Chiara Lippera and Jan Friesen
UJ- Maha Halalsheh, Khaldoun Shatanawi, Hind Mohammad, Mohammad Abu-Msallam,