Ismael Abuamoud at the University of Jordan, who provided unlimited assistance in all aspects of the project. In this thesis, I analyze the physical, political, and social transformations in Azraq, Jordan, caused by the overexploitation of the city's aquifer. In addition, I conducted interviews with three Azraq farmers, who discussed the impacts of government pumping from the aquifer on the agricultural sector; the president of the Azraq Wetland Reserve; and a representative of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.
I found that the overexploitation of the aquifer by the national government over the past three decades has led to increased environmental awareness in Azraq, which represents a direct. I also found that Azraq presents a new way of understanding the tragedy of the commons, as the aquifer was once common.
INTRODUCTION
Thus, my thesis answers the question of whether the political, social and physical changes in Azraq create new ways of understanding the tragedy of the commons and environmental post-materialism. Having previous academic interests in climate change and the relationship between environment and politics, I decided to further pursue my interests in water scarcity in Jordan when I returned for the spring semester of 2018 as part of the School for International Training (SIT). Perhaps no part of the world will be more affected than the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
The government began pumping water from the Azraq aquifer in the early 1980s and developed pipelines to transport water from Azraq to the capital Amman and Zarqa. In this article I relate my own observations to two main theories: Ronald Inglehart's postmaterialist thesis and Elinor Ostrom's tragedy of the commons.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The postmaterialist thesis is important as a theoretical contribution to the question of what makes people become more environmentally aware and active. My argument is based on research I conducted in Azraq in the spring of 2018; I found that in Azraq, people's particular experiences of the water crisis led them to develop negative opinions about government water policy in Jordan as a whole. Tilt, in The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China (2009), describes research he conducted primarily in Futian District of Sichuan Province, focusing on sustainability issues and policies in the country.
A primary aspect of the research is the examination of sustainability culture within civil society in both rural and urban areas. As previously discussed, supporters of the postmaterialist thesis argue that this transition results in greater interest in concerns such as environmentalism. Tilt contrasts this with "empty belly environmentalism," the environmentalism of the global South that forms "as people directly experience environmental problems, such as pollution, that.
Nobel Prize-winning political economist Elinor Ostrom has also published research countering the post-materialist thesis. In Governing the Commons (1990), Ostrom states that in the environmental literature, "the 'tragedy of the commons' has come to symbolize the environmental degradation that can be expected when many individuals use a scarce resource in common" (p. 1). This environmental tragedy of the commons is particularly relevant in the case of water consumption, as the depletion of natural water sources can cause severe environmental degradation, which in turn affects the people surrounding the water source.
Ostrom's exploration of the tragedy of the commons and its relationship to the environment further reinforces the ways in which the postmaterialist thesis fails to take hold in rural, poor areas. Ostrom's tragedy of the commons is thus in line with Tilt's refusal of the postmaterialist thesis, as the tragedy of the commons explains why and how citizens experience resources around a common. Brechin and Kempton (1994) argue that the postmaterialist thesis has become accepted because it fits into a rich versus wealthy narrative.
METHODOLOGY
A full copy of the survey translated into English can be found in the appendices, although the questions essentially asked participants about their general information, the effects of the water crisis on their daily lives, and their views on government policy. of water both in Azraq locally and in Azraq. Jordan as a whole. With the help of the same advisers, I also developed an interview script for farmers in Azraq, in which I asked them about the transformation of the agricultural sector in Azraq since the start of pumping, as well as how they think the lack of water has affected their agriculture. theirs. practices. Al-Hreisha of the Azraq Wetland Reserve, I developed an interview script in which I asked her about the work of the Reserve, government policy in Azraq, as well as the most pressing issues facing the aquifer today and the effects of natural processes such as climate change in the oasis and surrounding community.
Adnan Al-Zoubi from the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, I tried to get a government perspective on the water crisis and specifically on the pumping of the Azraq aquifer, so I developed questions around these objectives. Ethical considerations were taken into account and all participants signed an informed consent form confirming their anonymity in the study and giving their consent to be used as part of the study and its final results. All interview participants chose to allow their name to be displayed, although only two of their names were included in this study.
In addition, I completed a local IRB review through SIT to conduct my research in Jordan, and completed an IRB through the University of Mississippi to use the data I collected in Jordan as existing data in this article. Abdullah and his family for one night, and he spent the entire day and night of my arrival and part of the next morning conducting surveys and interviews throughout the community. Abdullah's acquaintances; this was unavoidable because if I had tried to take the surveys without a local guide it was unlikely I would have been able to gain the trust of anyone in town.
However, the sampling of the study is certainly a major limitation and made it difficult to prove any causal relationships. I believe that my study with SIT has laid some useful groundwork for future studies that may have more time, money and resources to conduct larger studies of the relationship between water and politics in rural areas. Abuamoud, helped me use SPSS to calculate the means, medians, and standard deviations for my survey data questions, as seen in the tables in my results section.
FINDINGS
Over the past three to four decades the aquifer dried up, leading to changes in both Azraq's physical landscape and its wildlife. However, unless one drives directly to the spot where some water remains in the aquifer, there is no indication that Azraq's landscape is any different from that of other desert cities. He also often emphasized the restoration of these species and the natural ecosystem of the aquifer as the main goal of the Reserve (Al-Hreisha, personal interview, 2018).
All the citizens I spoke with were quite eager to participate in the study and seemed to be very opinionated about the water issue in Azraq. Government exploitation of the aquifer has affected life in Azraq as a whole in ways other than the frequency of water supply to households, as shown in this table. Adnan al-Zoubi of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation brought illegal wells as a significant problem in.
The reduced water level in Azraq and the government's inability to provide every household with the same amount of water as before has led people to look for other ways to obtain water, including illegal extraction (Al-Zoubi, personal interview, 2018). My data shows that many residents of Azraq resent the government's use of the aquifer and still view the aquifer as something that should belong to the people of the area. In Azraq, community members experience the negative consequences of excessive groundwater pumping, even though they are legally unable to pump from the aquifer themselves without a specific permit from the government.
This degradation of the environment, however, leads to shifts in society, especially in terms of public opinion about the government and support for the government. Indeed, one could argue that Azraq represents a counter-example to the theory of the tragedy of the commons as it pertains to common resources, as the Azraq community would probably be better off with control of the resource. In relation to the tragedy of the commons, another issue worth mentioning is the illegal extraction of water.
However, as the government prioritizes the delivery of water to the rest of Jordan over the preservation of the Azraq landscape, the community receives even harder blows in the form of environmental degradation and destruction. In addition, local people are very supportive of conservation movements and aware of the essentials of the water crisis and the government policies that are exacerbating it.
CONCLUSION
In this way, the tragedy of the commons and post-materialism intersect when one examines Azraq - as citizens around a resource experience the environmental degradation that accompanies the depletion of that resource, they will in turn become more environmentally conscious as a result of their experiences. In addition, negative opinions about government policies and possibly the government itself tend to manifest themselves in these communities, which can lead to political clashes between the government and the communities surrounding exploited natural resources. Thus, creating new ways of managing natural resources that involve input from both those living around a natural resource and the state is important to reduce both the potential for conflict and the physical, economic and social impact of resource depletion on local populations. reduce.
LIST OF REFERENCES
APPENDICES
