page_title: Jordan River
section_title: Importance as a water source
hierarchical_section_title: Jordan River / Importance as a water source
caption_attribution_description: English: River Jordan draining into the Dead Sea
context_page_description: The Jordan River or River Jordan, also known as Nahr Al Sharieat, is a 251-kilometre-long river in the Middle East that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and on to the Dead Sea. Jordan and the Golan Heights border the river to the east, while the West Bank and Israel lie to its west. Both Jordan and the West Bank take their names from the river.
  The river holds major significance in Judaism and Christianity since the Bible says that the Israelites crossed it into the Promised Land and that Jesus of Nazareth was baptized by John the Baptist in it.
context_section_description: Until the first decade of the 21st century, the waters of the Jordan River had been the largest water resource for Israel; lately, desalinated sea water from the Mediterranean has taken over this role. Israel's National Water Carrier, completed in 1964, has delivered water from the Sea of Galilee to the Israeli coastal plain for over four decades, until prolonged drought led to abandoning this solution in favour of desalination.
  Jordan receives 50,000,000 cubic metres (1.8×10⁹ cu ft) of water from the river, a quantity which is regulated by the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. In the past, one of the main water resources in Jordan was the Jordan River, with a flow of 1.3 billion m³ per year (BCM/yr). However, after Israel built the National Water Carrier in 1953 and diverted water from Lake Tiberias to Israel's coastal plains and southern desert, the flow of the Lower Jordan River dropped significantly. The 50 MCM/yr that Israel provides from Lake Tiberias as part of the 1994 peace treaty was meant to compensate for this loss. A 2010 study found that the Lower Jordan River has been reduced to 2% of its historic flow. Water quality has also deteriorated sharply, with high levels of salinity and pollution from agricultural fertilizer and untreated wastewater upstream in Israel and the West Bank.
  Conflict about the waters of the Jordan River was a contributing factor to the Six-Day War when, starting in 1965, Syria attempted to divert some of its headwaters in collaboration with Lebanon and Jordan. The diversion works would have reduced the water availability for Israel's carrier by about 35%, and Israel's overall water supply by about 11%.
caption: River Jordan draining into the Dead Sea
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