Topic: King Abdullah

The King Abdullah Canal, until 1987 known as the East Ghor Main Canal and renamed after Abdullah I of Jordan, is a canal that runs along the east bank of the Jordan River.

The Canal's main water sources are the Yarmouk River, the Al-Mukhaibeh wells close to the Yarmouk River, Lake Tiberias (through a tunnel built after the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty), Wadi el-Arab and the Zarqa River (after storage in the King Talal Dam). The canal’s design capacity is 20 m3/second at the entrance of the Canal and 2.3 m3/second at its lower end. Its length is 110 km. Water flows by gravity from North to South from about 230 meter to almost 400 meter below sea level. The Canal supplies water for irrigation and 90 million cubic meters/year of drinking water for Greater Amman through the Deir Allah-Amman carrier, which has been constructed in two phases in the mid-80s and in the early 2000s. The Zarqa River contains a mixture of treated wastewater and natural water flow, which influences the water quality downstream of the Zarqa River intake into the KAC.

The canal was built in Phases. It was designed in 1957. Construction began in 1959, and the first section completed in 1961. By 1966, the upper part, to Wadi Zarqa, was completed. The canal was 70 km was subsequently extended three times between 1969 and 1987. The United States provided financing for the initial phase of project, after obtaining explicit assurances from the Jordanian government that Jordan would not withdraw more water from the Yarmouk than the amount allocated to it according to the Johnston Plan.