Water D2D

Water Security: from Data to Decision (WaterD2D)

In Jordan, water security is one of the key societal challenges and an essential factor for future economic development and stability. For improved management of water resources, technical and social innovations are required, which can only be achieved through the close interaction of science, policy, administration, and economy. While research can provide modern tools and needed information to assess, manage and govern water resources, there is a clear demand that ‘applied research’ obtains funding and that the research design from the beginning is implementation and market-oriented. For this purpose, the WaterD2D project will form an “Innovation Ecosystem” involving Jordanian and German actors from science, policy, business, and civil society. This ecosystem can be viewed as a safe space to design and implement a new innovation-based model for water research and related sectors in Jordan.

In the above illustration, water security in Jordan is the thematic focus. An interaction between the representative institutions of research and education (i.e., partners at GJU and INWRDAM) and the society falls at the center of the Innovation Ecosystem. This interaction expresses the effect academic institutions have on the development of society. The WaterD2D project aims to support the role of local universities/science partners in knowledge creation through research and knowledge transfer through education. The way to achieve this will be through the designed Pilot Projects implemented in work package 3: Innovation and Application. Moreover, the German partners (i.e., TH Köln, TUM, and FUB) have a supporting role, focused on the Capacity Development and Supportof this interaction process between the local partners and society. Activities such as designing new projects, capacity development events, and providing education, research, and other support will occur in work package 4: capacity development. 

Moving forward to the institutional setup of work package 2: Concepts of the Structure of Innovation Ecosystems. There are three different levels of the Innovation Ecosystem, according to the project’s first objective, which focuses on the improvement of framework conditions (governance) relevant to research and innovation. The first level is to set up a real framework for this Innovation Ecosystem, where interactions with reference to the real world and particular outcomes occur. Thus, each pilot project is an individual project, but many of the projects have similar demands and could be linked together under a real framework called the Water Solution Lab as a supporting instrument for this linkage. Furthermore, the second level aims to set up an Institutional Innovation Ecosystem which will allow the framework to be implemented at an institutional level in the local water sector. The third level and the largest one is to set up a National Innovation Framework that allows the implementation of the framework at national institutions and influence their work through the duration of the WaterD2D project to elaborate new codes and programs which are targeting the interaction of academia on the one hand and societal actors on the other hand.

Furthermore, work package 5: Outreach of the Platform and Dissemination aims to bring science into the decision-making process by sharing the outcomes of activities in work packages 2, 3, and 4. The WaterD2D project has multiple levels that build synonymity and encourage seeding new initiatives through Outreach and Transferactivities.

All the work packages and activities will be implemented parallelly with work package 1: Project Management.

Prof. Dr. Michael Schneider

Prof. Michael Schneider leads the research team for the WaterD2D project at the Free University of Berlin. Since 2006, he has been the head of the Hydrogeology Group at the Free University of Berlin and was a Professor of Hydrogeology at Ludwig Maximilian University at Munich (2004-2006). Prof. Schneider has more than 30 years’ experience in Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology in Eu­ro­pe, Asia and Afri­ca. His re­se­arch fo­cus is on Urban Water Resources, Ma­na­ged Aqui­fer Re­char­ge (MAR), Deep Aqui­fer Sy­stems and In­ter­ac­tion with shal­low aqui­fers. He has led several applied-oriented research projects in Germany, Middle East, and India.

Dr. Brindha Karthikeyan

Dr. Brindha Karthikeyan is the WaterD2D Project Coordinator at the Free University of Berlin. She is a Water Resources Researcher by academic training with a specialization in Hydrogeochemistry, Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), and Climate Change. Before joining the Free University of Berlin in 2018, she worked at the National University of Singapore, International Water Management Institute (IWMI) – Lao PDR, and Anna University, India.

Isabelle Schmidt

Isabelle Schmidt is project coordinator and phd student at FU Berlin since 2020. She is an environmental engineer with specialization in Water Resources Management. Before joining the Hydrogoelogy Group, she worked for the WHO collaborating center for drinking water hygiene at the German Environment Agency.

Dr. Arwa Abdelhay

Dr. Arwa Abdelhay holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Grenoble in France and an M.Sc. and B.Sc. in chemical engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST). For the past three years, Dr. Abdelhay held the Dean position for the School of Natural Resources Engineering and Management (SNREM) at GJU. Her teaching activities focus on water and wastewater treatment and reuse, air pollution control, and solid waste management. She has been involved in several internationally funded projects, as a coordinator and as a team member in the area of wastewater treatment, sanitation, and solid waste valorization and treatment.

Dr. Munjed Al-Sharif

Dr. Munjed Al-Sharif is a Senior Water and Environmental Management Expert holding a Ph.D. in water resources and Environmental Engineering from Kansas State University (1993). Since March 2013, he has been a faculty member at the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at GJU. He also served as the Dean of the School of Natural Resources Engineering and Management (SNREM) at GJU (2015-2019) and currently is the Dean of Graduate Studies. Dr. Al-Sharif has around 25 years of experience in Integrated Water Resources Management, Groundwater and Surface Water Modeling and Management (quantity and quality), Climate Change Adaptation, Environmental Management, Institutional Strengthening, Water Policy, and Public-Private Partnership. He led many projects funded by various international agencies and institutions, including USAID, MDGF, UNDP, WHO, government institutions, and private firms. Dr. Al-Sharif published more than 25 research and technical papers, wrote numerous reports, and served as a reviewer of professional journals. Also, he is a board member of the Jordan Environment Fund since 2018.   

Prof. Dr-Ing. Markus Disse

Since 2013 Prof. Markus Disse served as the Head of the chair Hydrology and River Basin Management at the Technical University of Munich and was a full professor of the Chair for Water Management and Resources Engineering at Bundeswehr University Munich (2003-2013). Prof. Disse Holds a PhD from the University of Karlsruhe (TH) with an educational background in civil engineering. His research experience in process-based hydrological modeling of river basins, flood risk management, and sustainable management of water resources spans over 30 years. 

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Chiogna

Prof. Gabriele Chiogna serves as the Deputy Head of the Chair of Hydrology and River Basin Management at the Technical University of Munich. Also, he is an Adjunct Professor of Sustainable Resources Management at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Prof. Chiogna received his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Tuebingen in 2011. Afterward, he worked as a Post-Doc at the University of Trento (2011-2013) and the University of Tuebingen (2013-2014). He obtained his habilitation in hydrology in 2019 at TUM. His research focus is on Integrated Water Resources Management, Groundwater Modeling, and Groundwater Remediation Strategies. He leads several national and international research projects funded by different agencies (DFG, BMBF, and European Commission).

Mohammad Alqadi

Mr. Mohammad Alqadi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Chair of Hydrology and River Basin Management at the Technical University of Munich. His Doctoral research focus is on Integrated Water Resources Management, Wellfield Management, and Governmental Strategies for the water sector in Jordan. He is also an experienced Hydrogeologist with a demonstrated history of working in the groundwater management sector with the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in Jordan. Mr. Alqadi holds a master’s degree focused on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) from Cologne University of Applied Sciences.

Ala Al Dwairi

Ms. Ala Al Dwairi works as a Research Assistant at the Chair of Hydrology and River Basin Management at the Technical University of Munich. Before joining TUM, she interned at the World Green Building Council as technical support for the Sustainable Reconstruction and Urban Regeneration project. Ms. Al Dwairi holds a Joint Master Degree in Urban Climate and Sustainability from the United Kingdom, Finland, Spain, and a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Jordan. She previously worked in engineering consultancy companies focusing on infrastructure networks design and development in Jordan and the wider Middle East (2014-2018). Her research focus is on sustainable resources management.

Fabian Merk

Mr.Fabian Merk is a Ph.D. candidate at the Chair of Hydrology and River Basin Management at the Technical University of Munich. Mr Merk graduated with a B.Sc and an M.Sc in environmental engineering from TU Munich in 2014 and 2017, respectively. His topics of focus were water resource management and flood risk management. In 2018, he joined the research team at the university’s Chair of Hydrology to support the ProNaHo project, which investigated the potential of ecosystem-based flood mitigation measures in Bavaria, and in 2021, he joined the WaterD2D project to build up the Soil & Water Assessment Tool for Mujib basin.

Prof. Dr. Lars Ribbe

Prof Dr Lars Ribbe is the dean of the Faculty of Spatial Development and Infrastructure Systems, and professor for Integrated Land and Water Resources Management at ITT/TH Köln. He is a leading expert and authority on the water-energy-food-security nexus and it’s functionality. Prof Dr Ribbe’s research projects range around the world on subjects as varied as drought, the food-water-energy nexus, ecosystem management, tracking groundwater with gravimetric shifts, and advanced watershed management systems. Prof Dr Ribbe has a PhD in Hydroinformatics, from the Institute of Geography, Faculty of Chemistry and Earth Sciences at the University of Jena, a Masters of Engineering on “Technology in the Tropics” from TH Köln, and did postgraduate studies on Marine, Estuarine and Environmental Science (visiting postgraduate student) at the University of Maryland, along with a Chemistry (Dipl.Chem) degree from the University Bremen. His research focus is currently on integrated river basin monitoring, modeling, and management, along with strategies to cope with water scarcity, rainwater harvesting, drought management, the efficient use and reuse of water, access to water, flood management, and pollution from salt water intrusion, and diffuse sources.

Dr. Sudeh Dehnavi

Dr Sudeh Dehnavi is a researcher, lecturer and project coordinator at the Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Sub-tropics (ITT) at TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences) in Germany. She is currently the coordinator of the IWRM MENA program and the “Water Security in Jordan from Data to Decision” project at ITT. She is an expert in sustainable development of food and water systems especially in the fields of natural resources and agricultural economics and Governance, and food and water security and sustainability entrepreneurship. Her experience is focused on strategic planning and scientific coordination of international development projects and networks, and the design and implementation of international scientific conferences, science-policy dialogue workshops, and educational programs and excursions.

Dr. Marwan Alraggad

Dr Alraggad is an expert in advanced water management aspects focusing on water use modeling and management with applied research experience in the domain of water management and research for development. He is an expert/specialist in hydrological, topological modeling and water management, as well as in geographic information systems. He furthermore possesses solid and applied experience in groundwater investigations, monitoring and management as well as excellent field and in class training capacity skills. With more than 13 years of research and applied activities in hydrological, topological modelling and water management he is highly experienced and has published several scientific papers, such as “Water Resources of Jordan: Political, Social and Economic Implications of Scarce Water Resources” (Springer International Publishing, 2018). He has solid consultancy experience working at the Ministry of Water and on USAID projects. He has led the USAID funded project MAR TWW during 2012 – 2015 in partnership with Oman and USA which aimed to maximize the benefit of excess surface water flows for Managed Aquifer Recharge. Most recently he led 5 international projects in the domain sustainable management of water resources with a special focus on treated waste water reuse to increase agricultural productivity.