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That the fields around al-Jafr in southern Jordan are often desiccated is a source of frustration and deprivation for locals. That they can sometimes hear the gurgle of water in pipelines passing along the periphery of their lands is cause for outright fury.

Since 2013, when the Jordanian government inaugurated the Disi Water Conveyance Project to pipe groundwater from the country’s rural far south to its populous northern cities, communities such as al-Jafr have been up in arms over what they see as the pilfering of their resources. The more compromised that their own wells have become—many only reaching water at more than half a mile down—the more that anger has grown.

That the fields around al-Jafr in southern Jordan are often desiccated is a source of frustration and deprivation for locals. That they can sometimes hear the gurgle of water in pipelines passing along the periphery of their lands is cause for outright fury.

Since 2013, when the Jordanian government inaugurated the Disi Water Conveyance Project to pipe groundwater from the country’s rural far south to its populous northern cities, communities such as al-Jafr have been up in arms over what they see as the pilfering of their resources. The more compromised that their own wells have become—many only reaching water at more than half a mile down—the more that anger has grown.

The area has seen frequent, sometimes fiery demonstrations. On at least 300 occasions, the pipeline has been attacked or in some way sabotaged, according to project security personnel, who have had to recalibrate from terror threats to irate locals. As one gendarme put it to me back in 2019, “they think Amman is stealing their water, and they’re not happy about it. We fear many more problems in the future.”

Al-Jafr’s grievances and plight are representative of a growing global trend. Urban water demand is surging, while the supplies that many cities have historically drawn upon are very much not. Fearful of metropolises running dry but unwilling or unable to address the root causes of their troubles, many authorities have hit upon a similar strategy: annex more water from the countryside, the consequences for peace and stability be damned.

Cities have a long history of appropriating rural water, but the rate of capture appears to have picked up significantly this century. In just the past five years, more than a dozen countries, including Senegal and India, have announced or assembled long distance pipelines to provide for their thirsty megacities. China is nearing completion of its massive South-North........

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