With its imposing sandstone mountains, the magnificent desert of Wadi Rum in southern Jordan is no stranger to the movie world. Once the actual base of TE Lawrence, the location was put on the silver screen in David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia. But cutting through the hypnotic grandeur of the place, Pavel Borecký’s absorbing documentary reveals the large-scale exploitation of the desert’s water reserve: an underground aquifer known as the Disi, which also runs under neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
Since the 1960s when water pipelines were installed in the region, technology has been an enemy to the local indigenous farmers. Much of the water from the Disi is pumped out to larger cities such as Aqaba and Amman, or to industrialised farms that export to foreign countries, so the farmers’ access to it has become severely restricted. Moreover, Jordan is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world, and has a serious problem with non-renewable aquifers, meaning that once the water is taken out of the Disi, it cannot be replenished. And with the current speed of climate change and reduced rainfall, there is a real danger that the it will one day run dry.
