Our urban study area is Amman, the capital of Jordan. The region belongs to the Mediterranean climatic zone. The mean temperature in Amman is 19.3°C. The average annual precipitation is around 328 mm with a rainy season from October to April (based on the time period of 1981 to 2010, ClimateImpactsOnline for Jordan, 2023). The region of Amman is classified as a semi-arid area.
The focus area is the cental located catchment ending in "Downtown Amman" (area 150 km²), and is highly urbanized with over 75 % built-up areas. The height varies from 700 m to 1100 m with very steep slopes. There are several major wadis in the city of Amman e.g. Wadi Al-Seer or Wadi Abdoun. They all join before Downtown Amman and jointly become the river Zarqa. The main wadi in the city center is piped in huge underground culverts, to reduce the inundations caused by winter season flash floods in Downtown (Gharaibeh et al., 2019). Amman was hit several times by flash floods in the past (e.g. 2015 and 2019). Within the catchment the Downtown area including the UNESCO world heritage site of the Roman theater is our focus area, since in 2019 this area was heavily flooded (Gharaibeh et al., 2019).
The focus area is the central located catchment ending in "Downtown Amman" (area 150 km²), and is highly urbanized with over 75 % built-up areas. The height varies from 700 m to 1100 m with very steep slopes. There are several major wadis in the city of Amman e.g. Wadi Al-Seer or Wadi Abdoun. They all join before Downtown Amman and jointly become the river Zarqa. The main wadi in the city center is piped in huge underground culverts, to reduce the inundations caused by winter season flash floods in Downtown (Gharaibeh et al., 2019). Amman was hit several times by flash floods in the past (e.g. 2015 and 2019). Within the catchment the Downtown area including the UNESCO world heritage site of the Roman theater is our focus area, since in 2019 this area was heavily flooded (Gharaibeh et al., 2019).
