Ar-Ramtha and Mafraq. As a result of “rapid population growth,” the quantity of drinkable water available on average to the Jordanian population is less than 150 cubic meters per year. The renewable water supply, provided by rainfall, only creates 50 percent “of the total water consumption” so the remainder must be extracted from “aquifers that are slowly being depleted.” Water is one resource without the capacity for foreign support, forcing Jordanians to make do with their own resources. Jordan, as a nation, depends largely on foreign aid and its scarce water resources are not renewable. The extraction of groundwater has sustained the population in recent decades but, with the influx of Syrian refugees, the supply of groundwater is declining. One can purchase expensive water sold by the truckload by local businessmen, but most cannot afford this luxury. Humanitarian aid organizations like Oxfam and Mercy Corps have made efforts to uncover more water in the Za’atari camp by digging wells, but this will only provide temporary, small-scale relief. The US Agency for International Development in combination with Mercy Corps has created a project that will cost $20 million and will find a way to revive Jordanian water systems. USAID has also funded water conservation efforts in Za’atari village, subsidizing cisterns to store rainwater for individual families. These groundwater harvesting systems are part of an initiative begun in 2006 by Mercy Corps, the Jordan River Foundation, and the Royal Scientific Society, with the assistance of over 135 local Jordanian organizations to help rural families find affordable and clean water. The program is called the Community-Based Initiative for Water Demand Management. The system pipes water down to ground level where a storage container allows each family to collect and save water for themselves. Mercy Corps has taken action in the Za’atari camp drilling two wells to build a pump station, as well as a chlorination system, to supply clean water to a large number of refugees there. Mercy Corps also plans to work with the new Al-Azraq camp in “constructing a new water supply system.” In the Jordanian communities of Mafraq and Ramtha, Mercy Corps is working to repair municipal water systems to fix leaks that will potentially increase water availability up to 25 percent. Aid organizations’ humanitarian efforts have become focused on sustaining the long-term survival and cohesion of Syrian refugees and Jordanians, as explained by Dr. Ibrahim Sayf, Jordan's minister of