Talk:Disi Water Conveyance

Elevation difference between Disi and Amman

The elevation difference between Disi and Amman is not 1,300m, as indicated in the article. The source does say 1,300m, but the source is wrong. Amman is at about 1,000m above sea level and Disi is certainly not below sea level. It is rather at about 700m above sea level, so that the difference in altitude is about 300m.--Mschiffler (talk) 09:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If you're right, there could always be hills or other barriers that they have to go up and back down the other side. Then they count all the ups. For example, if you go up a 100m hill and then back down 70m on the other side, you've still climbed 100m that day. But, that could all be wrong. If we get a source that says 300m, we can change it. --E♴ (talk) 14:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The dynamic pumping head of the conveyor is given as about 800m according to the website of an engineering consulting firm involved in the project:http://www.ccjo.com/Projects/Environment/DISIMUDAWWARATOAMMANWATERCONVEYANCESYSTEM/tabid/559/Default.aspx. Another article says it is 1000m:http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/10/6/general/amman-looks-to-boost-supply-and-plug-the-leaks.html There is indeed a mountain range between Disi and Ma'an, a city through which the pipeline passes. Water first has to be pumped up, then flows down by gravity until it reaches a low point South of Amman, and then has to be pumped up again. The pipeline follows the road from Saudi Arabia to Ma'an and then the road to Amman. As a rough approximation, I checked the altitudes along the roads using Google Earth. On that basis the first elevation differential starts at about 800m in Disi-Mudawara (not 700m as I had said from memory above) reaching a high point at about 1150m from where water flows down by gravity to about 700m. The second elevation differential is about 300m up to the reservoirs near Amman. The two differentials (450m and 300m) add up to 750m, close enough to the 800m figure quoted above. The source for the 1300m figure is the journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which is a source that one would normally trust. But in this case I believe they probably did not double-check their primary source (which is not indicated in the article quoted). I leave it up to you to keep the article as it is or to make the change.--Mschiffler (talk) 21:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I see you know what you're talking about, and you do have point. I wouldn't want to change it myself without a source, but if you change it, I won't change it back. --E♴ (talk) 00:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Missing points

Since this article has been nominated as a good article and a good article has to be, among other things, broad in coverage I wanted to point out two important issues that should in my view be addressed in order to make the article broad in coverage:

• The aquifer is shared with Saudi Arabia, which uses large amounts of water from the same aquifer for irrigation in the Tabuk Province. Withdrawal in Saudi Arabia affects the availability of water for the Disi conveyor and vice versa.
• Compared to the technical issues, financing is, in my view, not covered sufficiently. Loans for the project are provided by the French Development Agency and the European Investment Bank. The project is executed as a Build-operate-transfer project. This means that high fees will have to be paid to the private operator for the supply of bulk water to Amman, which will exercise an upward pressure on water tariffs or end up as a fiscal burden for the government. It may be useful to also mention the high level of non-revenue water in Amman and Zarqa, as well as the effort to reduce it.--Mschiffler (talk) 07:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try and work on it later this afternoon, although you are, of course, welcome to work on the article too. --E♴(talk) 13:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I added a lot of information- hopefully this covers it. Thanks for the suggestions. --E♴(talk) 00:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Consortiums, BOTs, contracts. Often complex and confusing but necessary to mention. These are some good comments I mentioned in the GA review, feel welcome to help in anyway.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Disi Water Conveyance Project/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: NortyNort (Holla) 11:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Currently reviewing the article and will post consolidated comments shortly.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments

Prose

• "from the Disi aquifer, an aquifier that" - redundant, w/ling aquifer after Disi suffices
• "...as well as the proposed extraction rate of 190 million cubic meters per year" This appears to be the 90 already in use and 100 proposed; the sentence comes off as stating 190 is proposed instead of 100.
• "Although testing at the well sites that supply Aqaba reveals..." - these few sentences really belong in the radioactivity section and will add more value and context to it.
• "The aquifer has created conflict between" - Conflict is a strong word, controversy sounds better.
• "Though the water will only be pumped from 55 wells..." - The fact that pumping will occur at the wells doesn't need to be mentioned two sentences in a row.
• "Engineering, Procurement, and Construction" - I see the use of capitals and lowercase in sources, a little more of the latter. For the purposes of the article, I think it should be in lower case. Unless it is the official name of the contract.
• "The project became controversial" What year/month?
• Wikilinking - 'General Electric', 'GAMA', 'Water well' wikilink'd twice in prose.
• Million cubic meters, km, m, etc. should use the {{Convert}} template.
• USD and US$ used inconsistently. Also, first instance of USD/US$ should be wikilinked along with JD as well.
• There are two citations in the lead and I don't think you need em' there. You use the references in the same context later. Personally, I don't use em' unless there is some sort of a major claim.

What's missing

• Construction and design in the lead section - when did it start and when it is expected to end? What is the total expected cost as well?

*The lead also states the water will be pumped and used in Amman but doesn't mention that it will be transported via pipeline.

• The article covers the subject well but I feel there is more missing in the background like vision, planning, etc. A little help here here and here.
• In the background section there should be a sentence or two on the water situation in Amman to give context to the reader. Water losses (NRW), population, availability, etc. Mschiffler provided a good reference here.

Categories

• Water transport - this applies to transporting goods via water vessels, Category:Water tunnels applies more.
• Radiation - too broad and can't find a category to suffice, I was looking for something along the lines of "radioactive water sources" but I don't think the actual project would fall in that category, just the aquifer.

Pictures

• I really like the pictures and captions you have but I wonder if any of these can be used under fair-use rationale as promotional photos?

Citations

• Tradearabia.com and Allen, John (May 2010) have no retrieval date.
• Some "Retrieved on"s use lowercase "r"
• Publishers such as the The Jordan Times unitalicized.
• "The Jordan Times" and "Jordan Times" present and inconsistent.
• A bunch of the citations w/o authors that are not news such as Overseas Private Investment Corporation, General Electric, etc. state the published first. {{Cite web}} can format these and put the publisher after the title where it belongs.

I enjoyed reading this article there are some minor fix-its and additions; no major obstacles to GA status. I will place the nomination on hold and monitor the talk page.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to GA review

First of all, thanks NortyNort for doing the review. You did a great job and picked out a lot of things that need fixing. I have fixed everything you talked about, but made a few changes that you may want to take a look at.

In the review, you said

"...as well as the proposed extraction rate of 190 million cubic meters per year" This appears to be the 90 already in use and 100 proposed; the sentence comes off as stating 190 is proposed instead of 100.

I changed it to say "proposed total extraction rate of". Yes, 100 additional is proposed, but this means that if the proposal goes through, the total extraction will be 190.

As far as USD/US$, I changed them all to USD. I also changed JD to JOD because that is the official currency code or something like that.

I wasn't sure about the policy on references in the lead, so I took a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section). It says: "Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none." Since the bit about the radiation in the water is both current and controversial, I think that the citations should be left in.

I added the convert template throughout, but this makes it impossible to say million cubic meters, so the volumes are now given in their full quantities. (ie. 100,000,000 cubic meters instead of 100 million cubic meters). I don't have a problem with this, but I thought it should be mentioned.

I also added the image of the pipes from the press release you linked to.

Anyways, thanks again for reviewing the article. I think it has been greatly improved. --E♴(talk) 22:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I agree on the citations and sentence, makes sense. That picture adds a lot too. I believe this article passes GA criteria. I added the construction start month/year and tweak the sentence applicable to it. I also changed two headers for simplicity and context. If you disagree, let me know. I also added a fancy checklist below. Great article on a very interesting topic (one of my favorites)! Your welcome on the review, glad I could help.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c(OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

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