Driving through the eastern desert of Jordan, between Amman and Iraq, toxic tailings ponds and polluted rivers don’t come to mind. Known as the badia, the desert appears lunar, strewn with black basalt boulders created by long-extinct volcanoes. Occasionally, the landscape is crossed by broad, sparsely vegetated wadis – a dry riverbed that only flows following heavy rain.
Numerous civilizations have made this supposedly barren region their home. The Natufian hunter-gatherers harvested wild grain and created stone art 11,000 years ago. Nine millennia later, Nabataeans made parts of this desert bloom with their ingenious water-catchment systems, including terraced wadis. Greeks, Romans and Arabs later conquered the area, leaving behind over a hundred palaces, multiple dams and reservoirs.
