*1.4. The Current Situation in the Downtown*

The stream before the coverage used to flow in a valley surrounded by mountains, where the rainwater assembled and discharged in the stream corridor. At some times it flowed with ease, at other times it flooded the banks and some of the surrounding functions. One of the objectives of the covered culvert was to reduce the problem of recurrent flooding of the stream in the winter season, creating a more secure downtown [16]. Since the establishment of the culvert in the 1960s, the rainwater was flowing into the stream culvert and sometimes raising its level, threatening residents living near the stream (Figure 4A). In the winter of 2015, the downtown received high levels of rainfall, causing the loss of four souls in the flash floods [16].

In February 2019, the downtown witnessed heavy rainfall again, which led to flash floods [17]. These floods led to landslides in the area of Jabal Al Jofah. The collapse damaged a number of vehicles in the near area. In addition, the floods caused the closure of the entire Quraysh Street, risking the safety of citizens, causing car drowning and shop flooding on both sides of the street (Figure 4B).

The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) has declared that the reason for the floods on Quraysh Street at the downtown was due to the blockage in the manholes because of soil erosion in Jabal Al Jofah, bringing amounts of rainwater mixed with soils and debris. The president of the Association of Food Merchants estimated the losses in the downtown in millions of Jordanian dinars, caused by floods that entered the shops and spoiled their goods [17]. The Amman Chamber of Commerce estimated the losses suffered by 60 shops to be more than 2.8 million USD. They explained that the reason for these losses was the poor infrastructure in the downtown, which could not absorb the amounts of rainwater, which in turn destroyed the existing infrastructure [18]. The flooding could have happened even if the stream was uncovered, but the type of damage would be different. It will affect agricultural and recreational lands by its banks. In either way, due to climate change matters, Amman is receiving more rain in the future.

The 1960s policy of covering the stream was focused on creating more streets for traffic. Despite the invention of Quraysh Street atop the stream along with King Talal Street in the CBD, these streets are not coping with the traffic demand. The downtown still suffers from traffic congestion for many hours throughout a normal working day. The capacity of the infrastructure can no longer meet the growing population with the high density of private vehicles [15–19].

**Figure 4.** Flash floods in the downtown, row **A**: flash floods in the last century, row **B**: flash floods on the 28th of February 2019 (Source of row **A**: [20], Source of row **B**: [17].
