Did climate change help spark the Syrian war?

Science Codex: A new study says a record drought that ravaged Syria in 2006-2010 was likely stoked by ongoing manmade climate change, and that the drought may have helped propel the 2011 Syrian uprising. Researchers say the drought, the worst ever recorded in the region, destroyed agriculture in the breadbasket region of northern Syria, driving dispossessed farmers to cities, where poverty, government mismanagement and other factors created unrest that exploded in spring 2011. The conflict has since evolved into a complex multinational war that has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced millions. The study appears today in the leading journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We're not saying the drought caused the war," said Richard Seager, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who coauthored the study. "We're saying that added to all the other stressors, it helped kick things over the threshold into open conflict. And a drought of that severity was made much more likely by the ongoing human-driven drying of that region."

A growing body of research suggests that extreme weather, including high temperatures and droughts, increases the chances of violence, from individual attacks to full-scale wars. Some researchers project that manmade global warming will heighten future conflicts, or argue that it may already be doing so. And recent journalistic accounts and other reports have linked warfare in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in part to environmental issues, especially lack of water. The new study, combining climate, social and economic data, is perhaps the first to look closely and quantitatively at these questions in relation to a current war....

A Bedouin tent in the Syrian desert, shot by yeowatzup yeowatz, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attirbution 2.0 Generic license 

Lebanon’s drought needs long-term solutions

IRIN: ...The country has been severely affected by drought this winter - with rainfall less than half the previous year, according to the Lebanese meteorological authority. Mohammed Qabbani, an MP who heads the Energy and Water Committee in the Lebanese parliament, thinks water shortages will be nationwide in the coming months.

“This year [the effect] is very big and if we have the same conditions for next year it will be catastrophic. We will start feeling it [the drought] in July and August and we will have shortages,” he says. “They will be for the whole of Lebanon.”

...While agricultural production has already been badly hit, the effects of the drought on the rest of the Lebanese population are likely to be felt more acutely later in the year. The fact that the small country is now home to over one million Syrians fleeing the civil war over the border is likely to make the crisis even more severe. Dr Hassan El Bushra, head of the World Health Organization in Lebanon, recently said the lack of clean water meant outbreaks of communicable diseases such as polio and cholera are now “inevitable”.

Qabbani agrees that the potential for a public health crisis is acute. “We have not seen such a level of rain since 1932 and in that year the population was less than one million. Now we are four million, [as well as] more than one million Syrians. They all nee
d to drink,” he adds.

...While the drought is short-term, the country’s inability to utilize its water resources stretches back decades. Lebanon has the highest amount of rainfall per capita in the Middle East, with an average of 8 billion cubic metres a year.

Yet leakage - the water that is lost in the system through broken pipes and wastage - is so common that up to half of collected water is lost. Even in good years, residents of major cities face shortages, while Blue Gold, a new civil society body pushing for reform of the country’s water networks, estimates that just 17 percent of all the country’s rainfall is utilized....

Qaraoun Lake in Lebanon, shot by Fouad Awada, public domain

How could a drought spark a civil war?

NPR: The background of the Syrian conflict can seem obscure to outsiders, but the spark that started it all is often traced back to the city of Dara'a, in February of 2011. A group of young people writing Arab Spring protest slogans on a wall are arrested and beaten.

"When that news broke there was a massive demonstration on the street, and that was the first spark one can call of the Syrian uprising," Nayan Chanda tells NPR's Jacki Lyden. But long before a single shot was fired in Syria, there was drought in Dara'a, laying the groundwork for social unrest.

Chanda, the editor-in-chief the YaleGlobal Online Magazine, argues that there are many ways to look at civil war: ethnic factions, economic divides and religions differences. But increasingly, he says that we should also look at climate change as a factor.

Syria faced a devastating drought between 2006 and 2010, affecting its most fertile lands. The four years of drought turned almost 60 percent of the nation into a desert. It was a huge amount of land that could not support cattle trading and herding, Chanda says, killing about 80 percent of cattle by 2009.

The water shortage and drought drove up unemployment, in agriculture. So hundreds of thousands of farmers, Chanda says, went to where they might find work: the cities. He says they were met "almost callously" by the Syrian government....

How climate change warmed Syria up for war

Brian Merchant at Motherboard: ...As was the case with many of the nations touched by the Arab Spring, a large swath of Syria's citizenry wasn't just poor, oppressed, and disenfranchised by an authoritarian regime—they were starving, too. And they were starving because Syria had been stricken by a five year drought believed to be exacerbated by climate change. There was eventually too little rain to even grow crops or to feed livestock.

William Polk, an ex-US State Department advisor, has written a meticulously detailed account of the genesis of the conflict over at The Atlantic. As Digby writes at Alternet, "It is the most cogent recitation and analysis of the Syrian crisis that I've seen."

It is also an exceptionally detailed case study of how, exactly, climate change can directly influence—even precipitate—a violent conflict. Considering Syria's path to war, step-by-step, provides a powerful breakdown of what might continue to happen in the future, so as long as the globe continues to warm, the food system continues to be in thrall to commodity traders and market swings, and vast swaths of the global population remain impoverished.

"Syria has been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to Syria with a vengeance," Polk writes. "Drought devastated the country from 2006 to 2011. Rainfall in most of the country fell below eight inches (20 cm) a year, the absolute minimum needed to sustain un-irrigated farming. Desperate for water, farmers began to tap aquifers with tens of thousands of new well.  But, as they did, the water table quickly dropped to a level below which their pumps could lift it."...

Dead Sea, Red Sea plan raises environmental hackles

Terra Daily via AFP: A plan to link the Red Sea with the shrinking Dead Sea could save it from total evaporation and bring desalinated water to thirsty neighbours Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians. But environmentalists warn that the "Red-Dead" project could have dire consequences, altering the unique chemistry of the landmark inland lake at the lowest point on earth.

Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur said on Monday that his government had decided to press ahead with the 980-million dollar project which would give the parched Hashemite kingdom 100 million cubic metres (3.5 billion cubic feet) of water a year.

"The government has approved the project after years of technical, political, economic and geological studies," Nsur told a news conference. Under the plan, Jordan will draw water from the Gulf of Aqaba at the northern end of the Red Sea to the nearby Risheh Height, where a desalination plant is to be built to treat water.

"The desalinated water will go south to (the Jordanian town of) Aqaba, while salt water will be pumped to the Dead Sea," Nsur said. The Dead Sea, the world's saltiest body of water, is on course to dry out by 2050.

It started shrinking in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River, the Dead Sea's main tributary....

On Israel's shore of the Dead Sea, xta11, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Winter storm brings devastation to Syria and neighbors

Erika Solomon and Oliver Holmes in Reuters: The worst winter storm in two decades has hit the eastern Mediterranean this week, bringing destruction and death to Syria and its neighbors who are already dealing with a refugee crisis from the country's civil war.

Opposition activists in Syria, where war has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and cut off access to food, fuel and power for cities and towns, say dozens of people have died there in four days of relentless extreme weather.

At least 17 people have also died due to the storm in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Schools in some areas have been shut for days, refugee camps flooded and villages isolated by closed roads. Meteorological agencies in Israel and Lebanon both called it the worst storm in 20 years.

Snowfall in the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo did not halt the fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, which has killed more than 60,000 people in the past 21 months....

Winter in the village of Deirmama, Masyaf, Hama Governorate, Syria. The old mosque is covered with snow. A 2007 shot by Ammagaro., Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Syrian refugees draining water-poor Jordan dry

Terra Daily via AFP: Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled from carnage and violence at home to neighbouring Jordan are draining the desert kingdom's meager water resources, officials and experts say.

It is a new challenge for Jordan, one of the world's 10 driest countries, where desert covers 92 percent of its territory and the population of 6.7 million is growing by 3.5 percent a year.

The tiny Arab country has given refuge to waves of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees because of regional conflicts over the past decades, and now the kingdom is hosting up to 120,000 Syrians.

"The majority of Syrian refugees are concentrated in the northern cities of Mafraq, Irbid, Ramtha, Jerash and Ajlun. All of these areas already suffer from water shortage," Fayez Bataineh, secretary general of the Water Authority, told AFP....

The town of Jerash in Jordan, shot by Jeanhousen, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Drought-hit Middle East ripe for conflict

Ed King in RTCC.org: Drought, rising food prices and extreme poverty have all been attributed as factors that led to the Arab Spring. While not rated at extreme risk from climate change, the Middle East and North Africa region does suffer from severe water shortages, which could lead to conflict in the future.

Some academics attribute the collapse of the Egyptian Empire over 4,000 years ago to drought, causing ‘great riots and anarchy’. Limited adaptation planning and the lack of environmental awareness within countries’ economic models has further damaged the area’s ability to deal with prolonged weather events.

Between 2000-2011 Syria experienced four severe droughts, which the UN estimate left 2-3 million people in extreme poverty, and wiped out 80-85% of herders livestock. Poor rains could lead to two of Syria’s arterial rivers, the Jordan and Euphrates to lose more than half of their annual flow – potentially exacerbating an already febrile political atmosphere.

Last week UNICEF warned that half a million children could die ‘or suffer physical and mental damage’ unless the deadly trio of drought, conflict and poverty could be alleviated. And access to water is also one of the key negotiating positions between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with research suggesting the area is set to become drier as a result of a changing climate....

Hauran near Izra', Syria, shot by Bertramz, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Half million Syrians flee drought

Tafline Laylin in Green Prophet: Nearly half a million people have abandoned an area in Eastern Syria near the Euphrates River that has shriveled under a five year drought. Fierce temperatures and dwindling rainfall, as well as corruption and mismanagement of existing water resources, has led to what Trade Arabia calls the largest internal migration of people since Britain and France “carved the country out of the Ottoman empire in 1920.”

Those that stayed behind must scrape life out of ruined croplands and filthy water – since most of the choice supplies have been diverted to well-connected farm owners. Others irrigate crops with water usurped from illegal wells, but that’s not enough to provide for everyone. Thousands of people are receiving aid from the World Food Program, while others have been relegated to slums.

In the 1980′s, the region that used to belong to the ancient Inezi tribe received 189mm rainfall annually. During the nineties that fell to 163mm and has plummeted to 152mm in the last decade. Meanwhile, thispast summer, Syria experienced 46 consecutive days of temperatures higher than 40 degrees Celsius, according to Trade Arabia. Only 15% of livestock remain, and locals are unable to till their own land for food.

“Environment Minister Kawkab al-Dayeh told a water conference in Damascus last month pollution had played a role in the deterioration of 59 percent of total agricultural land, with raw sewage being widely used for irrigation,” AT reports….

Hauran near Izra', Syria, shot by Bertramz, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Syrian grain output strangled by drought

Terra Daily via Agence France-Presse: Syria's worst drought in 40 years is strangling grain production, prompting authorities to seek aid from the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation, the official SANA news agency reported on Tuesday. Wheat production has fallen by 53 percent in 2008 and that of barley by 68 percent, with thousands of families affected, SANA said.

The FAO and other UN agencies have launched an appeal for 20 million dollars in aid, of which 9.3 million would be for farmers and ranchers. The FAO has already provided 500,000 dollars in emergency aid to farmers most stricken by the drought and offered two million dollars in food aid, the agency said.

Up to 59,000 small ranchers have lost their entire livestock and another 47,000 lost from 50 to 60 percent, a UN official said in Geneva at the beginning of October.

Satellite image of Syria with map lines added. NASA