Community | September 19, 2009 | 12 comments

Severe drought affects 1.3 million in Syria

source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0918/p06s04-wome.html

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JanforGore
More than 800,000 people have lost their livelihoods in a four-year dry spell exacerbated by climate change and rising food prices. Almost half of them live in urban makeshift camps.

Deraa, Syria - The acute drought that has driven an estimated 300,000 Syrian farmers, herders, and their families to abandon home for makeshift urban camps may not be the worst in the region's history; the Fertile Crescent has often experienced cycles of drought.

But now climate change, an exploitation of water resources, and higher food prices brought about by the global financial crisis have all severely sharpened the impact of this dry spell, now in its fourth year. The numbers of Syrians affected – an estimated 1.3 million, 803,000 of whom have entirely lost their livelihoods – point to a serious humanitarian crisis.

With Syria's population expected to triple by 2025, the severity of the drought presents yet another challenge for a leadership isolated internationally and struggling at home to maintain a broken state system while slowly introducing capitalism.

"It's going to underline for the everyday person the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of the Syrian state," says Joshua Landis, codirector of the University of Oklahoma's Center for Middle East Studies.

Mass emigration compounds Iraqi refugee crowding

Shams Asa Mousa is already too familiar with those.

For more generations than she can remember, her family has grown wheat in Syria's Euphrates river valley. But as a result of the drought, they left their home in the eastern part of the country. Now, she and most of her 10 children sit idle in a tent made of wheat sacks outside of the southern city of Deraa near the Jordanian border, swatting flies, hundreds of miles away from their family home.

The mass migration toward Syria's cities, already overwhelmed with Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, is only the most urgent of the drought's consequences, which also include wide-spread malnutrition, increased illness, and school dropout rates, according to a recent United Nations report.

Asa Mousa's family has been living at the camp for three months without running water and only spurts of stolen electricity, subsisting on bread, rice, yoghurt and sugared tea.

She says no tangible help has come except for a government official who offered the family 20 percent of their Deraa income to return home. The family declined the offer.

"We are totally forgotten," says Asa Mousa. "Sometimes we feel like no one knows we are here."
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    Community,   Green,   Current Tonight,   Earth and Science,   1 more
  2. tags:
    Culture,  Climate Change,  Ecology,  Drought,  4 more
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12 comments // Severe drought affects 1.3 million in Syria

  • loupetho
    • 0
      loupetho  
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    • And this as well JanforGore.
      If you've ever been hungry or thirsty for more than a few days then know how people will go to keep alive. I like to look on the optimistic side of things but these warning bells are getting louder and louder.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
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    • This is a very comprehensive report of the entire region, current statistics, terrain, population, water usage, dams, etc. Anything you wish to know about the situation unfolding in the Fertile Crescent region ( the cradle of agriculture) is outlined here.

      And as we see, population growth, dams, salinity of soil and water, water mismanagement, overuse, politics, war, and yes, evaporation due to climactic changes are all contributing to people having to leave their farms. The humanitarian crisis unfolding here is now due to the water used not being replenished at a rate that can sustain population. Dams are also a problem in that they have resulted in great amounts of displacement and environmental destruction.

      We are seeing in this region what will play out in other regions of the world if we continue to think that anything we use in the way of water can be replenished. We are now also seeing that the rate of climactic change and evaporation rates of soil are above what can be replenished as well. And this does effect and pertain to Israel because of their water policy that has hogged much of the water that should be used equitably between them and other nations. Now through desalination and the horrible pollution of the water of the Jordan River and the decline of the Dead sea.

      Riparian rights is a big issue in this region now and with the added stresses of climate change and population, the ability of these countries to work together is essential, but we are now seeing more and more friction because of dams and the need for electricity in more populus countries like Turkey. So a few of the solutions seem to be doing a study that will tell us what dams are unnecessary and dismantling them to let water flow, looking for alternate ways such as solar to bring electricity to this region to free up water resources, and changing crop patterns and utilizing more conservative irrigation practices.

      However, the question to be answered is, again, has this region reached a tipping point in regards to this most severe drought? Is this also a harbinger of things to come in other parts of the world that practice the same apathy and selfishness towards water resources with governments using it to make profit without taking other effects such as dams and climate change into the picture? Look at California and the Midwest here now and then tell me that what is happening in Syria and this region is something we shouldn't care about.

      Oh, and another thing I discovered: Dams are counted as "carbon credits" on the European market. So put the dots together and realize that this commoditization of carbon scheme will now only put this planet in more dire danger regarding the environment all due to greed and taking advantage of a crisis we already have made for ourselves. Water is not green when it is used as hydropower that steals it from people who need it to eat and live when there are already viable efficient energy sources to consider.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • loupetho: So true. And if that happens over water, the ramifications could be catastrophic on many levels. Thanks for being at least one of the few in this thread who gets it.

    • 2 years ago
  • loupetho
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  

    • "spurts of stolen electricity, subsisting on bread, rice, yoghurt and sugared tea."

      I'm out of bread, can't afford yogurt and low on rice (that's overpriced). And the power company is shoving so much voltage my lights are on while turned off. I can't even drink my tea in total dark as is my custom. http://current.com/items/90963598_nations-electric-company-billing-scam-on-consu...

      Tell ya what Jan, many answers are around, they just aren't being used. Gas and oil pipelines could be scrubbed clean and used for transporting vast amounts of water to regions such as this one. Crude oil supertankers DITTO except they would be used for FOOD TRANSPORT. So basically the entire world is lying ~and dying~ in the power of the dirty one.

    • 2 years ago
  • freecrack
  • galwayman
    • 0
      galwayman  

    • As our climate changes droughts like this will spread.In our countries history it has happened here.Not all of syria is desert EmperorThan and your comment shows you know nothing about that country.

    • 2 years ago
  • EmperorThan
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • EmperorThan:

      You show your ignorance as well. How do you think the FERTILE Crescent got its name? It is the cradle of agriculture... and why? Well, why don't you look that up and educate yourself.

    • 2 years ago
  • carmalite
    • 0
      carmalite  

    • 800,000 people! Life is sufferring for most. So far, except for Katrina and some other disasters, we have had it really easy in the USA.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • JanforGore:

      "who cares its syria"

      People without hate care. You obviously aren't one of them. And there have been droughts before, but these are much more sustained and severe. But I wouldn't expect someone ignorant of this topic to understand that or the ramifications of this on the world at large.

    • 2 years ago
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