The Role of Drought in The Conflict in Syria

To begin with, by dictionary, a drought is a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall, leading to a shortage of water. This study of the climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought was carried out through a 6-month period (October-April), the winter and summer seasons. Varieties of datasets like the UEACRU version 3.1, Global Precipitation Climatology Centre v6 precipitation, and the GHCN beta version 2 station precipitation data were utilized for the observation of the precipitation. The political and social reality that Syria is right now confronting is the effect of different interconnected elements including religion, politics, and economics. Newly, researchers have started to investigate the impact that climate may have on world conflict, especially in Syria. This thought has created critical media consideration, which began many investigations. Studies were conducted during the 6-month period of April through October because water levels in Syria relay essentially on the precipitation during those months. This study features how unsustainable cultivation strategies executed under the office of Hafez al-Assad caused an overuse of these stores by boosting remarkably high cultivation production levels. The abuse of ground saves transformed water for use into a constrained asset and, along these lines, expanded the vulnerability of the rustic populace. In 2006, the northeast area of Syria was affected by a serious drought — where the greater part of the nation's yields is developed, causing a decrease in agricultural production. Prior to the drought 25 percent of Syria's GDP was ascribed to agriculture; after 2008, this number dropped to 17 percent. The study additionally portrays how current President Bashar al-Assad's financial arrangements expanded destabilization by evacuating fuel and nourishment sponsorships that numerous country families rely upon for their livelihoods. Despite the drought, these policies proceeded, making cultivation work unsustainable, in this manner initiating mass movement of rural families to urban communities. In 2002, the absolute urban populace of Syria was 8.9 million, in any case, by 2010, it arrived at 13.8 million — a 50 percent expansion. To decide if the drought was responsible for Syria's 2011 uprising, the analysts examined verifiable precipitation and surface temperatures utilizing information from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit and the two Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) stations found nearest to Syria's northeastern rural district. They discovered a pattern of diminishing precipitation and expanding temperatures during the twentieth century, which has been particularly intense over the most recent 20 years. They additionally found that these patterns were profoundly predictable with the evaluations of 16 climate models utilized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fifth appraisal report in regard to the Syrian region.

The authors hypothesized that drought added to the conflict in Syria draws support from literature building up a measurable connection among climate and conflict. To support/defend the authors hypothesis they collected large amounts of ecological research. The research included climate, weather, and other scientific models to decompose their argument. The authors then change into their discourse about Syria's weakness to drought and give proof of a few components. Kelly starts by quickly distinguishing a significant reason for Syria’s vulnerability to drought, an administration agricultural strategy that over utilized and abused the country's constrained water supply despite the existence of the drought. Kelly then follows to mentions that the strategies abused 'restricted land and water resourced without respect for sustainability. This abuse additionally tapped into Syria’s ground water supply. Farms in Syria without water system waterways associated with streams depend entirely on ground water pumps but lack of absence of discussion laws lead groundwater to be seriously drained. The Lead author of the study, Colin P. Kelley, also said he and his partners found that while Syria and the remainder of the district known as the Fertile Crescent were typically dependent upon occasional dry periods, 'a drought this severe was two or three times more likely” due to the expanding aridity in the area.

Additionally, the authors realized that the drought wasn’t only wasn’t the cause of low precipitation and water shortage, however, the drought also caused colossal farming disappointments bringing about many individuals losing their livelihoods and a great deal of their animals dying because of the absence of nourishment. Additional discoveries made by the authors were that the greatest effect was the relocation that occurred inside the nation where 1.5 million ranchers needed to move from their shriveled homesteads to urban regions. The authors evaluated why human impedance and global warming made Syria so helpless against the drought. The approval of agricultural policies that were happening during the drought made just relapse happen. President Assad wanted expanded cultivation and he approved policies to execute that just as the circulation of land and the presentation of quantity frameworks. The policies sanctioned just as the drought additionally cased a decrease in groundwater, which was basic for uncovering wells, and having an approach to disturb crops and the nation’s fundamental type of drinking water.

The Syrian clash that started in 2012 has numerous roots, including political, religious, and social ideological debates; financial disengagements from both worldwide and regional factors; and exacerbating ecological conditions. Key ecological components incorporate both direct and indirect outcomes of water deficiencies, insufficient watershed administration, and the effects of climate inconstancy and change on territorial hydrology. Extreme multiyear drought starting in the mid-2000s, joined with wasteful and regularly unmodernized water system frameworks and water reflections by different gatherings in the eastern Mediterranean, including Syria, added to the uprooting of huge populations from rural to urban focuses, nourishment frailty for in excess of a million people, and expanded unemployment — with ensuing consequences for political security. There is some proof that the ongoing drought is an early pointer of the climatic changes that are normal for the region, including higher temperature, decreased precipitation and spillover, and expanded water shortage. Missing any endeavors to address population growth rates, these water-related elements are probably going to deliver significantly more serious dangers of nearby and local political precariousness, except if different systems for decreasing water frailty can be distinguished and actualized. Overall, in the region, new dam development, developing water withdrawals, and restricted political participation on water issues may turn out to be considerably increasingly significant in coming years. Among the key alternatives accessible to policy makers are upgrades in water-use proficiency and profitability in farming, better administration and observing of groundwater assets, and far reaching universal concessions to overseeing and sharing the waterways that cross political fringes.

After reading the study and research I feel the drought didn’t create any conflict between society and nature. Specifically, there is no evidence that drought caused conflict nor contributed to the country’s civil war.