Water and insecurity in the Levant
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is the most water-stressed area in the world. In the Levant sub-region, Jordan, Syria, West Bank/Gaza, and Israel are already water scarce while two other countries – Iraq and Lebanon – are ‘water stressed’. This water challenge is a major problem for more than simple development reasons – the domestic instability that led into the Syria conflict was partially driven by drought effects, and now the overflow of refugees is placing greater stress on dry neighbours.
For a region that is expected to become drier yet due to a changing climate, the potential for further water-driven instability is significant. Responding to this will require more than improved water supplies. It will require integrated responses that address technical, political and security challenges at local and regional levels. The Crescent – fertile no more? The Levant has always been arid. But the challenge of this natural aridity has been exacerbated by a dramatic increase in population and the growing impacts of climate change. In the last 30 years, the populations of Syria, Iraq and Israel have more than doubled and that of Jordan has almost tripled. Since the late 1980s, the region has been struck by a series of multi-year droughts, leading to increased stress on groundwater reserves. A 2016 NASA study calculated that 1998-2012 was the driest period to strike the region in 900 years.
This drought has had a serious impact on regional economies, particularly in the agricultural sector: the number of people employed in agriculture has plummeted, as has the portion of population living in rural areas and the contribution of agriculture to the economy.
These trends are global, but have been accelerated in the Levant, most notably in Syria, where an estimated 1.3 million people were pushed from rural to urban areas during 20062010 as their crops and livelihoods dried up. These shifts contributed to social and economic disruption, as large parts of the population were forced into poverty. The government’s failure to address the problems caused by the drought, among many other failings, strengthened domestic opposition and fed into the increasing domestic instability.
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