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Using Water As A Weapon In Syria
August 11th, 2015
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), a look at the use of water as a weapon in Syria: Years of vicious warfare and a lack of investment and maintenance have taken a severe toll on water infrastructure across Syria. The conflict’s scale made it inevitable that piped water would either be intermittent or simply unavailable across […]
Read more »Water Scarcity: Major Factor In Middle East Tensions
May 28th, 2015
Via Water Online, an article on the impact that water scarcity is having upon Middle East tension: Water crises in the Middle East are helping “radicalize” the region, according to VICE. The inaccessibility of clean drinking water, water scarcity, drought, and food insecurity all combine to “make communities vulnerable—especially to extremist groups. By either providing water access […]
Read more »Drought: Trigger For Syria’s Civil War?
March 3rd, 2015
Via Mashable, a detailed look at how global warming sparked Syria’s civil war: Manmade global warming helped spark the brutal civil war in Syria by doubling to tripling the odds that a crippling drought in the Fertile Crescent would occur shortly before the fighting broke out, according to a groundbreaking new study published on March […]
Read more »Water Politics In The Tigris-Euphrates Basin
January 5th, 2015
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), analysis of issues related to headwater management in the Tigris-Euphrates basin: Controlling the headwaters of the Tigris-Euphrates river basin gives Turkey leverage over its neighbors’ water security. Turkey has talked about utilizing its water resources since the country’s founding, but only since the mid-20th century has the government actively worked […]
Read more »‘Water War’ Threatens Syria Lifeline
July 18th, 2014
Via Al Jazeera, a report on how Syria’s water supplies have dropped in key areas due to a sharp increase in production at the rebel-controlled Euphrates Dam: When severe water cuts began to hit Aleppo province in early May, residents started referring to a “water war” being waged at the expense of civilians. Images of […]
Read more »Syria: Example Of Climate Change’s Impact
September 5th, 2013
Via Legal Planet, an interesting article on an assessment of environmental factors — in particular, a devastating drought — as the proximate cause of the Syrian civil war: [USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Commodity Intelligence Report, May 9, 2008] In considering the complex and painful question of whether to intervene in Syria, policymakers should take a close […]
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