Arak Journal

Did Human-Induced Climate Change Contribute to the Syrian Civil War?

By Brandon Bell

Introduction

Where is the rain? This question emerged in Syria in late 2006 as drought fell upon a country already in turmoil. The people of Syria had no idea the worst drought in their nation’s recorded history was about to unfold. The drought lingered for almost four years, finally subsiding in 2010, but its effects remain visible today. Despite Syria’s location in the Middle East, a drought of this intensity is beyond abnormal. This has led many researchers to conclude that climate change played a major role in causing and prolonging the drought. Given the conflicts underway in the country, this essay explores the consequences of climate change?particularly the increased probability, strength, and duration of drought?that in turn led to political, social, and especially economic conditions that allowed for the beginning of a civil war. The argument is divided into two main sections. The first section describes climate change broadly as it relates to the Syrian drought. With evidence indicating that the drought’s length and potency increased due to human destruction of the earth, I will establish climate change as a catalyst for the severe drought. From this overview, I develop a causal relationship: water mismanagement coupled with climate change resulted in decreased breadbasket production. This relationship leads to the second section, which begins with an explanation of economic conditions preceding and during the drought. Afterwards, I extend the causal relationship to establish the severe drought as a catalyst for economic decline and domestic discord, while suggesting that decreased breadbasket production led to a pattern of mass displacement ultimately neglected by the government, resulting in a bitter populace who eventually filled the streets with calls for change. I argue this overarching connection demonstrates the partial but hugely consequential role of climate change in causing the ongoing deadly conflict between the Syrian citizens and their government because the former faced the negative effects of climate change while the latter failed to meaningfully respond to these issues.

 

Climate

Droughts are not uncommon in Syria, but evidence suggests diminished supplies of water increase the likelihood and duration of their occurrence. As Peter H. Gleick of the Pacific Institute in Oakload notes, “Syria, and the [Middle East] region as a whole, experiences high natural hydrologic variability” (332). Recently, the region has experienced “reduc[ed] winter rainfall and increas[ed] evapotranspiration” (337), which has further exacerbated the variability of water.  The “reduced supply of groundwater” resulting from these weather patterns has “dramatically increased Syria’s vulnerability to drought” (Kelley et al. 3241). This vulnerability greatly expanded the effects of the drought. As Gleick explains, droughts even remotely as intense and as sustained as the drought occurring from 2006 to 2010 have not been recorded:

Over the past century (from 1900 to 2005), there were six significant droughts in Syria, where the average monthly level of winter precipitation?the major rainfall season?dropped to around one-third of normal. Five of these droughts lasted only one season; the sixth lasted two (Mohtadi 2013). Starting in 2006, however, and lasting into 2011, Syria experienced a multiseason, multiyear period of extreme drought? (332)

These data suggest that the most recent drought is an outlier, failing to conform to the patterns exhibited by naturally occurring droughts that scientists have observed. While previous droughts have lasted only one to two seasons, the 2006-2010 drought lasted roughly sixteen seasons. This represents a significant deviation from typical drought occurrences, further demonstrating how diminished water supplies extended the Syrian drought beyond the normal time frame.

Extreme weather events, such as the extended drought, are often attributed to climate change, which helps explain why the resulting conditions are abnormally fierce. Climate change causes an increase in severity and frequency of natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts; these events cannot be solely explained by earth’s cycles. In his study of climate change indicators and impacts, Gleick cites Dr. Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who explains the link between catastrophic weather and climate change. Dr. Hoerling has concluded, “The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone” (qtd. in Gleick 337). As discussed in the previous paragraph, the substantial drying that occurred provided conditions under which the drought was more likely to take place. The conclusion that drying occurred at a rate greater than that of natural variability suggests the presence of climate change. Professors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Columbia University agree and have found that “climate model results strongly suggest that anthropogenic forcing has increased the probability of severe and persistent droughts in this region, and made the occurrence of a 3-year drought as severe as that of 2007-2010 2 to 3 times more likely than by natural variability alone” (Kelley et al. 3241). The term “anthropogenic forcing” can be defined as changes to the earth’s climate patterns resulting from the practices of mankind. This directly implicates humans as a force that exponentially increased the likelihood of the Syrian drought. The broad consensus reached by these researchers clearly identifies the significant impact that negative human behavior, mainly in the form of unsustainable irrigation usage, had on the Syrian drought. These negative human actions?or “anthropogenic forcing”?form the basis of climate change. The Syrian drought is a prime example of a climate-change-induced event, as it lasted eight to sixteen times longer than previously recorded droughts. Without any historical data that even remotely compares to the data from the past drought, it is evident that a human force, independent of earth’s cycles and patterns, undoubtedly played a role in this climate crisis.

 

Water Mismanagement

In addition to facing the worst drought in recorded history, the Syrians simultaneously had to contend with widespread water mismanagement caused by human behavior, which was already taking place across the country. Before the drought began, water mismanagement, much like increased evapotranspiration and reduced rainfall, set the stage for an abnormal drought to transpire. Once the drought began, continued water mismanagement made accessing already diminishing water supplies even more difficult. The breadbasket region of northeast Syria, for example, provides a devastating display of the water mismanagement that created the conditions under which this drastic drought began. Francesca de Ch?tel of Radboud University in the Netherlands explains that in this region, the drought was “undoubtedly exacerbated by a long legacy of resource mismanagement” (524). The resource mismanagement mainly affected the irrigation systems in place throughout the country on which a sizeable portion of the breadbasket region’s farmers rely. In actuality, “two thirds of the cultivated land in Syria is rain fed, but the remainder relies upon irrigation and groundwater” (Kelley et al. 3241). Regardless of whether or not the farmers rely on irrigation systems, all farmers rely on rain water either directly or indirectly, which means that their production is most certainly affected by drought. 

Misuse of Syria’s irrigation systems left the agricultural sector crippled and unable to meet their normal production levels. To elaborate on their heavy reliance on groundwater, research conducted by Kelley and his colleagues found that “pumped groundwater supplies over half (60%) of all water used for irrigation purposes.” Prior to the drought, the availability of groundwater was already dwindling as its “extraction [had] been greatly overexploited” (Kelley et al. 3241). The effects of the drought, compounded by the overexploitation, would leave Syria unable to maintain its pre-drought levels of agricultural production. Before the start of the drought in 2005, water mismanagement came to the attention of the national government, which attempted to address the problem by enacting a law “requiring a license to dig wells” (Kelley et. al 3241). Despite the government’s efforts, their “legislation was not enforced,” and thus led to no changes in irrigation practices (Kelley et. al 3241). As mentioned previously, these irrigation malpractices further increased the likelihood of drought occurring in Syria. By failing to fix the issues with irrigation before the drought began, the Syrian government contributed to the drought’s occurrence and left farmers unable to use irrigation systems to adequately water their crops once the drought began.

In addition to stresses from the agricultural sector’s water mismanagement, Syria’s water supply was also affected by a population that “increased from around 3 million in 1950 to over 22 million in 2012” (Gleick 332). Even if Syria maintained the amount of groundwater it had available in 1950, the amount of water available for each person would have drastically decreased as its population increased. As more people used the same amount of a resource, each person had less access to that resource. Since data demonstrate that this was not the case and that the amount of groundwater had decreased, the actual amount of water available for each person was even lower. The data show that from 1950 to 2012 the “total per capita renewable water availability” decreased “from over 5500 [meters]3 per person per year to under 760 by 2012? a level categorized as ‘scarce’” (Gleick 332). This marks a decrease of roughly 86%. In 1950, people had access to over seven times the amount of water that people currently have today. Overall, these statistics demonstrate the effects of the collective constraints placed upon water availability, which primarily include population increase, overexploitation of water, and severe and sustained drought. Combined, these factors left Syria with a supply of water that was significantly less than the quantity Syrians demanded.

 

Decreased Breadbasket Production

As previously mentioned, water mismanagement in the northeastern breadbasket region was already posing challenges to agricultural production before the drought began to plague this region. Although water mismanagement was a notable problem, the drought’s effects on production were immeasurably worse than those of water mismanagement. Data from 2003 shows “agriculture accounted for 25% of Syrian gross domestic product,” but this percentage decreased to 17% in 2008 “after the driest winter in Syria’s observed record” (Kelley et al. 3241). The effects of water mismanagement are considered in both percentages while the effects of drought are only considered in the latter. This demonstrates that the drought roughly accounts for an eight percent loss in agricultural gross domestic product. Broadly, de Ch?tel found that the “average yield of basic crops dropped by 32 per cent in irrigated areas and as much as 79 per cent in rain-fed areas.” However, the large decreases were mainly the result of wheat and barley production failure, which “dropped by 47 per cent and 67 per cent respectively” between the 2006-2007 season and the 2007-2008 season (de Ch?tel 524). These statistics reveal the substantial decline in Syria’s agricultural production as a whole after drought began plaguing the nation.

It is important to analyze what specifically caused the overall eight percent decrease in production mentioned previously. The breadbasket region offers some answers, as it “typically produced over two-thirds of the country’s crop yields” prior to the drought (Kelley et al. 3241). Not only is there collective data on rainfall for the northeast region, but there is also data that precisely shows even greater decreases in rainfall within some of the northeast governorates (or the administrative divisions) of Syria. In general, northeastern Syria “received less than half of the long-term average in rainfall,” while “the governorates of Hassakeh, Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa register[ed] shortfalls of 66 per cent, 60 per cent and 45 per cent respectively” during the 2007-2008 season (de Ch?tel 524). With some divisions receiving close to only one-third of their typical rainfall, it becomes clear why both irrigated and especially rain-fed crops produced such small harvests.

Wheat production can be used as a case study to understand how the drought drastically affected the production of crops. The 2007-2008 season harvest only produced 2.1 million tons of wheat, which is less than half of the long-term average harvest of 4.7 million tons (de Ch?tel 524). The actual percentage decrease in wheat harvest is more than 55%. Of the typical 4.7 million tons produced during a wheat harvest, 3.8 million tons are typically consumed internally (de Ch?tel 524). Since only 2.1 million tons were produced, Syria failed to provide enough supply to fulfill its own demand by 1.7 million tons of wheat. This meant that the Syrians actually had to import 1.7 million tons of wheat rather than export 0.9 million tons as usual. This was the first time the Syrians had to import wheat in fifteen years (de Ch?tel 524). This case study demonstrates that the decline in production greatly disrupted the typical Syrian trade of wheat and the extent to which the drought disrupted typical farming yields.

Economic Conditions

            Despite the ongoing agricultural production shortfalls, Bashar al-Assad, the current President of Syria, failed to devise solutions that would improve the resulting poor economic conditions. As Kelley and his colleagues discuss, Assad “succeeded his father in 2000” and has since focused on “liberalizing the economy by cutting the fuel and food subsidies on which many Syrians had become dependent” (3242). Assad made these cuts despite large regions of the republic facing extreme poverty, which would only be exacerbated by the proceeding drought. De Ch?tel explains, “The drought hit hardest in the north-east, a region that was on the one hand the most impoverished and neglected part of the country, but which was also the country’s breadbasket and source of oil” (522). As this context indicates, the breadbasket region was already in economic distress, further explaining why the region became completely paralyzed by the drought as it was struggling to cope with conditions that existed prior to the additional burdens imposed by the Assad regime.

Despite the already dire situation, Assad continued his unpopular policies, which would soon unite his country against him. He maintained his cuts on subsidies even as the drought “further destabilize[ed] the lives of those [already] affected” by his economic reforms (Kelley et al. 3242). In addition to failing to improve the situation for farmers, he also made the situation worse for them while the drought was taking place by “cancel[ing] a number of state subsidies in 2008 and 2009, which multiplied the price of diesel fuel and fertilizer overnight (de Ch?tel 525-526). Assad feared economic reform, as it threatened the status quo. With hindsight from the fall of the Soviet Union, Assad reasoned “that any demand for genuine and essential change in Syria’s political system must be blocked, for such change could turn out to be disastrous for the stability of his regime, and could even threaten its very existence” (Zisser 554). While one could rationalize that economic assistance would provide stability to the people and in turn provide stability to the government, Assad instead cut economic assistance to people who needed more of it. It is easy to understand why the Syrian citizens would protest the actions?or, more accurately, inactions?of his government in response to the widespread economic distress.

 

Mass Displacement

Before the protests began, the farmers left their farms and found even more difficulty in their new, more urban locations. The Syrian government’s failure to help the rural farmers left them with no choice but to uproot themselves and their families and move to less rural areas where there were more opportunities for prosperity. This movement truly represented a mass migration as “[e]stimates of the number of people internally displaced by the drought are as high as 1.5 million” (Kelley et al. 3241). As mentioned, the population of Syria was 22 million in 2012, meaning the total number of internally-displaced peoples?1.5 million?amounts to roughly seven percent of the entire population of Syria.  Their relocation caused more problems, as “[m]ost migrated to the peripheries of Syria’s cities, already burdened by strong population growth” of approximately 2.5% per year (Kelley et al. 3241). The migrants used to provide agricultural products for these areas, but following their migration and because of the drought, they were no longer able to make this contribution. As a result, the farmers and their families used, instead of provided, resources as they now added demand for these agricultural products and simultaneously decreased supply by abandoning their farms. As urban and suburban areas became more densely populated, these areas were increasingly unprepared to meet the needs of their people.

 

Implications of an Ignored Populace

A people’s uprising against the Assad regime was imminent as the problems quickly multiplied in the areas where Syria’s internally-displaced citizens settled. Much like their response to all of the other problems facing their nation, the Syrian government once more failed to act upon “[t]he rapidly growing urban peripheries of Syria, marked by illegal settlements, overcrowding, poor infrastructure, unemployment, and crime, [which] were neglected by the Assad government and became the heart of the developing unrest” (Kelley et al. 3242). Unsurprisingly, tensions mounted most in the peripheries and rural areas before spreading to the cities. Zyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University explains that, historically, the peripheral areas proved most valuable to Assad’s Bacth Party as they provided the Bacth regime, “established after the revolution of 8 March 1963, with their powerbase, and perhaps their real source of power” (555). Thus, despite the fact that “the demonstrations in Syria were confined to the rural and peripheral areas” at first, these areas held great potential to serve as the catalyst of a much larger movement. This came to fruition as the protests “soon spread like wildfire all over the country” (Zisser 555). The Assad regime did not respond to the protests by listening to their calls for change but instead responded with pure brutality. They did so by “calling the army into action from late April 2011” to repress the protests, which eventually resulted in a “widespread popular uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s whole regime, and ultimately, into a bloody and indecisive civil war” (Zisser 555). The Syrian people finally rose up against the man who had refused to address their plight for years. Their struggle continues to this day as they attempt to counter his brutality and bring much-needed change to their troubled state.

 

Conclusion

The roots of this revolution can be traced back to the conditions existing prior to 2006. Climate change through the means of overexploitation of water resources, decreased rainfall, and increased evapotranspiration created an atmosphere that made Syria more susceptible to drought. The drought commenced in 2006 and lasted to 2010, a duration far longer than any other recorded drought in Syrian history. This drought greatly affected the northeast breadbasket region of the country, which was burdened by poverty before the drought even began. Levels of poverty increased as crop yields drastically dropped, forcing farmers, their families, and other internally-displaced citizens to migrate to urban peripheries en masse. Once these areas became afflicted with problems of their own, citizens began to protest the government’s inaction, and residents of cities quickly joined the urban peripheries in their calls for change. The government acted with brutality and force, plunging Syria into civil war. Given this chain of events, climate change stands as an indirect cause of the Syrian Civil War.

While many other factors played a role in causing the civil war, such as Assad’s complete refusal to meet the needs of his people, the fact that climate change played even the slightest role is rather startling. The extent of its role is subject to debate, but it is important for humans to recognize its presence and effects so that situations like the one in Syria can be avoided in the future. Human-induced climate change demands human action. What if action had been taken in Syria? What if Assad actually enacted and enforced legislation to alleviate the conditions favorable to drought before it began? Would the outcome be different? While we can hypothesize as to what could have happened, we should focus our efforts on identifying unfavorable conditions and working to improve these conditions before climate change has the ability to inflict even worse damage than what we are already seeing. 

Works Cited

Works
Cited

De Ch?tel, Francesca. The Role of
Drought and Climate Change in the Syrian Uprising: Untangling the Triggers of
the Revolution.? Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 50, no. 4, July 2014, pp.
521?35.

Gleick, Peter H. Water,
Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria.? Weather, Climate, and
Society, vol. 6, no. 3, 2014, pp. 331?340.

Kelley, Colin P., et al.
?Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent and Implications of the Recent Syrian
Drought.? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America, vol. 112, no. 11, 2015, pp. 3241?3246.

Zisser, Eyal. Syria — from the Six Day War to the
Syrian Civil War.? British Journal of Middle
Eastern Studies, vol. 44, no. 4, Oct. 2017, pp. 545?558.

Paper Prompt

Researched Argument Paper

Honors English 110 ? O’Donnell

Topic Proposal & Annotated Bibliography: Due November 5th

(Due on Canvas by 11:59pm)

Draft of argument/thesis statement: Due November 9th 

(Emailed to your peer group and me by 11:59pm)

Full Draft: Due November 16th

(Due on Canvas by 11:59pm)

Final Draft: Due December 5th

(Due on Canvas by 11:59pm)

Length: 2000-2500 words

Format: Double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, 1-inch margins on all sides. Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner. Your citations should be done in the style used by the journal you have selected.

Sources: At least 4 main sources (By “main” I mean sources that you use more than one time in the paper. We will talk about this more during class.)

Description: This assignment requires you to write an academic research paper on a subject related to climate change or other environmental issues. You must select a topic/problem/question you feel can sustain your interest for the remainder of the semester. The rest of the major writing assignments for this class will explore only this topic. You will be encouraged to consult with me during the process of choosing the topic, as I may need to advise you on the likelihood of finding information on it.

The paper needs to stake out a particular position and support this position with evidence and specific examples. In other words, the paper should be thesis-driven and argumentative. As we’ve discussed so far this semester, all writing is social and part of complicated structures and ideologies. Part of the goal of this paper is to have you begin to situate yourself in that complex world. The best arguments are those that are compelling, complex, and nuanced. To this end, the paper must have at least four main scholarly, credible sources, and each of these four should be used multiple times. That is, you want to engage thoroughly with these sources. Get to know your sources so that you can speak with them, negotiating their ideas and mediating a dialogue between all the scholars you collect.

Your paper should:

• Be thesis-driven and argumentative.
• Be rife with opposing views, synthesis, and sophisticated thinking.
• Show creative insights and critical reasoning.
• Anticipate reader objections
• Use metadiscourse to help the reader along
• Exhibit deliberate style choices that match those of the academic rhetorical situation of the class.

Although this might sound intimidating, we will be working on these things in class along the way. The research and planning you put into the topic proposal and annotated bibliography will also prepare you to accomplish these goals. 

Note: Read and reread this assignment sheet during various stages in your writing; doing so will help confirm that you are fulfilling all the requirements.