Was Drought Really the Trigger Behind the Syrian Civil War in 2011?
Autor: | Arnon Karnieli, Alexandra Shtein, Natalya Panov, Alon Tal, Noam Weisbrod |
---|---|
Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2019 |
Předmět: |
lcsh:Hydraulic engineering
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Turkish Geography Planning and Development 0207 environmental engineering 02 engineering and technology Aquatic Science 01 natural sciences Biochemistry River water Proximate and ultimate causation Turkish Southeastern Anatolia Project lcsh:Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes discharge lcsh:TC1-978 Political science Development economics Euphrates 020701 environmental engineering reservoir water level 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Water Science and Technology lcsh:TD201-500 Syrian Civil War business.industry Unrest language.human_language Spanish Civil War Agriculture language Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) business transborder groundwater flow |
Zdroj: | Water, Vol 11, Iss 8, p 1564 (2019) Water Volume 11 Issue 8 |
ISSN: | 2073-4441 |
Popis: | The role played by unsustainable resource management in initiating international conflicts is well documented. The Syrian Civil War, commencing in March 2011, presents such a case. The prevailing opinion links the unrest with sequential droughts occurring from 2007&ndash 2010. Our research, however, reveals that the winter-rainfed agricultural conditions before 2011, as detected by satellite-derived vegetation indices, were similar and even better for Syrian farmers than for those of their Turkish counterparts across the border. Concurrently, summer-irrigated crops, heavily dependent on Euphrates River water originating from Turkey, notably declined in Syria while flourishing in Turkey. These findings are firmly supported by other independent and validated datasets, including long-term cross-border discharge, the water level in Syrian and Turkish reservoirs, and transborder groundwater flow. We conclude that the Turkish policy of unilaterally diverting the Euphrates water was the main reason for the agricultural collapse and subsequent instability in Syria in 2011. The obvious inference is that while prolonged drought exacerbated conditions, unsustainable anthropogenic water management in Turkey was the proximate cause behind the Syrian uprising. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
Externí odkaz: |