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Syrian Drought and Civil War
the Tigris-Euphrates Basin-comprising Turkey, Syria, Iraq and western Iran-is losing water faster than any other place in the world except northern India. During those six years, 117 million acre-feet of stored freshwater vanished from the region as a result of dwindling rainfall and poor water management policies.
since 2003, drought and shrinking aquifers have led to a recent spate of assassinations of irrigation department officials and clashes between rural clans.
Prior to Syria's civil war, the country experienced a devastating drought impacting more than 1.3 million people, killing up to 85 percent of livestock in some regions and forcing 160 villages to be abandoned due to crop failures.
In Syria, a devastating drought beginning in 2006 forced many farmers to abandon their fields and migrate to urban centers. There's some evidence that the migration fueled the civil war there, in which 80,000 people have died. "You had a lot of angry, unemployed men helping to trigger a revolution,"
Tensions between nations are also high. Since 1975, Turkey's dam and hydropower construction has cut water flow to Iraq by 80 percent and to Syria by 40 percent. Syria and Iraq have accused Turkey of hoarding water.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/is-a-lack-of-water-to-blame-for-the-conflict-in-syria-72513729/?no-ist http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/09/13/syrias-crisis-was-sparked-by-global-warming-and-drought
