A half-mile from us, a good friend's well has gone almost dry, and we've heard of others on our street experiencing the same dryness. Our well water is increasingly turbid and sandy at times, even though we live near a creek bottom. The drought outlook for California is not good:
In contrast, [writes B. Pugh, a forecaster for the National Weather Service] drought "persistence is forecast for the intermountain West, Great Basin, and for ongoing drought areas along the West Coast where the wet season arrives late in this outlook period."
In the Paso Robles area, a Los Angeles Times story focused on wells going dry against the backdrop of heavy water use by new wineries, creating a conflict between residents and vintners.
But in California, at least, we may fight over water — but not with Ak-47s. In Syria, according to veteran foreign policy advisor William Polk, it's more serious. Both the drought and the conflict have turned deadly. In The Atlantic, a long letter Polk wrote made the following powerful argument:
Syria has been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to Syria with a vengeance. Drought devastated the country from 2006 to 2011. Rainfall in most of the country fell below eight inches (20 cm) a year, the absolute minimum needed to sustain un-irrigated farming. Desperate for water, farmers began to tap aquifers with tens of thousands of new well. But, as they did, the water table quickly dropped to a level below which their pumps could lift it.
[USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Commodity Intelligence Report, May 9, 2008]
In some areas, all agriculture ceased. In others crop failures reached 75%. And generally as much as 85% of livestock died of thirst or hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Syria’s farmers gave up, abandoned their farms and fled to the cities and towns in search of almost non-existent jobs and severely short food supplies. Outside observers including UN experts estimated that between 2 and 3 million of Syria’s 10 million rural inhabitants were reduced to “extreme poverty.”
The domestic Syrian refugees immediately found that they had to compete not only with one another for scarce food, water and jobs, but also with the already existing foreign refugee population. Syria already was a refuge for quarter of a million Palestinians and about a hundred thousand people who had fled the war and occupation of Iraq. Formerly prosperous farmers were lucky to get jobs as hawkers or street sweepers. And in the desperation of the times, hostilities erupted among groups that were competing just to survive.
The New York Times provided the background, in a story published three years ago:
Now, after four consecutive years of drought, this heartland of the Fertile Crescent — including much of neighboringIraq — appears to be turning barren, climate scientists say. Ancient irrigation systems have collapsed, underground water sources have run dry and hundreds of villages have been abandoned as farmlands turn to cracked desert and grazing animals die off. Sandstorms have become far more common, and vast tent cities of dispossessed farmers and their families have risen up around the larger towns and cities of Syria and Iraq.
The collapse of farmlands here — which is as much a matter of human mismanagement as of drought — has become a dire economic challenge and a rising security concern for the Syrian and Iraqi governments, which are growing far more dependent on other countries for food and water. Syria, which once prided itself on its self-sufficiency and even exported wheat, is now quietly importing it in ever larger amounts. The country’s total water resources dropped by half between 2002 and 2008, partly through waste and overuse, scientists and water engineers say.
[snip]
Droughts have always taken place here, but “the regional climate is changing in ways that are clearly observable,” said Jeannie Sowers, a professor at the University of New Hampshire who has written on Middle East climate issues. “Whether you call it human-induced climate change or not, much of the region is getting hotter and dryer, combined with more intense, erratic rainfall and flooding in some areas. You will have people migrating as a result, and governments are ill prepared.”
Prophetic words, as now nearly two million Syrians have been forced to flee the country.
Kit Stolz 