The Syrian conflict has had devastating human and economic consequences, but it also greatly damaged the environment in the country. This paper provides a preliminary survey of a set of environmental challenges that impose significant health, social and economic costs, including air pollution, defor Contact online >>
The Syrian conflict has had devastating human and economic consequences, but it also greatly damaged the environment in the country. This paper provides a preliminary survey of a set of environmental challenges that impose significant health, social and economic costs, including air pollution, deforestation, soil and vegetation degradation, and water depletion, and suggests green solutions for post-conflict relief and reconstruction.
Notably, environmental damage is not just an effect but also a driver of the conflict. Poor environmental conditions in Syria before the war have been identified as a primary factor contributing to the armed conflict, namely the mismanagement of natural resources and waste, the inadequate government response to mining pollution, and the severity of the drought that occurred from 2006 to 2010, which damaged the agriculture sector (comprising 25% of GDP), increased unemployment, amplified food insecurity and triggered mass migration towards urban centres. Combined with a high population growth rate, water scarcity imposed a greater risk of political instability.
Syria suffered high levels of air pollution even before the conflict erupted. In 2010, 69% of the population were exposed to high levels of particulate matter (PM2.5). This high level of air pollution was caused by industrial and vehicle emissions, waste burning, and seasonal pollution – with hazardous particles contributing to chronic disease, breathing problems, and hospitalization. Initially, the eruption of conflict lowered the percentage of the population exposed to particulate matter (by 7% in 2011), as people fled cities in large numbers and industrial activity and energy consumption decreased. Yet, starting 2012, the trend reversed and peaked to 72% in 2015.
Although causation is very difficult to ascertain – especially given the absence of fine-grained, geographically specific data on air pollution inside Syria – the drastic increase in 2015 could be the result of a combination of factors: aerial bombardments carried out by the Syrian and Russian governments against rebel groups; the US-led bombardments of Islamic State-held oil facilities; bushfires and major dust storms that resulted both from military operations as well as the decline in farming activity; and chemical attacks used by the Assad government in March, April, and May 2015. The WHO ranked Syria as the 18th worst air polluter (out of 92 countries) in 2019, with PM2.5 concentration three times above the WHO recommended exposure level.
The level of particulate matter has direct public health effects: estimates of deaths from diseases caused by outdoor air pollution increased by 17% between 2010 and 2017 to a total of 7,684 persons; disabilities related to particulate matter account for 1,625 per 100,000 persons in Syria. These high death and disability rates also affect healthcare costs: the economic burden of disease and premature death related to air pollution in Syria is estimated between 0.6–1.42% of the GDP; environmental/occupational risks driving death and disability increased by 16.5% between 2007 and 2017. High levels of PM also affect agriculture productivity and reduce crop yield, with wheat and oilseed most affected (Chuwahet et al. 2015).
The eruption of war decreased CO2 emissions as a result of the destruction in the energy sector (the dominant source of emissions), the deterioration of agricultural activities, industrialization, and disruption of oil and gas production due to damaged pipelines and other infrastructures in the state-owned main refineries in Banias and Homs. See Figure 2 for a breakdown of emissions by sector.
Figure 2: Syria gas emissions by sector from 2005-2016
Source: CO₂ emissions by sector, Syria (ourworldindata )
Even though CO2 emissions have decreased, they are still above recommended levels. Syria''s annual emission of CO2 in 2019 was 26.96 million tons, imposing $1.4 trillion in social costs (the current social cost of carbon is estimated at $50 per one ton of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere), increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events such droughts, and leading to the disruptions in food supply chains – similar to pre-war dynamics.
Moreover, other environmental damage has accompanied the decline in CO2 emissions. As a consequence of the bombing of Homs oil refineries and the development of new makeshift refineries by ISIS, hazardous substances have formed. Oil spills from the damaged refineries, wells, trucks, pipelines, and tanks from ISIS operations polluted ground and surface water, as well as soil, leading to polluted drinking water and agricultural land. The pollution and fallout from oil fires have destroyed large areas of cultivated and grazing land and killed livestock, affecting livestock breeders and farmers.
From 2012 to 2019, Syria lost 20.4% of all tree cover (Pax, 2020), much of the loss occurring in the governorates of Lattakia and Idlib, which lost 10% and 27% of tree cover area respectively between 2011 and 2014 (or 89% of the total tree cover loss in Syria). Depletion of forest cover has been linked to a variety of different socio-economic factors related to the conflict, including frequent forest fires, illegal logging, agricultural expansion, charcoal production, and the weakness of state institutions in managing natural resources and environmental development.
Forest fires are a major culprit of deforestation, and their frequency and intensity have increased dramatically during the conflict in Syria. In 2020 alone, fires wiped out over 9,000 hectares of agricultural and forested land, affecting 140,000 people through the destruction and damage to their homes and assets, the loss of power and water supply and limited access to services such as hospitals. One of the main causes of these fires has been the bombing campaigns by different parties to the conflict holed up in dense forests as protection from detection by drones and aircraft.
Pre-conflict Syria already suffered from a hazardous waste problem due to the lack of proper waste management systems and regulations. The long-term mismanagement of hazardous waste – primarily industrial and medical waste (80% of it infectious, 15% chemical, and 5% radioactive) – generated a high level of dioxin and other gases and increased air pollution, particularly for Aleppo and Damascus, bringing with it all the grave health risks associated with hazardous waste.
The long years of drought between 2006-2010 caused soil infertility and soil/vegetation degradation – problems that were compounded during the war, and that will threaten post-war land productivity, biodiversity, and agriculture. The relentless bombing stirred up the soil, making it easier to transport by wind and water and increasing the occurrences of dust storms. Soil erosion has also been accelerated by alarming vegetation changes – a result both of the high demand for natural resources as well as the expansion of urban areas during the conflict due to population movements. More than 85% of agricultural land in Syria is exposed to soil erosion, and the use of arable land decreased by 21% between 2010 and 2014.
The high exploitation of fragile lands, particularly in the main crop cultivation area that has also been the site of intense fighting – stretching along the western coast and eastward along the northern border with Turkey – has resulted in further degradation. Coupled with the contamination of land and soil by war material, degradation exacerbates the erosion process, leading to a loss of agricultural production in these areas. Soil erosion not only caused loss of fertile land but also increased sedimentation and pollution in the rivers and streams. As a result, fish production declined by 63%.
The use of chemical and explosive weapons, containing elements of heavy metals, fuel, solvents, and energetic materials that have contaminated groundwater and soil, are likely to cause serious environmental concerns for the future of the agriculture sector in Syria, affecting both the economy that for years relied on agriculture production and exacerbating other forms of future environmental fallouts such as droughts, sandstorms and decrease in rainfall. This impact on the agriculture sector along with soil and water contamination will have a dire consequence on the future of the food supply in Syria: intensifying the problem and increasing the reliance on importation; worsening the economic situation for future generations.
The war in Syria is ongoing, and the different possible scenarios and involvement of multiple parties in the conflict make it difficult to layout precise sustainability plans. But the following steps will be necessary for any sustainable reconstruction plan.
There is much we do not know about the effects of war on the non-anthropocentric environment. The intensive use of explosive and chemical weapons will have long-term consequences on both urban and non-urban environments within Syria and beyond, increasing health risks and poverty in the region. An assessment can start with measuring more precisely the conflict''s effects on the environment, detailing the location and status of environmental hotspots, establishing contingency measures for the treatment of hazardous waste, and generating knowledge of the possible environmental threats at the community level. Such an assessment must focus on socio-economic inequality as it intersects with and exacerbates environmental harm.
This information can be collected via a variety of data sources, including through citizen research performed by local actors as an innovative way to gather and exchange environmental damage information – a task that could be coordinated by UNOSAT, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), or branches of humanitarian organizations such as the REACH initiative and the Joint Environmental Unit of the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and UNEP.
The challenge of production incentives and the associated problems of irrigation and climate-smart cultivation are key factors in the recovery of the agricultural sector. While irrigation is still crucial for most rural households, some new practices need to be adopted to prevent aquifer degradation. These include:
Syria''s reconstruction should be used as an opportunity for practitioners to adopt sustainability values. Sustainable architecture enables planners to limit the usage of new construction supplies, to be vigilant when using current building materials, and recycle building material from demolished buildings. One good option could be the application of green building codes such as the LGGE Energy Efficiency Code in Buildings, which is a global project funded by the Global Environmental Facility and implemented by the UN Development Program, aimed at reducing CO2 emissions by implementing thermal and energy-efficient building codes for new construction. Such a project was planned for Syria but cancelled in 2013.
It is easy to be sceptical about expanding Syria''s reliance on solar energy in light of the many international actors interested in Syria''s reconstruction process. Yet reconstruction requires energy, and as the cases of Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan demonstrate, it can prove onerous to produce electricity from oil and natural gas due to the security threats and concerns associated with redeveloping centralized power generation and widespread distribution networks during the insurgency. Solar panels would help to offset some of these security concerns in Syria. Rethinking industrial priorities and switching to renewable energy is a necessary step. Supporting the expansions of clean energy such as solar power can be pursued by:
Syria could sell its scrap metal including military material and recycle it reducing the disposal costs and raising revenues (like the case of Afghanistan,). Aluminium and steel are energy materials that contain the energy necessary for their processing, such as the refining of iron ore, the heating and shaping of goods and the transport of comparatively heavy materials. The energy needed for the process of re-using or creating new items requires a lower energy level and minimum processing to achieve it, making recycled metal a long-lasting material that does not need frequent replacement (Americas, 2016).
To address the difficult issue of debris and solid waste, key elements should include:
Syria can take steps to overcome its longstanding water challenges by responding to the urgent dynamics caused by the protracted conflict, through:
Natural resources are in high demand in any post-conflict situation, especially to restore or construct new housing and infrastructure, as well as to re-establish livelihoods and the economy in general. The activities at the core reconstruction, such as removing rubble, clearing munitions, cleaning destroyed industrial sites, and restoring damaged water and sanitation systems, must all be focused on a sustainable recovery to prevent further environmental degradation.
Addressing and mitigating the environmental challenges identified in this paper will require collaboration and planning between different local and international authorities and organizations. Preparing plans to mitigate the environmental harm and promote green recovery will require a compromise agreement on economic and environmental recovery between the actors. These plans must engage with all players at the international, national, and local levels will help to avoid "blinders" in environmental policy design. Ultimately, what is needed is a well-informed, flexible, and multifaceted approach that incorporates short-term environmental emergency needs with long-term environmental efforts.
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