Dried up dam exposes water shortage severity in Syria

There is a stretch of dried up earth where water used to be in Duwaisat dam in northwestern Syria, near the Turkish border. The water that used to be stored in the dam supplied local farmers in a nearby town until weeks ago when it went dry. There are multiple factors that have led to the shortage, says Maher al-Hussein, an engineer at Duwaisat Dam. Damage to the main pipeline that feeds water from the reservoir to irrigation networks has led to significant leakages. Low rainfall in the past two years has also contributed to the shortage of water, leaving the dam dry for "first time in three decades," al-Hussein says. As a result, farmers who relied on the dam to water their crops are struggling. Among those farmers is Mohamed Hajj Hassan who lost his eggplant and pepper crops when the water stopped coming. International aid groups warned in August that millions of people in Syria and Iraq are at risk of losing access to water, electricity and food amid rising temperatures, record low water levels due to lack of rainfall and drought. More than 12 million people in both countries are affected, including 5 million in Syria who are directly dependent on the Euphrates River. Some 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of agricultural land faces drought, the groups said at the time, adding that two dams in northern Syria, supplying power to 3 million people, face imminent closure.