Water in Syria

Syria receives most of its rain in winter, and rainfall declines sharply inland. Its largest water source is the Euphrates, which enters from Türkiye.^1 2 Before the war, farms accounted for most of the water withdrawn, and an irrigation boom drew down the aquifers.^1 3 War and drought have since damaged the system and cut supply.^4 5 Since March 2025, a single Ministry of Energy has run the sector, which is being rebuilt station by station.^6 7

Syria’s towns and farms have long been built around its rivers. Mari, founded on the Euphrates around 2900 BCE, was linked to the river by a diversion canal. The canal network found in its area, from the third millennium BCE, appears to be among the earliest known.^8 9 Around Damascus, channels cut from the Barada over the centuries water the Ghouta, a fertile belt in what would otherwise be arid land.¹⁰ At Hama, great wooden waterwheelsNoria A waterwheel used to raise water for irrigation. Turned by the stream, it carries pots or hollow chambers on its rim that fill under water and empty into a trough once they rise to the level of the wheel’s centre. Source: Noria, Encyclopædia Britannica on the Orontes raised water to aqueducts for drinking and irrigation; the oldest dated wheel is from 1361.^11 12 In the twentieth century the Euphrates itself was dammed: the Tabqa Dam was completed in 1975.^2 1 Irrigation then spread fast. Irrigated land more than doubled between 1985 and 2005, and by 2004 groundwater irrigated 60% of the equipped area.^2 1

The boom outran the water. By 2011, withdrawals had reached 160% of internal renewable resources.³ The 2007–10 drought, the worst in the instrumental record for the Fertile CrescentFertile Crescent The crescent-shaped belt of relatively fertile land where the first settled farming communities of the Middle East are thought to have begun. It runs up the Tigris and Euphrates, west over Syria to the Mediterranean and south to southern Palestine. Source: Fertile Crescent, Encyclopædia Britannica, broke the model: harvests failed, and up to 1.5 million people moved from farms to the edges of cities.³ The war then damaged wells, water towers and irrigation systems,¹³ and the Euphrates still depends on flows from Türkiye upstream.² When drought returned in 2025, FAO rated it one of the worst in nearly 40 years, and OCHA estimated that about 10 million people were struggling to meet basic water needs.^5 14

One interactive map of Syria's water, built from real geodata. Climate & drought maps the aridity gradient (WorldClim) with warming projections. The Water risk layer's WRI Aqueduct indicators, covering overall water risk, water stress and flood risk (plus groundwater decline where the trend is significant), shade every river sub-basin by its 0–5 risk score. Demand shows where the population, and the water demand, concentrate. Infrastructure brings the physical system together: rivers, dams (FAO AQUASTAT), treatment plants, desalination and the major conveyors. Shared waters outlines the transboundary river basins and aquifers that Syria shares with other countries, each drawn in full across the border; hover an outline for the countries that share it. Hover any sub-basin or marker for detail; sources are cited under each view.

Syria has four physical regions. A coastal strip lies below mountains and highlands that run north to south, parallel to the sea.¹ East of them lie the interior plains of Damascus, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Hassakeh and Daraa. The Badia and desert plains stretch south-east toward Jordan and Iraq.¹ The country covers 185,180 km², and about 5.91 million ha, 32% of it, was cultivable in 2005.¹

Rainfall

Rain falls mostly in winter and thins out quickly inland. The coast receives 800–1,000 mm a year and the mountains up to 1,400 mm.¹ The western plains and foothills get 300–600 mm, and much of the interior 100–200 mm. The national average is 252 mm.¹ Station normals for 1961–1990 show the gap. Safita, in the coastal hills, recorded 1,130.5 mm a year, and Tell Abyad in the north 296.7 mm.¹⁹ Summers are very dry, with high evaporation.¹⁹

Single years swing hard. In 2025 rainfall fell by nearly 70%, crippling 75% of the country’s rain-fed farmland.²⁰ The severe drought of 1998–99 cost 21.6 billion Syrian pounds at the prices of the time.¹⁹

In the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal’s ERA5 reanalysis, averaged over the whole of Syria, about 230 mm of rain falls in a year (1991–2020). Station records and national averages use other sources and baselines, so their figures can differ (the text cites a national average of 252 mm a year from FAO). About 50% of the rain falls in December, January and February, and 4 months average less than 5 mm. Average rainfall in 1993–2022 was about 4% lower than in 1951–1980, and single years swing widely around that.

Heat and drought

Summer temperatures pass 30 °C in most regions and at times 40 °C.¹⁹ The daily range can reach 32 °C in the interior, against about 13 °C on the coast.¹ Heat waves push temperatures 5–7 °C above the monthly average, and severe waves 8–10 °C.¹⁹ The initial national communication reports that heat waves and dust storms are increasing, especially in the east.¹⁹ Winter rainfall has declined over five decades in the north and north-east. Autumn rainfall has risen in the north and centre.¹⁹

The 2007–2010 drought was the worst in the instrumental record for the Fertile Crescent. Human influence on the climate made a drought of that severity more than twice as likely.³ Warming made the 2020–2023 drought across the Tigris–Euphrates basin, including Syria, 25 times more likely.²¹

The same reanalysis gives a mean temperature of 19.0 °C for 1991–2020 and a warming of about 0.53 °C a decade over 1971–2022. Station records and national reports use other sources and periods, so their warming rates can differ.

Projections

Models point to a hotter and drier eastern Mediterranean.³ In the World Bank’s CMIP6 ensemble, Syria would have about 77 more days a year above 35 °C by 2080–2099 under high emissions. It had about 72 such days in 1995–2014.²² The national communication’s older model runs cut annual rainfall by 20–60 mm in 2040–2069, against 1961–1990.¹⁹ Rain-fed wheat would need 9.6% more water, 469 mm a season, and yields would fall 21% unless water is added.¹⁹ On the coast, rising seas could flood 17.56 km² by 2100 in the lowest scenario and 118.90 km² in the most extreme.¹⁹

Projected change for Syria

The table gives the CMIP6 multi-model median from the same World Bank portal, as change against 1995–2014. Projections cited in the text may use other models, scenarios or baselines, so their figures can differ.

Water is unevenly placed. The Euphrates, Aleppo-Qoueiq, Tigris and Khabour basins have a limited relative surplus of groundwater. The coastal basin has a relatively large surplus that is not available for general use. Most water resources in the other basins are depleted, except those of the Badia steppe.¹⁹ Water resources per person stood at around 1,000 m³ a year when the initial national communication was written.¹⁹ The Euphrates, entering from Turkey, is the largest source.² Turkey’s 1987 undertaking on its flow at the border is set out under Shared waters. The aquifers of the north-east were drawn down by the pre-war irrigation boom, as the water use section describes.

Supply by source

FAO AQUASTAT holds no balance of water withdrawal by source for Syria, and no recent national one was found, so none is charted here.¹⁶

The main rivers

The table ranks the rivers of Syria by the largest natural flow they reach inside the country. Natural flow is the modelled long-term average before any withdrawals. For a heavily used river it measures what the river could carry, not what arrives today.

The dams on these rivers, from the FAO AQUASTAT inventory, are listed river by river under Infrastructure.

Syria withdrew 16.69 km³ of water in 2003, almost 31% more than in 1993, and 87.9% of it went to agriculture. Over the same decade municipal withdrawals rose 39% and industrial withdrawals 89%.¹ The Euphrates basin supplies more than half of the blue water the country uses.² By 2011 withdrawals had reached 160% of internal renewable resources, against 80% in Iraq and about 20% in Turkey.³

The irrigation boom

Irrigated land more than doubled, from 652,000 ha in 1985 to 1.4 million ha in 2005, and then held steady.² Groundwater drove most of the growth. Wells rose from 53,000 in 1988 to 124,000 in 1994 as the state promoted irrigated cash crops such as cotton, helped by fuel subsidies.²⁴ By 2004 groundwater irrigated 60% of the equipped area. Farmers on individual groundwater irrigation systems paid for subsidised energy but nothing for the water itself.¹ A 2005 law required licences for new wells, but it was not enforced.³

The state schemes fell short of their plans. The Euphrates Valley Project behind the Tabqa Dam targeted 640,000 ha, but gypsum soils and salinisation cut the goal to 370,000 ha.² Official data recorded 206,987 ha irrigated from the Euphrates in 2010, plus 59,550 ha from the Khabour and Jaghjagh.² Modern methods spread slowly. Sprinklers covered 130,200 ha in 2004, up from 30,000 ha in 1993, and localised irrigation 57,500 ha.¹ By 2010, the latest count in AQUASTAT, sprinklers covered 187,100 ha and localised irrigation 110,900 ha, of 1,341,000 ha equipped for irrigation (official values for the methods, an FAO estimate for the total).²⁵

Wheat, cotton and drought

Water policy served food policy. Wheat and cotton were among seven strategic crops whose official prices were normally set above world parity.²⁶ Wheat imports fell from 1.1 million tonnes in 1989–90 to almost nothing by 1998–99, and Syria declared self-sufficiency in the mid-1990s.^26 3 The 2007–10 drought broke the model. After the 2008 harvest failed, Syria imported wheat in large quantities for the first time since. Up to 1.5 million people moved from farms to the edges of cities.³ Drought returned in 2025, and wheat output was expected at 0.9 to 1.1 million tonnes.⁵

Use by sector

Withdrawals over time

The World Bank series charted below carries FAO AQUASTAT’s estimates of Syria’s freshwater withdrawals, a different measure from the total water withdrawal given above: 3.3 billion m³ in 1975, 14.4 billion m³ in 2003 and 14.0 billion m³ in 2012, AQUASTAT’s latest estimate. Agriculture’s share of freshwater withdrawals moved from 90% in 1994 to 88% in 2005, the latest estimate of the share.¹⁶

In 2004, FAO reports, 864,700 ha, 60% of the 1,439,100 ha then equipped for irrigation, were irrigated from groundwater, and the other 574,400 ha from mixed surface water and groundwater, of which 340,200 ha were government projects.²⁸ The Euphrates projects are under Shared waters and the totals under Water resources and Water use. Recent data are scarce. The World Bank wrote in April 2026 that the water table has fallen by up to 57 m in places, citing the transitional government’s Ministry of Energy for 552 boreholes and 27 springs that had dried up in recent years.²⁹ AQUASTAT’s count of 1,341,000 ha equipped is an FAO estimate for 2010, repeated to 2023.²⁵

Methods

FAO described surface irrigation as the prevailing system in 2004, covering 87% of the area, with field efficiency generally below 60%.²⁸

War and recovery

FAO estimated in 2017 that 20% of households had lost access to irrigation entirely and 40% had access at higher cost, and that 65% of cereal production had relied on irrigation before the crisis; it put damage to agricultural infrastructure and assets at US$3.2 billion, a provisional figure.³³ The World Bank’s US$3.4 billion for 2022 draws its irrigation estimate from FAO.³⁴ In September 2025 FAO said irrigation networks lay damaged or destroyed.³⁵ Its recovery plan for 2025–2027 budgets US$12.5 million for irrigation support and US$2 million for a national irrigation and drainage plan, and says damage assessments are urgently needed.³⁶ FAO called the 2025 drought the worst on record in nearly 36 years, with only about 40% of farmland cultivated.³⁷ FAO’s GIEWS forecast a wheat crop of 2.7 million tonnes for 2026, more than 50% above the five-year average, though the Euphrates floods of spring 2026 damaged crops in Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and Aleppo.³⁸ Project examples: UNDP and FAO restored the Sector 7 pumping station in Deir ez-Zor, expected to irrigate around 7,500 ha, in 2022;³⁹ FAO and Norway repaired the earthquake-damaged Mahardeh scheme in Hama, which covers 13,000 ha;⁴⁰ and the state news agency SANA reported in March 2026 repairs to the Al-Ghab J2 canal, which it says serves about 19,000 ha.⁴¹

Treated wastewater

A ministry author reported 37,000 ha irrigated with treated wastewater around 2002–2004, 2.6% of the irrigated area, mostly in the Damascus Ghouta; AQUASTAT gives 9,000 ha.^42 25 A 1990 ministry resolution prevents growing vegetables irrigated with wastewater.⁴²

The World Bank says that about 70% of wastewater treatment plants were severely damaged, and its April 2026 project includes a US$60 million rehabilitation of the Adra plant.^43 29 UNDP opened the Zibdeen plant in Eastern Ghouta in November 2025 to treat over 4,000 m³ a day for irrigation.⁴⁴ Plants are under Infrastructure; irrigation and reuse projects across the region are on the Agriculture & Food hub.

Syria has 166 dams with a total storage capacity of 19.7 billion m³, FAO recorded.¹ The Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates forms Lake Assad, which holds 14.1 billion m³ and covers 674 km².¹ Medium dams such as Al Rastan (228 million m³), Qattinah (200 million m³) and Mouhardeh (67 million m³) cluster near Homs and Hama.¹ Desalination is marginal, at 8,183 m³ a day of installed capacity in 2002.¹

Tracked projects

Open the project database for Syria

Before the war

In 2002 Syria produced 1,364 million m³ of wastewater and treated 550 million m³, mainly in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Salamieh. All treated wastewater was reused.¹ In 2006, 89% of people had access to improved water sources and 92% to improved sanitation.¹

War damage

The conflict cut national water supply by 30–40%, according to the World Bank’s 2023 earthquake assessment.⁴ In 14 cities assessed by the World Bank, damage to water and sanitation was put at US$124.9–379.7 million.¹³ About 17% of assets, mostly wells and water towers, were damaged, mainly in Aleppo and Idlib.¹³ Some 51% suffered reduced functionality, including 11% not working at all.¹³ Households filled the gap with tankered water of unregulated quality, at about US$7 per m³.¹³ Farm infrastructure, largely irrigation systems, suffered about US$3.4 billion in damage.¹³ Syria’s 2018 climate pledge (NDC) also blamed what it called “terrorist groups” for attacks on dams and irrigation networks and for poisoning water sources.⁴⁵

The war made the Euphrates dams military objectives. ISIS took the Tabqa Dam in 2013 or 2014; sources differ.^46 47 In late March 2017 fighting knocked the dam out of service, and the UN warned of flooding in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.⁴⁷ The SDF declared the town and dam taken on 10 May 2017.⁴⁸ The SDF had held the Tishreen Dam since December 2015. After the fall of the Assad government it became a front with Turkish-backed forces, until government forces began entering it in April 2025 under an agreement with the SDF.^49 50

The 2023 earthquake

The earthquakes of February 2023 added to the damage. The World Bank put water damage at US$129.7 million across nine cities and US$145.4 million across six governorates.⁴ Recovery needs reached US$232.1 million. A safety check of fissures in the Afrin and other dams became a short-term priority.⁴ In the hardest-hit areas, the share of households connected to sewers fell from 53.6% to 52.5% between December 2022 and April 2023.⁵¹

The 2026 flood

The Euphrates swung from drought to flood. In mid-May 2026 inflows reached about 2,200 m³/s, and the Euphrates Dam at Tabqa opened three spillway gates for the first time in more than three decades. At least 1,626 families were displaced in Deir ez-Zor.⁵²

Rebuilding

Recovery is proceeding station by station. In June 2026 Deir Ezzor restored seven water stations once Euphrates levels had stabilised.⁵³ In September 2026 the energy minister reopened two rehabilitated stations in Idlib, serving about 430,000 people. At al-Laj alone, 19 wells returned to service.⁷ The Energy Ministry’s strategy centres on repairing water and wastewater infrastructure, with renewable power and modern monitoring.⁵⁴

Dams and reservoirs

The Euphrates enters Syria with low salinity and leaves it saltier. The UN-ESCWA inventory records 248 ppm at Jarablus, rising to 600–800 ppm at the Iraqi border, probably because of upstream pollution from Turkish irrigation projects and Syrian farming in the Euphrates floodplains and the Balikh and Khabour sub-basins.² Untreated sewage also contributes. A UN assessment in February 2022 found that in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor almost all untreated raw sewage went into the river. The Euphrates supplies water to between 800,000 and 1.2 million people.⁵⁵

The Orontes is heavily polluted in its middle and lower reaches.²³ Sediment samples in 2010 exceeded guideline values for chromium, copper, nickel and zinc, with nickel at 129 ppm against a guideline of 21.²³ Untreated wastewater has long been used on fodder crops. FAO reported that typhoid and hepatitis infections rose tenfold in 1995–2000 compared with the previous five years.¹

Cholera

On 10 September 2022 the health ministry declared a cholera outbreak in Aleppo, linked to people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates.⁵⁶ It was the first in Syria since 2009.⁵⁷ By 8 April 2023 it had reached all 14 governorates, with 111,084 suspected cases and 104 deaths.⁵⁸ It crossed into Lebanon within six weeks.⁵⁹ The disease returned in 2024, with 1,444 suspected cases between August and December. In May 2025 the WHO launched a new response, citing drought and damaged water systems.⁶⁰

The reported indicators

Syria sits in the middle of its rivers. It lies downstream of Turkey and upstream of Iraq on the Euphrates. On the Orontes it lies downstream of Lebanon and upstream of Turkey, and on the Yarmouk it is upstream of Jordan.

The Euphrates: dams, protocols and deadlock

A 1926 convention between France, then the mandatory power for Syria, and Turkey committed both parties to coordinate their plans for using the Euphrates.² After attempts at joint projects failed in the 1960s, the riparians embarked on unilateral development plans and dam projects. Turkey’s Keban reservoir and Syria’s Lake Assad behind the Tabqa Dam both began filling in the winter of 1973–74.² Filling Tabqa cut the flow to Iraq and set off a crisis in 1975, resolved through Saudi and Soviet intervention.² Syria joined the Joint Technical Committee with Turkey and Iraq in 1983. After 16 meetings it deadlocked in 1992.⁶¹

In 1987 Turkey undertook to release an annual average of at least 500 m³/s at the Syrian border, pending a three-way allocation that never came.² Syria and Iraq then divided that flow, 42% to Syria and 58% to Iraq, in an accord that sources date to 1989 or 1990.^2 62 Turkey began filling the Atatürk Dam on 13 January 1990, cutting flows to Syria and Iraq by about three-quarters for a month.⁶³ Syria completed the Tishreen Dam upstream of Lake Assad in 1999.² In 2002 Iraq agreed that Syria could pump 1,250 MCM a year from the Tigris. A 2009 cooperation agreement with Turkey was read as Turkish approval of the scheme.⁶¹

Between 2014 and 2020 Syria received its full share of Euphrates water only once, in 2019.⁵⁵ In spring 2021 the Kurdish-led administration said the flow from Turkey had fallen to nearly 200 m³/s, forcing the Tishreen Dam to cut power to eight hours a day. A Turkish source denied any cut and blamed the climate.⁶⁴ In April 2025 the same administration put inflow at about 250 m³/s, with Lake Assad some 4 bcm short of its normal level.⁶⁵

Alouk and Hasakah

Water became a lever in the northeast. The Alouk pumping station near Ras al-Ain served about 460,000 people by pipe and about half a million more by truck. After Turkey and allied forces seized the area in October 2019, it was entirely offline about a third of the time.⁵⁵ The UN counted at least 24 stoppages by July 2021.⁶⁶ Turkey attributed the outages to power cuts at the Derbasiyah substation.⁶⁴ Under a January agreement between the government and the SDF, the energy ministry took over the station in April 2026. It resumed pumping on 22 July 2026 after years of shutdowns and repeated interruptions, with 19 of its 34 wells initially operating.⁶⁶

The Orontes and the Yarmouk

On the Orontes, agreements with Lebanon in 1994 and 1997 gave Syria 323 MCM a year of the river’s Lebanese-sourced water and Lebanon 80 MCM.²³ A 2009 memorandum with Turkey launched a joint Friendship Dam of 110 MCM, and construction began in 2011. The dispute over Hatay province remains unresolved.²³ On the Yarmouk, the 1953 and 1987 agreements with Jordan provided for the Unity Dam and a joint commission.⁶⁷ Syrian use of Yarmouk water rose to about 200 MCM a year from the mid-1970s.⁶⁷ In April 2026 Damascus told Amman that Syria’s water will be shared with Jordan, and the two launched a joint platform for data exchange.^68 69

Since 2025

The energy ministry said Turkey’s warning of the May 2026 flood (see Infrastructure) came too late.⁷⁰ On 25 June 2026 Syria and Iraq signed a protocol on data exchange, including a proposal to revive the three-country technical committee with Turkey if all three approve.⁷¹ Turkey still describes the rivers as transboundary under its sovereignty, while Syria and Iraq want them treated as international rivers.⁶²

The record

Shared river basins

The agreements

Joint bodies

• Joint Syrio-Jordanian Commission (JSJC)Jordan · 1953 · Jordan, Syria
• Joint Technical Committee on Regional Waters (JTCW)Euphrates-Tigris · 1980 · Iraq, Syria, Turkey

Shared aquifers

• Anti-Lebanon Mountain rangeLebanon · data moderate
• Basalt Aquifer System (South): Azraq-Dhuleil BasinJordan · data good
• Basalt Aquifer System (West): Yarmouk BasinJordan · data good
• Jezira Tertiary Limestone Aquifer SystemTurkey · data moderate
• Neogene Aquifer System (North-West): Upper and Lower FarsIraq · data moderate
• Upper JeziraIraq, Turkey · data limited

Before the war, several ministries shared water management through the Council of the General Commission for Water Resource Management.¹ The Ministry of Irrigation managed water resources, controlled drilled wells and licensed new ones.¹ The Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform handled farm use and modern irrigation. The Ministry of Housing and Construction supplied drinking water.¹ In 2005 the Council of Ministers agreed to set up a national fund for modern irrigation.¹

The new structure

Since March 2025 water policy, supply, sanitation, water resources, dam safety and irrigation have been consolidated in the Ministry of Energy, formed by merging the ministries of water resources, electricity, and oil and mineral resources.⁶ It has a deputy minister for water and electricity affairs.⁵⁴ Legislative Decree 46 of 6 April 2026 created a single General Establishment for Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Minister of Energy, with a public water and sanitation company in each governorate replacing the former water establishments.⁷² Governorate companies run supply, such as the General Company for Drinking Water and Sewerage in Idlib.⁷ Aid agencies, including World Vision and Oxfam, work with the ministry on repairing facilities and transmission networks.⁵⁴ In August 2026 the energy minister reviewed water and wastewater investment opportunities with the Saudi-Syrian Business Council.⁷³

Tariffs and cost recovery

FAO reported in 2008 that irrigation charges did not reflect use. Under a 1999 prime ministerial decision, farmers paid a flat US$70 per hectare for permanent irrigation and US$12 for winter irrigation.¹ Operating costs reached about US$110 per hectare for pumped schemes, and there was no legal regulation for invoicing irrigation water by volume.¹

Syria faces reconstruction and a drying climate at the same time: the war’s cut in national water supply (see Infrastructure), the 2025 drought and, under high emissions, many more days above 35 °C by the end of the century (see Geography & climate).

The first tasks are practical: wells, pumps, power and pipes. Rehabilitated stations in Idlib now combine solar power with a connection to the public electricity grid.⁷ The harder task is farming. The pre-war boom drew aquifers down through wells that the licensing law never controlled (see Water use), and the flat irrigation fees FAO described in 2008 gave farmers no incentive to save water (see Governance).¹ Upstream, Euphrates flows still depend on Turkey (see Shared waters).²