Euphrates-Tigris case study

Key messages

• Droughts are a regular and not an exceptional feature in the region. They have significant adverse social, environmental, health, and economic impacts, mainly where rainfed farming is practiced and places where there are existing pressures on water resources.
• These impacts have played a significant role in population movements, including migration, and will continue to do so, possibly with increasing speed, in the future.
• Droughts can play an exacerbating, catalytic, or triggering role in social unrest and political instability when they precede or occur at the same time with social and humanitarian crises such as mass migration, widespread malnutrition, and rural poverty, as in Syria, following the 2006-2010 drought.
• Social unrest and political instability make proper drought management very difficult to implement.
• It is imperative to address the mutually exacerbating relationship between droughts and social and humanitarian issues with a broad approach to food security and water availability, including measures to increase resilience, manage risk, and establish/expand safety nets.
• Tackling droughts at a basin-scale can help facilitate cooperation among the riparians. Evidence from the past involves attempts for cross-border cooperation over coping with droughts and drought management. However, drought resilience dwindles in the region due to prolonged conflicts and economic decline.
• Innovative drought strategies can significantly support resilience building and adaptive capacity development at a regional scale at national and sub-national levels.
• There is good room to align policies for disaster risk reduction, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development.

This case study is a contribution to the GAR Special Report on Drought 2021.