Summary

In northeast Syria, the Euphrates remains central to daily life. Its waters sustain crop agriculture and vital hydroelectric power, while its water course defines patterns of urbanization, warfighting, and illicit smuggling. Yet the ebb and flow of the river are changing. Water scarcity has become a defining challenge for humanitarian response and future stabilization in Syria. This challenge is shaped by the complexities of transboundary water management, accelerating climate change, and 14 years of conflict. Although the unanticipated fall of Bashar al-Assad has opened doors for more complex and impactful donor assistance, including scaling reconstruction, the challenges to be addressed in northeast Syria’s water sector are substantial. The region’s water systems are strained by pollution, infrastructural development and decay, and unregulated resource extraction—factors that both drive and reflect broader socioeconomic instability.

This report is a comprehensive exploration of the multidimensional nature of water vulnerability in northeast Syria. It analyzes the connections between issues as diverse as transboundary water management, illicit economies, climate change, environmental degradation, and public health. By weaving together case studies and cross-sectoral analysis, it offers humanitarian actors a comprehensive framework to better understand and respond to these crises, supporting more strategic, integrated programming across water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), health, food security, livelihoods, and early recovery sectors. The report seeks to address questions concerning the cyclical nature of water-related vulnerability and the relationship between water management in Türkiye and downstream impacts in Syria. It adopts a combination of satellite-based measurements and field-based data collection. The report has two sections.

The first section of this report demonstrates how satellite measurements can be employed to assess changes in water levels and storage practices, river flows, and vegetation density. These assessments inform broader analysis of water use practices. The use of such tools can support monitoring and early warning for downstream water scarcity in areas with limited ground measurement capacity, thus enabling advocacy, pre-positioning, and other activities to mitigate adverse humanitarian outcomes.  

In the second section of this report, field-based data is used to contextualize the water crisis and to explore the linkages between thematic concerns. Three case studies are presented, each analyzing the complex relationship of multidimensional vulnerability related to water, such as declining water access, weak governance, disrupted livelihoods, and increasing levels of pollution. The first case study, focusing on Ar-Raqqa, demonstrates how rising levels of pollution and declining river flows intersect to drive public health risks and challenges to agriculture in northeast Syria. The second case study focuses on Al-Hasakeh. It demonstrates the cascading, multisectoral impact of the water crisis, based on failures of critical water and hydroelectric infrastructure. The third case study examines how oil smuggling, the consequence of economic collapse and weak oversight, has become a key driver of environmental degradation, contaminating water supplies and compounding community vulnerability in Deir-ez-Zor. The case studies support humanitarian intervention planning by identifying the need to integrate multi-sectoral approaches to complex challenges affecting water access, economic stabilization, and economic recovery.  

Key findings

Transformation and Climate Change

• Euphrates River Basin transformation: The water system is undergoing a transformation that will challenge traditional agriculture, livelihoods, and disaster management practices in the long term.

• Climate change: Rising temperatures, more intense and frequent drought, and increasingly erratic rainfall patterns are already affecting Syria’s rivers, including the Euphrates and Khabur, and are expected to worsen over time.

• Infrastructure development: Upstream damming and irrigation in Türkiye since the 1970s are a factor in reduced water levels in Syria, compounding climate-related scarcity and contributing to diminished hydroelectric generation, heightened pollution levels, and declines in water access for household, industrial, and agricultural use.

• Remote sensing and early warning: Satellite-derived measurements of water levels at dam sites support early-warning detection for water shortage in Syria. For instance, increased water storage at the Atatürk, Birecik, and Karmis dams in Türkiye during drought periods reduces storage downstream, including in Syria. Drought conditions in Türkiye are therefore an indicator for reduced water levels in Syria. In Syria, water storage at the start of droughts is not sustained through multi-season dry periods, highlighting limited storage capacity and the need for realistic aid response planning.

• Khabur River shortages: Water levels for dams on the Khabur exhibit a significant decline that will be difficult or impossible to reverse, with dire consequences. Affected communities within Al-Hasakeh are likely to experience worsening water supply challenges, increasing the reliance on adaptations such as wells and water trucking.

Key Water-Sector Impacts

• Driver of displacement: Water access is increasingly relevant as a driver of displacement and relocation, and families fleeing Al-Hasakeh city have cited water insecurity as a primary factor in their displacement. Elsewhere, land prices in groundwater-rich areas like the village of Tel Irfan have soared as urban residents prioritize water access as they move to escape water scarcity.

• Weaponization of water infrastructure and resources: Water scarcity, infrastructural vulnerabilities, and the weaponization of natural resources intersect to deepen humanitarian crises. Service outages at the Alouk Water Station have repeatedly deprived up to 1 million people of water, while the Tabqa Dam—Syria’s largest hydroelectric facility—has been a focal point of conflict, underscoring the fragility of essential services during periods of instability.

• Water governance and the diminishing legitimacy of local authorities: Local authorities have limited capacity to address the most pressing water governance issues, including politicization, upstream damming, and the severe consequences of contamination and pollution. As a result, critical matters related to water distribution and contamination mitigation measures are relegated to private markets and households, increasing disparities and undermining authorities.

• NGO and stabilization support: NGOs provide critical support where local authorities lack capacity, yet humanitarian assistance in the form of water tanks and home filter kits is unsustainable in the long-term. Stabilization actors, as well as foreign government interventions (such as the US State Department), have also provided critical servicing related to water infrastructure by clearing UXOs/ERWs and rehabilitating canals, retention dams, water stations/pumps, and water lines. While the criticality of these interventions is high, protracted security challenges, fractured governance, a lack of meaningful systemic planning, and inadequate resourcing have limited the positive impact on water management systems.

• Privatization of water access and hydroelectricity alternatives: Chronic shortages in state-provided WASH services have pushed Syrians to depend on costly private water markets. At the same time, reduced and inconsistent hydroelectric output from the Tabqa Dam has driven households to adopt alternative energy sources; some, such as diesel generators, offer unsustainable solutions while others, such as solar energy systems, are inaccessible to many households due to cost. Together, these adaptations can strain household budgets, worsen food security, health, and environmental outcomes, and reshape social dynamics. In Al-Hasakeh, nearly all households now rely on private water tanker deliveries from Al-Hamma and Nafasha, north of Al-Hasaka city, due to the collapse of public supply systems. While the expansion of water trucking has maintained access to a critical service, it has also undermined public accountability, weakened the role of state institutions, distorted local markets, and created misaligned economic incentives.

Interlinked, Multi-Sectoral Impacts

• Water-borne diseases: The emergence of cholera in Syria in 2022 is emblematic of the cascading failures of water infrastructure and waste management, while shattered health and sanitation systems struggle to cope with resulting needs. Critically, water-borne diseases disproportionately impact children under five.

• A range of systemic health impacts: Medical professionals in Ar-Raqqa have linked the ingestion of highly polluted and stagnant water to rising incidence of acute diarrhea, vomiting, stomach inflammation, typhoid fever, and hepatitis, particularly among children. Water pooling and reduced flows have also contributed to a rise in mosquito-borne disease and leishmaniasis.

• Cyclical and cascading impacts: The spread of waterborne disease is aggravated by household financial stress. Households are unable to enact precautions against the risk of cholera in untreated Euphrates River water due to their prohibitive cost.

• Economic deterioration driving water degradation: The collapse of traditional livelihoods and employment opportunities has driven the illicit crossline oil trade in Deir-ez-Zor, where regular spills and leakage contaminate the Euphrates River. Oil contamination has fouled drinking water and been tied to a surge in public health issues, including cancers and rashes. Widespread water contamination also harms crops and agriculture. Crop destruction and soil degradation will hinder the restoration of agricultural livelihoods and regional economic stability.

• Interconnected water systems and markets: Declining vegetable production in the Deir-ez-Zor countryside, the result of low water levels in the Euphrates, has led to a rise in vegetable prices in southern Al-Hasakeh. This has resulted in increased investment in greenhouse agriculture, with solar-powered irrigation stabilizing supply.

• Stunted economies and long-term development: Reduced hydroelectric power generation ultimately contributes to Syria’s electricity crisis, itself a major factor in broader economic downturn and the loss of household resources and time. Improving water management will be a necessary precondition for restoring power grids and enabling long-term recovery over vital service networks.

Recommendations

• Remote sensing tools and early-warning: Internationally derived remote sensing indicators such as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and NDWI offer potential indicators for early warning and anticipatory actions to protect livelihoods and mitigate adverse food security and livelihood outcomes of drought in the absence of national early warning systems.

• Humanitarian-development nexus: Humanitarian and development imperatives overlap in the case of Syria’s water resources. Emergency humanitarian needs for water for basic sanitation and household use are vitally important, yet addressing multidimensional vulnerability requires a systemic approach. Stabilizing water systems will require rehabilitation of damaged purification infrastructure and distribution networks, and sustained multi-year funding to allow this to take place.

• Stakeholder engagement and peacebuilding: Coordination of multiple stakeholders reliant on the Euphrates—including national and local governments, as well as agricultural and industrial actors—can facilitate dialogue on shared water use, pollution reduction, and co-developed mitigation strategies to protect shared vital resources. The significant political changes in the first half of 2025 also offers a critical opportunity for direct and meaningful engagement with governance actors as well, from Damascus to local administrative structures, to integrate and strengthen national-level strategies based on innovative practices, both in terms of evidencing the critical issues to planning scaled-up rehabilitation projects with more diverse funding sources – including potential private investment.

• Cross-border water governance: The Euphrates River Basin is affected by water management decisions made upstream, yet local authorities lack the platform and capacity to undertake requisite negotiations internationally. Addressing issues as diverse as hydroelectric power generation, pollution, and agricultural decline will require international support for empowered Syrian national authorities in evidence-driven discussions with Türkiye and Iraq over water rights, pollution management, and climate adaptations.

• Agricultural resilience: Declining access to safe and clear water is a major factor in the decline in northeast Syria’s agricultural sector. Supporting food security and resilient livelihoods through the cultivation of staple wheat and barley crops, as well as vegetable produce, will require addressing reduced water access for irrigation, infrastructural damage, and the contamination of soil and irrigation channels.

• Climate change adaptations: Programs must account for the changing environment and its pressures on livelihoods, food security, health and WASH outcomes. Conflicts over ever more scarce natural resources risk further instability.

• Livelihoods and pollution: Pollution is driven in part by poor regulation of small-scale factories, workshops, and agricultural runoff. Pollution control measures should be tailored in a way that improves outcomes without threatening community-level economic activity.

• Public health risks: River pollution and water-borne diseases have major public health implications, and they are exacerbated by weak governance and limited community resources. Humanitarian support can provide short-term mitigations, yet scalable, community-led solutions that improve water safety and reduce the disease burden in vulnerable areas will require sustained investment in local authorities, cleanup efforts, and the enforcement of relevant regulations.

• Aid sector coordination: NGOs and CSOs working across an array of sectors must coordinate to address the multi-sectoral drivers of water-related challenges while seeking partnerships and opportnities with formal governance actors. In the long-term, early recovery and reconstruction efforts should encourage ownership of outcomes by local authorities as a means of fostering capacity and responsiveness.

• Alternative energy solutions: Solar power has become a key supplemental source of electricity from the Tabqa Dam, particularly for crop irrigation and small businesses. Effective and sustainable early recovery may, in some cases, require adaptation rather than rehabilitation, particularly where communities have themselves identified alternatives that can be scaled.