Random Development and the Exacerbation of Water
Resources Depletion Issue in Syria from Socioeconomic
Historically, natural
Syria was rich regain with the natural resources
including the water resources. However, the
rapid random development in
the last few decades, has been dramatically
converting the country to be
largely arid. Haphazard urbanization,
overexploitation of land and water
resources, deforestation, and lack of waste
treatment lead to change in climate
cycle causing remarkable decrease in
rainfall. This consequence collaborates
with water contamination to make the
situation worse and exacerbate the
problem of water resource depletion. Barada
Basin is one of the tragic
examples for such a problem.
Barada Basin is one of the main basins in
Syria, which contains an
important resource of Water-Barada River,
and where the capital, Damascus,
is located. The huge immigration from rural
areas, illegal settlements,
industrialization, and urbanization cause
an apparent decrease in the green
land and high level of water contamination according
to discharge the
wastewater (domestic, industrial, and
agricultural) without any treatment. As
a result, Barada River becomes waste damp
turning to its death.
In this paper a primary socioeconomic
evaluation for the
environmental status in this basin related
to water pollution will be
performed. First, the problems will be
classified, causes and impacts. Then the
social and economic evaluation for each
problem will be done in order to
formulate a profile of optimal feasible
policy for improving the environmental
status in the basin and to be a master plan generalized for other basins.