“Once you could dig a metre underground to find water,” says a resident of Khurais Village, Salamieh. “Now, you have to reach down 50 or 100 metres.” Syria is currently facing its worst drought in 70 years as a result of unseasonably low levels of rainfall since autumn 2020. Over 60 percent of Syria’s land is vulnerable to drought. Many households must buy their water from private trucking services: expensive, unsustainable and of variable quality.

“The water resources in Salamieh District are very poor,” says Yasmin Haidar, Planning and Construction Manager for the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH). “We are dependent on the streams around the district and on water pipelines from Alkantara and Alshomarieh. Each household has a 500-1,000 litre water tank on the roof, and one day per week to 10 days depending on the location, the authorities pump water to it. Each person gets perhaps 100 litres per week. So this is a problem for washing, for drinking water, and also for watering. It is the same issue in the villages, such as Barri. It’s also due to climate change, because rainfall has become very low over the last 5-10 years, and it’s becoming less year by year.”

AKAH has undertaken a study mapping and modelling water resources in Salamieh. It shows potential ways to develop the water resources and infrastructure in the two most heavily populated areas in the district, the city of Salamieh and Eastern Barri Village. It also indicates how short-to-medium term temporary solutions, such as solarising local boreholes, can benefit other communities.

“Some applications come from the community and we verify them with the water authority, then decide which projects to implement,” says Yasmin. They are selected according to criteria including the severity score of the area, the number of beneficiaries and the sustainability of the proposed intervention.

Explore three of the projects below.

Building solar pumps

Barri Village’s piped water supply system only provides water once a fortnight on average and residents purchase water from private water trucks to meet their daily needs.

Barri was selected for one of six solar panel installations. The panels provide energy to pump water from the village well to a high tank in the village centre. The system follows the national guidelines to ensure sustainable extraction of the groundwater. The community contributed 10 percent of the cost, and decided on a committee to manage distribution. AKAH trained three members in water management and infrastructure maintenance, and remains available for advice.

Conserving water

“When I was a child, the lands were covered in vegetation and cotton,” recalls Mohammed Zidane, a Barri resident. “The Bedouin herders would bring their livestock to our water channels from as far as the Iraqi borders. We used to harvest the crops of barley and wheat and then use the land to plant vegetables. Cherries, apples, peaches and pears were common crops back then.

“But now the land is left bare after harvesting. Our previous crops require more water and a milder climate. But the temperature is around three degrees higher and the rainfall has dropped drastically. We plant only olives, figs and vine trees since they are more resilient to drought and high temperature. When I stayed with my family in a nearby village, they could barely get a litre of water from their taps. I’m very worried about the next 5-10 years. Climate change has affected every aspect of our life.”

Mohammed and his family volunteered for a pilot household greywater recycling system. Working with the family, AKAH introduced a system that collects the household’s greywater – used for washing dishes, laundering clothes and bathing – and recycles it for domestic reuse and watering plants and trees. The family oversaw the work and learned to maintain its system. “Mohammed encouraged his neighbours to install similar projects to save the huge amount of greywater that gets wasted,” said Ziad Alfeel of AKAH.

Harvesting rainwater

AKAH has implemented five rainwater harvesting tanks in Salamieh and Al-Khawabi villages to provide a safe drinking water source at a household level. The families were trained to install and use the systems.

From their experience so far, the team has developed a three-pronged approach to find long-term solutions. “We must build links with external, sustainable water resources, develop the distribution infrastructure to prevent loss of water along the way, and support local communities to find sustainable solutions to accessing and preserving water. We need to encourage people to manage water resources, because a drop of water here, it’s all the world,” says Yasmin.