After reading the article attached,
I found that the Middle East, particularly Syria, has issues when it comes to its
natural resource of water. Water is the
life sustaining element that everything needs to survive. With climate changes taking its toll and the
fact that this region is susceptible to dry climates, the lack of water creates
a wide variety of issues for the country.
First
is that with dry climates, growing of local agriculture is impacted
heavily. This in turn provides a
shortage of food for the local populous driving imports of food higher for a
country that has over a million-people facing hardship. With low above ground water available, they
seek to irrigate land with ground water, which can be a costly project for both
the drilling of wells and electricity used to pump the water to the
surface. Draining the ground water table
also takes away from neighboring countries, reducing this natural resource availability
for the whole region.
With climate and water source
shortages, this impacts the local government to act in a way that causes more
turmoil in country that is already failing.
This leads to a global impact of refugees fleeing the country in search
of a better life. For starters, the
country is losing a work force that could find jobs because of a lack of
investment in the region. Then, with the
migration of the refugees to other countries, these safe havens that they seek
are gaining even more people to add to their work force that takes time to
implement. Part of this is that there
are cultural and language barriers that reside in any migration of a foreign populous
to a new region.
Between the conflict of water
shortage and a war-torn country, the people of Syria find that their only means
to survive is to leave the country and find a better way of life. Economies of scale and the rapid loss of a
population leaves Syria in a tight spot.
Government of this country, unfortunately, are seeing their country fall
to pieces and may not be able to recover.
My prediction is the complete collapse of Syria within the next decade,
and it being absorbed by one of the major powers that surround the country
through a long battle that will be costly on a global scale.