The Impacts of the Contemporary Drought in Syria and Its Implications for the Conflict

Since the latter months of 2020, Syria has yet again fallen into a severe drought. This new drought is occurring in a country whose agricultural capacity has already been decimated by decades of agricultural and water misgovernance, and war, making it less capable of coping with a drought than at any point in its modern history. The paper analyzes agricultural stress-related satellite images and survey data to answer the following questions: How severe is the drought? What are the impacts on the country's agriculture, economy, and the humanitarian response? How might the drought affect the course of the conflict?