**1.1 Syria double-headed problem: conflict and drought**

Over the past decade, MENA countries have experienced severe land degradation which has led to reduced productivity, increased water scarcity, and loss of arable land [2].

The agriculture sector in South Syria relies heavily on irrigation, but ever since the start of the conflict the agricultural irrigation infrastructure has been severely impacted by the total damage to agricultural infrastructure and assets [19]. Farmers in the south governorates are still linked to their lands. To irrigate their lands, the wells used generators running on diesel to pump water, due to the depth of the ground water table. However, due to limited income, fuel, and power, many wells are nonoperational as a result. Most of the KII respondents highlighted that solar-powered pumps should be installed in locations where wells are of an appropriate size and have a sufficient catchment area. Their main constrains from installing solar systems are that wells with a high volume of flow and outputs require large solar arrays to power water pumping. Arrays that are too large may be targeted for air strikes.

A country like Syria is facing a double-headed problem [3]: Syria is going into its 10th year of conflict while facing impacts of climate change, such as droughts. In 2006, at the beginning of the current drought in Syria, rainfall declined by 66 percent across the country [4]. As rainfall declined and temperatures rose, the rate of evaporation of groundwater also increased through the years, which has caused widespread evaporation to remarkably decrease the level of groundwater [5]. Much of the water used in Syria comes from the Euphrates River, which originates in Turkey; at the same time, Syria is sharing the Al-Yarmouk transboundary basin with Jordan.

The Syrian case illustrates the risk multiplier effect of climate change. Since the 2007/2008 agriculture season, around 75 percent of agriculture-dependent households suffered total crop failure, leading 1 million people into food insecurity and forcing many to join urban centers. The intense stress upon urban resources resulting from the increased demographic pressure is likely to have aggravated an already tense socioeconomic and political context [2]. In addition, the conflict has increased the cutting and burning of forests and caused agricultural land and rangelands pollution because of irregular oil refining activities. Between 2000 and 2015, forest land cover decreased by 8.04 percent; shrubs, grassland, sparsely, vegetated areas by 14.2 percent, and arable lands by 0.08 percent. On the other hand, artificial area land cover has increased by 50.10 percent, bare lands by 4.06 percent, and water bodies/ wetlands by 0.75 percent [6].
