Drought, drilling, diversion: Daraa’s deepening water crisis

PARIS — The land is dry, and the water does not come. For Abu Said in Inkhil, northern Daraa, it is an expensive problem. Without public water for more than a month, he has spent half his monthly salary on trucked-in water for his family of eight: five tankers at a total cost of around 550,000 Syrian pounds ($39). 

In earlier months, “water came through the network no more than once a month, for a few hours” at best, Abu Said told Syria Direct. Degraded infrastructure and historic drought has left Syria in a deepening water crisis that is acutely felt in the country’s southern, agriculture-reliant Daraa province. 

Not far from Abu Said’s home, dozens of water tankers line up, waiting for their turn to fill up at a privately owned well. Their customers wait, too, for “hours, because the wells have become less productive and water is scarce,” he said. Each time he needs water, he books an appointment two or three days in advance. 

The sight of trucks refilling household water tanks has become familiar in most Daraa cities and towns. The flow of water from springs and wells relied upon by Syria’s General Establishment for Drinking Water to provide water to the southern province has slackened. Some are dry. 

The flow from springs feeding the al-Ashaari water pumping station that serves most cities and towns in western and northern Daraa, alongside the provincial capital, has fallen by more than half in recent months alone.

But more than drought drains Daraa’s water. Syria’s new government points to illegal connections to the public water network that they say divert more than half the water pumped through it. Daraa Governorate has been working in recent weeks to remove encroachments in an effort to improve public water access. 

In late August, Daraa residents launched a fundraising campaign—entitled “Abshari Houran”—to fund improved services in Daraa in cooperation with state institutions, including servicing and operating the drinking water sector. 

Water tankers line up to refill at a private well in Nawa, a town in the western Daraa countryside, before selling water to residents, 11/8/2025 (Horan Free League)

Daraa’s water

Public water reaches some neighborhoods in Busra al-Sham, eastern Daraa, once a month. For most in the city, however, it comes every two months, resident Alaa al-Wadi said. When it does, “no more than five cubic meters” of water can be collected.

In Syria, as in neighboring countries like Jordan, public water is not continuously supplied but rather pumped through the network at set times for a number of hours. During this period, water fills storage tanks that are used until the next supply day.

“The public water network in Busra al-Sham works poorly, and its pressure is weak,” al-Wadi told Syria Direct. Residents are waiting for “the Abshari Houran campaign to solve the water problem” by funding improvements, he added. 

In Nawa, western Daraa, public water “has not reached some neighborhoods for nine months,” while others receive it “once every month or two,” journalist Emad Albasiri said. Most of the city relies on trucked-in water, each tank costing between SYP 100,000 and SYP 120,000 ($7.10-$8.50), he told Syria Direct. 

The water pumping schedule varies in Daraa cities, depending on which water project feeds them, how much water wells produce and the availability of electricity. Since the start of 2023, residents have tried to take matters into their own hands, with more than 20 civil initiatives aimed at raising money to repair and operate service projects—mainly to drill wells and install solar power units to run them. These efforts have not managed to fully solve the problem. 

In Inkhil, residents raised nearly SYP 3 billion ($349,000 in 2023) to drill and operate wells in the city. While “the donations exceeded the target, the initiative only solved 40 percent of Inkhil’s drinking water problem,” Muhammad Abdullatif (a pseudonym) said. Abdullatif previously held administrative positions in service sectors under the Syrian opposition in Inkhil, before the Assad regime retook the city under a 2018 settlement agreement. 

Abdullatif, who asked not to be identified by name, said the success of past projects was hampered by “corruption” under the former regime, with officers “imposing royalties on the civil initiatives.” He also pointed to what he described as the “negligence of those responsible for overseeing and implementing the projects—relying on tribalism and personal interests in [deciding] where to drill the wells, which resulted in some of them failing.” 

Inkhil’s population has swelled since the Assad regime fell last December, increasing demand for water and deepening the city’s shortage. “There is a real crisis over filling the tankers: at some wells, truck owners wait a day or two for a turn,” Abdullatif said. “Our orchards have died, the trees have become firewood.” 

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At home, Abdullatif’s family rations water use and has stopped household farming. He hopes “the Abshari Houran campaign will succeed in solving the water crisis,” but for now buys seven trucks’ worth of water a month for SYP 800,000 ($57), a “huge amount for water.” 

Beyond the water itself, the availability of electricity needed to operate pumping systems poses a challenge. “If electricity were available 24 hours a day, Inkhil’s water needs could be covered, mayor Abdulkhaleq al-Abbas said. “The number of pumping hours varies according to the availability of electricity. Wells reliant on electricity run for four hours a day, while those using solar energy operate for seven hours.” 

Despite this challenge, he held that “water service in Inkhil can improve if [the governorate] succeeds in preventing encroachments on the network” and reach global standards. 

An excavator clears an encroachment on public water lines in the al-Ashaari area of the western Daraa countryside, as part of a large-scale campaign involving the country’s General Security Service, 19/8/2025 (Daraa Governorate)

Drought and diversion

Syria is facing a generational drought. Rainfall is lower than it has been in nearly 30 years, which has severely damaged rain-fed crops and partially damaged irrigated crops, all while deepening the countrywide water crisis. Daraa received just 151 millimeters of rain this year, down from 293.5 millimeters in 2024.

Environmental expert Mwaffak Chikhali, a consultant at Syria’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment and founder of the Flora Syria scientific website, described the situation in stark terms: “bad, the driest in more than 60 years.” He pointed to successive years of “gradual rainfall deficits, a lack of administrative control over parts of the country in recent years” and “intense corruption, reflected in tremendous chaos in well-digging and groundwater resources not being monitored.” 

The number of unlicensed wells in Daraa alone is estimated at around 50,000, said Abdulrahman Sharida, an isotope hydrology expert from the province. These wells have driven “a drop in groundwater levels and the drying of most springs in the al-Muzayrib area west of Daraa, which [once] had a water discharge of around five cubic meters per second,” he explained. 

Read more: In thirsty Daraa, uncontrolled well drilling drives groundwater deeper

Solar panels, as a readily available, cheaper energy source to run well pumps, “contributed to an unprecedented increase in this depletion, bringing us to this catastrophic situation,” which in turn has impacted “the aquifer from east to west in Daraa,” Sharida said.

The drying of some wells—especially in the areas of al-Muzayrib and Tafas in western Daraa, once among the most abundant groundwater areas in the province—indicate “the surface layer has been depleted, and it may be nearly impossible to rehabilitate it,” Sharida said. The abundance and level of the water table varies from one part of the province to another, he added, describing the situation in the western countryside in particular as “very bad.” 

With less groundwater available, “the water quality will undoubtedly change,” Sharida added. The exceptions are deep wells that reach the Cretaceous-era aquifer underground, where “the quality is excellent, but at depths of between 800 and 1,000 meters, as in the case of the Assem well on the western edge of the al-Lajat area” of eastern Daraa.

In addition to the above, the effects of climate change cannot be overlooked. “Decreased rainfall, [changes in] rainfall patterns, shifts in rainy seasons and a significant decline in surface runoff,” amid rising temperatures, leads to “increased evaporation and decreased soil moisture, causing significant stress to vegetation,” Sharida said.

What water is drawn from the earth runs through networks that are “old and need to be replaced,” Riyad al-Masalmeh, an engineer and head of the General Establishment for Drinking Water in Daraa, told Syria Direct. They are porous, too, with illegal connections diverting some water from pipes before it can reach residents of cities and towns.

Encroachments on the network for agricultural use “drain around 90 percent of the network’s water, while residents’ consumption is no more than 10 percent,” al-Masalmeh said. His agency is working with the Water Resources Directorate to organize patrols to “control encroachments on pumping lines and follow up on unlicensed wells, in coordination with the governorate and internal security, dealing with encroachments and imposing deterrent fines.” 

In recent weeks, provincial authorities have cleared a number of violations and encroachments from public water networks while confiscating more than 18 unlicensed well drilling rigs.

Across Syria, agricultural water use accounts for around 85 percent of surface and underground water resources, while household use is less than nine percent, Chikhali said. “Many violations happen in rural areas, when water from the network for household use is taken for irrigation and agriculture.”

“One of the main challenges for the drinking water establishments is to control these violations, because of the economic losses they cause in terms of the cost of drinking water production and social pressures resulting from lack of access to public water,” he added.

Sharida stressed the need for residents “move away from popular understandings that tie the Houran to the production of tomatoes and potatoes,” crops that need more water, to “specific crops with high productivity, value and returns, in order to preserve what water remains.” 

To that end, authorities should “spread awareness,” he added, while residents “accustom ourselves to climate changes such as reduced rainfall and rising temperatures,” he added.

Faltering flow

The amount of water produced at the al-Ashaari water pumping station—a state-run facility that draws from a group of natural springs to feed vast areas of western and northern Daraa—fell from 500 cubic meters per hour to 200 cubic meters per hour in the past two months alone, one water engineer working there told Syria Direct, asking not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media. 

Syria Direct obtained data from a water official in the western Daraa countryside that shows a continuous decline in the flow at al-Ashaari from the time it was launched in 1999 until September 2025. The figures show a reduction of more than 80 percent over 26 years of operation. 

In 1999, al-Ashaari’s flow reached 1,083 cubic meters per hour, which fell to 750 cubic meters per hour by 2011. This past June, the rate was 500, before plunging to this month’s low of 200 cubic meters per hour. 

“The amount of water currently produced at al-Ashaari is not enough to run even one engine” to pump as it comes in, the official, who also asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said. Instead, “water is collected in the storage tank for four and a half hours, then the engine is run for two or three hours to pump it,” he added. “The more groundwater is withdrawn through unregulated wells, the lower the al-Ashaari water levels are.” 

The water engineer at al-Ashaari also pointed to excessive well drilling as a factor in falling groundwater levels and more sluggish springs, on top of the 2025 “drought year.” But electricity also plays a role, he said, as the station contends with “long power cuts and a low electrical current.” 

As a result, “the station pumps water for three hours, then stops pumping for at least two hours to refill the tanks,” the engineer added. Stop-and-go pumping prevents water from reaching areas far from the station, which require longer hours of continuous pumping. Al-Ashaari water has not reached Nawa for two months because doing so would require “14 unbroken pumping hours for the water to reach the collection tank in Tal al-Jumoua which feeds the city,” he explained.

The line feeding Nawa runs for 10 kilometers, and needs 2,830 cubic meters to be filled, requiring around 18 hours of continuous pumping at the current flow rate at al-Ashaari, according to the water official in western Daraa. Given power cuts and the low-voltage current, this is not currently possible. 

One solution to provide more water could be to dig deeper wells. Daraa province needs “underground wells at depths of more than 600 meters to reach groundwater, especially in the western countryside,” Khaled al-Hamdan, an assistant engineer at the Daraa Directorate of Water Resources, said. “Reaching groundwater is the least costly solution compared to those related to desalination, drawing water from far distances and others,” he added. 

The head of one water unit in western Daraa said “most of the Drinking Water Establishment’s wells in Daraa are not on the primary aquifer, where most of the unregulated wells are located, which have depths of between 100 and 250 meters and are highly exposed to drought.”

“The [water establishment] wells have not been affected much by random drilling into the primary aquifer, but their flow has still decreased,” he added on condition of anonymity. 

He attributed Daraa’s water problem to a “lack of logistical equipment and sources of energy needed for the wells to work” in the province. 

Syria’s Directorate of Water Resources and internal security forces confiscate two well drilling rigs in Daraa as part of a campaign to combat unlicensed well drilling. As of late August, 18 rigs had been seized, 24/8/2025 (Daraa Governorate)

Al-Masalmeh agreed. “The establishment’s existing water sources are not working at their full production capacity due to outdated equipment that needs to be replaced,” he said. At the same time, this does not negate the “impact of arbitrary drilling and climate change, which have led to a decrease in the abundance of springs and the drying of a number of wells belonging to the establishment.” 

The General Establishment for Drinking Water has 514 wells in Daraa, 120 of which are in need of rehabilitation, al-Masalmeh added. He stressed that the body “is working with all available capacity and staff to address any emergency outage and respond quickly” and responds to urgent water cuts by dispatching its own water tankers. 

“Work is underway to rehabilitate drinking water systems, replace water networks and run wells on solar power, in cooperation with international organizations supporting the water sector in the province,” he said. 

At the al-Ashaari station, there are “emergency measures to increase pumping to 400 cubic meters per hour,” the water engineer there said. In turn, the drinking water establishment is installing “power infrastructure and everything needed to draw water and support pumping sources. The work is expected to be complete within days,” he said. 

With funding from the Abshari Houran donations campaign, the water establishment also plans to dig new wells, al-Masalmeh added. It has submitted “proposals to the campaign management and the governor to find supportive water sources in thirsty areas and rehabilitate drinking water systems, which we will announce and complete during the coming months.” 

“A real, modern study of the groundwater situation in the province should be conducted, and wells drilled after that to reach it” deep underground, al-Hamdan of the water directorate said. “Surface wells are always at risk of drought and declining abundance in any drought year.” He worries about “the majority of the remaining wells drying, if next year is a drought year.”  

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.