The Damascus Ghouta

Introduction: The Damascus Ghouta is a green agricultural belt surrounding the city of Damascus in the South and East. Separating the city from the Syrian Steppe, it has provided its inhabitants with a variety of cereals, vegetables and fruits for thousands of years. While human settlements in the area date back to ancient times, an uncontrolled development of the area took place throughout the past decades. The increasing food demand by the rapidly growing population of the capital, urbanization and industrial development have increased the pressure on the agricultural lands.

Land-Use & People

Agriculture is the predominat land-use in the Damascus Ghouta, characterized by a mosaic-like pattern of comparatively small fields and heterogeneous distribution of different crops. This heterogeneity in land-use also applies to a temporal scale, as vegetation patterns and density undergo pronounced seasonal changes.

In the Damascus Ghouta the cropping season is perennial. The different crops have their main seasons but the major crops, the vegetables - though varying - are grown all year long and irrigated mainly by flood irrigation. Vegetables, cereals and forage crops are cultivated as single crop or in form of undergrowth in fruit plantations. Waysides as well as ditch and channel banks are planted with poplar and walnut trees. Some cotton is included in the crop rotation. Forage crops are maize, alfalfa and some scattered fields of green barley and green wheat. Animal husbandry, mainly small holder dairy farming, is also common

Urban space has increasingly spread out over the fertile agricultural lands of the Ghouta. A comparison of satellite images of part of the area has shown that soil sealing increased by nearly 300% between 1970 and 1994. Besides the creation of living space for the steadily growing population also the industrial development has contributed to this tremendous increase in sealed area.

Industry: Scattered small-scale operations of concrete-brick production or furniture manufacturing are found all over the area. Many small-scale and some larger tanneries are located in Zablatani. From there towards SE and further downstream of the Barada river other medium to large-scale factories for textiles, paint and nylon manufacture line up close to the river banks. Pharmaceutical, match, pencil, and plastic production of medium to larger scale are located along the Zebdini Channel.

Resources & Hazards

Water Scarcity: The Ghouta receives an average of 100-260 mm annual precipitation only, with increasing aridity towards the eastern margins. At an annual evapotranspiration of 1600 mm, agriculture depends on additional irrigation water to ensure the high crop yields and variety of products cultivated on the Ghouta's fertile soils. Furthermore, the growing water demand of the almost 4 Million inhabitants and developing industry in the Greater Damascus area has to be met.

In former times the water that the region's major rivers Barada and Ahwash brought from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains to the city of Damascus was sufficient to meet both the city's and the farmers' demand. Nowadays, severe water shortages occur during the dry summer months, affecting both domestic water supply and agriculture. A vast number of wells provide an additional source of irrigation water, but as present water consumption far exceeds natural replenishment, a rapid decline of groundwater levels has been registered in large parts of the Ghouta. Springs and shallow wells dried up in many areas and the productivity of water wells decreased. In this tense situation of water supply, the contamination of available water and soil resources is a particularly critical issue.

Pollutants originating from the city’s traffic, industry, waste and sewage have short pathways into the Ghouta agricultural belt. Some of the area’s industrial plants still discharge effluents - in violation of existing standards - directly to the neighbouring rivers without any on-site treatment. This is particularly severe in the case of the numerous tanneries, with their high output of heavy metals.

A central treatment plant for the capital’s domestic waste water was established at Adra in 1996, about 15 km northeast of the city. From there, the treated wastewater is pumped back to the northern and central part of the Ghouta and used for irrigation. Despite this progress, concerns remain about whether the existing treatment cycles are sufficient to provide water safe for re-use in agriculture. Furthermore, many of the settlements and towns located in the vicinity of the city are not yet connected to waste water treatment plants.

Downstream of Damascus, both treated and untreated sewage waters account for almost the total water load of the plain's rivers, channels and ditches during the hot and dry summer season, when "natural" surface water is rare. Besides an intensive and poorly controlled abstraction of groundwater, this "artificial" surface water is entirely used for irrigation in around 60% of the Ghouta area.

Not only the quality of the irrigation water poses a serious threat to groundwater and soil resources in the area: Excessive use of agrochemicals and fertilizers by farmers, airborne pollution - i.e. lead from fuel combustion - and uncontrolled waste dumping lead to a sustained input of noxious agents. As a consequence, pollutants may accumulate continuously in the soil cover, threatening crop production and shallow groundwater bodies in the long run.

Drinking water for Damascus is currently provided mainly by the Fidji spring and some wells along the Barada river. This comparatively “clean” source of supply, however, is unlikely to keep pace with the development of the region. Because of the expected higher future demand of the city, less uncontaminated water will be available for crop production, or even more drinking water will be drawn off from the Ghouta plain. Large parts of the rapidly growing suburban settlements depend already now on local groundwater of often low quality.

The future of water supply for the Syrian Capital is interrelated with the environmental situation in the Damascus Ghouta. Appropriate management concepts for the sustainable use of groundwater and soil resources have to be developed and implemented.

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