Projects to Protect Water Resources from Pollution

DAMASCUS, (ST) – Syria lies in a semi- arid area which is characterized with scarcity of water resources and lack of compatibility with the regional distribution of the population and thus these resources will be exposed to great pressures in quality and quantity and an increase in demand for water that exceeds the volume of the renewable and available resources in some places and other data are the basis upon which the integrated management of water resources as atop priority due to the importance of water in the national economy, which depends basically on irrigated farming which is considered the largest consumer of water.

The Ministry of State for Environment Affairs as a government agency is responsible for protecting the environment elements, particularly water resources. The ministry doesn’t implement investment projects on the ground such as supplying drinking water or providing sewage services.

Director of Water Safety Bureau at the Ministry of State for Environment Affairs, Eng. Reem Abed Rabbo, said that “the ministry is a body that supervises on water resources, maps out the related environmental specifications, follows up the implementation of its projects by concerned authorities which reflects positively on the environmental situation of water.” 

  Eng. Abed Rabbo confirmed that the ministry, in all its environmental reports issued since the nineties, had given special attention to the protection of water resources, pointing out that the problem of water contamination occupies apriority among the rest of the other environmental problems.

“Syria is among the countries that prepared a national strategy for sustainable development and the ministry seeks access to water bodies and clean waterways by 2025 as a strategic objective. The ministry is implementing a range of activities and projects that will enhance the work on integrated environmental management of water resources, including monitoring projects and integrated environmental management of major rivers and lakes. The idea starts from the need to develop a national plan to reduce gradually of pollutants that are usually discarded in water bodies and main courses of water to get safe and pure water by 2025,” Eng. Abed Rabbo added.

“To achieve this goal, a survey is conducted to all resources of contamination in the river basins and then projected onto digital maps, mapping out a national plan for environmental integrated monitoring of water resources and developing a national plan for environmental management of river basins that aim at gradual reduction of pollutants by 2025,” Eng. Abed Rabbo clarified.

“The work has actually begun in the basin of the North Great River since 2011 to implement the first phase of the project, where all resources of contamination and the sites of discharge on the North Great River, its branches and Lake 16 October Dam were surveyed. All data is downloaded on digital maps by using geographic information system in addition to maps that define sites of sewage contamination,” Eng. Abed Rabbo added.

“All resources of pollution and the sites of discharge at Al -Abrash River in Tarous were surveyed and the work will start in the future to implement the same project on the Southern Great River, Orontes River and Euphrates Dam. In parallel with the implementation of these projects, the ministry plans to set up environment observation networks on main rivers,” Eng. Abed Rabbo pointed out.

Eng. Roula Jabbour, from the Directorate of Water Safety, underlined that setting up environment observation networks on the Northern Great River in Lattakia later will be a first step to be circulated to the rest of rivers in later stages.

Sh. Kh.