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This paper presents a two‐step framework to identify key water resource vulnerabilities in transboundary river basins where data availability on both hydrological fluxes and the operation of man‐made facilities is either limited or nonexistent. In a first step, it combines two state‐of‐the‐art modeling tools to overcome data limitations and build a model that provides a lower bound on risks estimated in that basin. Land data assimilation (process‐based hydrological modeling taking remote‐sensed products as inputs) is needed to evaluate hydrological fluxes, that is, streamflow data and consumptive use in irrigated agriculture—a lower‐end estimate of demand. Hydroeconomic modeling provides cooperative water allocation policies that reflect the best‐case management of storage capacity under hydrological uncertainty at a monthly time step for competing uses—hydropower, irrigation. In a second step, the framework uses additional scenarios to proceed with the in‐depth analysis of the vulnerabilities identified despite the use of what is by definition a best‐case model. We implement this approach to the Tigris‐Euphrates river basin, a politically unstable region where water scarcity has been hypothesized to serve as a trigger for the Syrian revolution and ensuing war. Results suggest that even under the framework's best‐case assumptions, the Euphrates part of the basin is close to a threshold where it becomes reliant on transfers of saline water from other parts of the basin to ensure irrigation demands are met. This Tigris‐Euphrates river basin application demonstrates how the proposed framework quantifies vulnerabilities that have been hitherto discussed in a mostly qualitative, speculative way.

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The countries of the Middle East are characterized by large temporal and spatial variations in precipitation and with limited surface and groundwater resources. The rapid growth and development in the region have led to mounting pressures on scarce resources to satisfy water demands. The dwindling availability of water to meet development needs has become a significant regional issue, especially as a number of countries are facing serious water deficit.Syria is becoming progressively shorter of water as future demand is coming close to or even surpassing available resources. Syria had a population of 18 million in 2002, and its total renewable water resources (TRWR) is estimated around 16 £ 10 9 m 3 per year. In other words, the per capita TRWR is less than the water scarcity index (1,000 m 3 per person per year) which will make the country experience chronic stress that will hinder its economic development and entail serious degradation. Unfortunately, if water demand at current prices continues to increase in the same way, Syria will experience an alarming deficit between the available resources and the potential needs in the near future.In Syria, until fairly recently, emphasis has been placed on the supply side of water development. Demand management and improvement of patterns of water use has received less attention. The aim was always to augment the national water budget with new water. The most popular way of achieving this aim was to control surface flows by building new dams and creating multi-purpose reservoirs (there are now around 160 dams in Syria with a total capacity of 14 £ 10 9 m 3 ). Irrigation schemes were also built and agricultural activities were expanded greatly to achieve selfsufficiency in essential food products and food security. However, this is no longer achievable with the limited water resources available; water demand is rapidly increasing and easily mobilizable resources have already been exploited.The objective of this paper is to think of different possible ways to manage water demand in the agricultural sector of Syria. It mainly involves two main management options: taxation as a centralized option and water markets as a decentralized one. While water demand management refers to improving both productive and allocative efficiency of water use, this paper focuses on two allocative measures (taxation and water markets) and does not thoroughly cover productive measures such as rehabilitation and upgrading of irrigation schemes or improving operation. However, the paper does not attempt to settle the question for or against each option but tries to find some elements to determine under which conditions the option can lead to expected outcomes taking into account the history of management and the local conditions in Syria: political, social and economical. The paper also looks at other alternatives such as cooperative