The Ghab plain is a fertile depression in northwest Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. The valley was flooded for centuries by the waters of the Orontes River

Orontes River

The Orontes or ‘Āṣī is a river of Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.It was anciently the chief river of the Levant, also called Draco, Typhon and Axius...

, which transformed it into a swamp. The "Ghab project", beginning in the 1950s, drained the valley and turned it into usable land, providing an extra 41000 hectare of irrigated lands.

Geography

The valley separates the al-Ansariyah mountains

Al-Ansariyah mountains

An-Nusayriyah Mountains also known as al-Alawiyeen Mountains , both names refer to the Alawi sect which has traditionally lived there, and the Syrian official name, Coastal Mountain Range ; are a mountain range in northwestern Syria running north-south, parallel to the coastal plain...

 in the west from Jabal al-Zawiyah range and the plateau region to the east. It is 63 kilometres (39.1 mi) long and 12.1 kilometres (7.5 mi) wide.

Ghab project

The project started in 1953 and is considered one of the most important hydraulic projects in northern Syria. Owing to a slight slope (0.10%) in the Orontes in the area of al-Asharnah, the river did not provide enough water to the surrounding territories. The project drained the plain where the River Orontes flowed. The plain was entirely drained in 1968 and provided 11,000 families with lands.

The Ghab project made large areas suitable for agriculture, and new irrigation systems were employed. The system included barrages

Barrage (tidal)

A barrage is an artificial obstruction at the mouth of a tidal watercourse.-Purpose:The common primary functions of a barrage are:* Increase the depth of a river * Maintain a separation between fresh and salt water...

, canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

 networks for irrigation and canal networks for drainage. Large barrages were built in Mhardeh, Zaizun, Qarqur

Tell Qarqur

Tell Qarqur is a major archaeological site located in the Orontes River Valley of western Syria. Situated in a rich alluvial plain known as the Ghab valley, the double-mounded site lies near the modern Syrian town of Jisr ash-Shugur and the village of Qarqur....

 and others. The dam at Mhardeh, built in 1961, is 40 metres (131.2 ft) high, and 200 metres (656.2 ft) long and holds 65000000 cubic metres (85,016,790.3 cu yd) of water.

Other advantages of the Ghab project were the improvements in the systems of communication through the building of road and rail networks, previously not possible due to the swamps. In addition, malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

decreased because there was no longer stagnant water.