DesertsâWindâWater: Strategies of Human Adaptations and Renewable Resources in Extremely Arid Environments. A Historical Retrospective

Eckart Ehlers

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Chapter 5 DesertsâWindâWater: Strategies of Human Adaptations and Renewable Resources in Extremely Arid Environments. A Historical Retrospective

äºMiddle East and North Africa

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Eckart Ehlers

Eckart Ehlers
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Page Range:: 135â168

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004444973_007

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Abstract

Qanats are a millenia-old traditional technology to tap and to exploit subterraneous groundwater tables by construction of underground water channels in the arid desert regions of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Historically first traceable in the beginning of the first millennium BCE in northwestern Iran, this technique has spread all over the MENA region in connection with the expansion of Achaemenid and Sassanian Iran and the spread of Islam into North Africa and the Mediterranean. Via colonial Spain qanat technology reached Latin America; its diffusion to the east and its historical and geographical pathways are still under discussion. Qanats have survived until today as a highly sustainable and unique irrigation system in traditional agricultural societies of the MENA region. Due to modern over-exploitation of the hardly renewable groundwater resources through pump irrigation, however, qanats are on the brink of extinction.

This paper analyses the traditional engineering aspects of qanat construction and its historical origins and spreads. Qanats were preconditions for isolated rural and urban habitats in the midst of otherwise hostile desert environments. In combination with climatically well adapted forms of vernacular architecture they have even enabled the development and perseverance of formidable desert cities. On the other hand, they have cemented unfavorable socio-economic relationships between land and water owning landlords and their dependent rural agricultural workers and peasants due to the mechanisms of rent-capitalism. Today, the Persian qanat technology and qanat irrigation are registered under UNESCOÂ´s World Heritage Sites as humanityÂ´s cultural property.

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Middle East and North Africa

Climate, Culture, and Conflicts

ä¸ç¼ï¼ Climate and Culture, å·ï¼ 6

ISBN:: 9789004444973

åºçç¤¾:: Brill

å°å·åºçæ¥æ:: 22 Jan 2021

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African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 5 DesertsâWindâWater: Strategies of Human Adaptations and Renewable Resources in Extremely Arid Environments. A Historical Retrospective

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