Harvesting rain

The Middle East has witnessed a great deal of conflict in times both ancient and modern. At the same time, the ecology of the entire region has shown dramatic declines as a result of polluted waterways, saline soils, contaminated aquifers and much loss of fauna and flora. Yet in areas of this region, which are now relatively lifeless and prone to desertification, there was once abundant wildlife, including elephants and lions, as well as good forest cover.

The cultures of the Middle East also developed extraordinarily clever rainwater harvesting systems, which provided very good supplies of water to towns, villages and individual farms. Such systems are more than just historical curiosities; they may have growing relevance to a modern world in which water is in increasingly short supply.

The area bordered by the Euphrates and Tigris, in what is now southern Iraq, had sophisticated patterns of urban settlement by 3,000BC, with good food production from crops of wheat, barley, fish, meat and wildfowl. Today, we know that ancient trade patterns had an impact on the ecology of the region.

For instance, the Euphrates was used to move commodities between Mesopotamia and human settlements to the north and...

To view the rest of this article - you must be a paying subscriber and Login