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Salt Deserts of Iran

Access holes for a 2,400-year-old qanat system trail off from the mountains near Mehriz, Iran, to the city of Yazd some 37 miles away. Developed in the first millennium BCE, these hand-dug underground aqueducts, found throughout arid areas from North Africa to Central Asia, use gravity to bring water from aquifers in the mountains to fields and cities at lower elevations. The qanats require maintenance every few years—here, Sayed Shukrallah and Ahmad Zareh work as a team to remove sediment and mineral buildup—but are seen as an ingenious and sustainable water harvesting technique. Iran alone has an estimated fifty thousand qanats, and though many have fallen into disrepair, severe droughts over the last decade have made water managers in the country give the traditional technology another look.

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©2003 George Steinmetz
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Access holes for a 2,400-year-old qanat system trail off from the mountains near Mehriz, Iran, to the city of Yazd some 37 miles away. Developed in the first millennium BCE, these hand-dug underground aqueducts, found throughout arid areas from North Africa to Central Asia, use gravity to bring water from aquifers in the mountains to fields and cities at lower elevations. The qanats require maintenance every few years—here, Sayed Shukrallah and Ahmad Zareh work as a team to remove sediment and mineral buildup—but are seen as an ingenious and sustainable water harvesting technique. Iran alone has an estimated fifty thousand qanats, and though many have fallen into disrepair, severe droughts over the last decade have made water managers in the country give the traditional technology another look.

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