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Years of drought inspired local villagers near Mesr, Iran, to construct these crescent-shaped earthen dams to trap rare rains and let their waters be absorbed into the ground where they will enter ancient subterranean aqueducts called qanats. The qanats channel water under a chain of migrating sand dunes to agricultural lands some 10km distant. In spite of this effort to augment a system of 2000-year-old qanats, the agricultural life of Mesr was slowly dying.

Filename
STNMTZ_20031101_47.tif
Copyright
©2003 George Steinmetz
Image Size
7246x4825 / 100.1MB
www.georgesteinmetz.com
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Salt Deserts of Iran
Years of drought inspired local villagers near Mesr, Iran, to construct these crescent-shaped earthen dams to trap rare rains and let their waters be absorbed into the ground where they will enter ancient subterranean aqueducts called qanats. The qanats channel water under a chain of migrating sand dunes to agricultural lands some 10km distant. In spite of this effort to augment a system of 2000-year-old qanats, the agricultural life of Mesr was slowly dying.

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