Traditional Water Management in Rural Areas

 

Traditional water management can help to solve particular problems caused by climate change and by population growth and the wish for a higher standard of living, leading to constantly increasing needs for water.

In the context of its MENA water programme «Reform of the water sector in the MENA region», InWEnt is organising and conducting an International Leadership Training on «Integrated Water Resources Management» for participants from the MENA Region on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

In 2008 for the participants a one week course of traditional water management  was held by the Deutsche Wasserhistorische Gesellschaft (DWhG) (engl. German Water Historic Association). Also in 2008 the DWhG develop a partnership between Germany and Iran in relation to traditional water management questions, this partnership includes excursions and students exchange. In this workspace ideas how traditional water management can be used in modern water management systems will be developed further.    
 
The development of societies in arid and semi-arid areas in the last 5,000 years is closely connected with water management problems. These requirements have determining shaped the relevant society and its structures. In the course of the centuries systems and methods worked out under these conditions have conclusively demonstrated their sustainability. Today, the knowledge and structural remains of these methods are not only interesting archaeologically and historically, but can also help solve current problems.

Water management in arid and semi-arid areas today has to cope with two particular problems. One problem is climate change, which is responsible for the expansion of these areas to the north and south and for changes in the existing water supply in them. The other problem is population growth and the wish for a higher standard of living in these regions, which leads to constantly increasing needs for water.

Traditional water management can help to solve this problems especially in the rural areas. Often the knowledge of traditional water management get lost in the last years we will try to get this knowledge back.