Cultural Dynamics of Water in Iranian Civilization
Cultural Dynamics of Water in Iranian Civilization

Author: Majid Labbaf Khaneiki

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-09-23

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 3030589005

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This book traces “water” back to the most primitive animistic notions that are still lingering on in the shape of such rituals as qanat marriage or rain-making. Water, in the Iranian philosophy, is used in an attempt to find an explanation for the genesis of the universe, as described in Zoroastrian Akhshij philosophy, according to which water is one of the four fundamental elements of the creation. The concept of time began to germinate in the Iranian mind, when they had to count the passage of time in order to divide their scarce water resources. Water became so omnipresent in Iranian culture that it reached even the most mysterious seclusion of the Sufi monks. In Iran’s local communities, water culture is a thread that runs through different types of production systems. This book goes beyond indigenous water knowledge and traditional irrigation techniques, and conceptualizes water as a pivotal element of Iran’s social identity, cultural dynamics and belief systems, where it examines the role of intermittent droughts in engendering and diffusing intangible cultural elements across the Iranian plateau. This book delves into Iran’s political organizations most of which were ensnared in a water-dependent lifecycle constituting a historical pattern described in this book as “hydraulic collapse” .

Water and Sacred Architecture
Water and Sacred Architecture

Author: Anat Geva

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-25

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 1000863719

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This edited book examines architectural representations that tie water, as a physical and symbolic property, with the sacred. The discussion centers on two levels of this relationship: how water influenced the sacredness of buildings across history and different religions; and how sacred architecture expressed the spiritual meaning of water. The volume deliberately offers original material on various unique contextual and design aspects of water and sacred architecture, rather than an attempt to produce a historic chronological analysis on the topic or focusing on a specific geographical region. As such, this unique volume adds a new dimension to the study of sacred architecture. The book’s chapters are compiled by a stellar group of scholars and practitioners from the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It addresses major aspects of water in religious buildings, such as, rituals, pilgrimage, water as a cultural material and place-making, hydro systems, modern practices, environmental considerations, the contribution of water to transforming secular into sacred, and future digital/cyber context of water and sacredness. All chapters are based on original archival studies, historical documents, and field visits to the sites and buildings. These examinations show water as an expression of architectural design, its materiality, and its spiritual values. The book will be of interest to architects, historians, environmentalists, archaeologists, religious scholars, and preservationists.

Territorial Water Cooperation in the Central Plateau of Iran
Territorial Water Cooperation in the Central Plateau of Iran

Author: Majid Labbaf Khaneiki

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-11-09

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 3030014940

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This book tries to answer the question how different communities in such an arid area as the Iranian central plateau could have shared their limited water resources in a perfect harmony and peace over the course of history. They invented some indigenous technologies as well as cooperative socio-economic systems in order to better adapt themselves to their harsh environment where the scarce water resources had to be rationed among the different communities as sustainably as possible. Those stories hold some lessons for us on how to adjust our needs to our geographical possibilities while living side by side with other people. This work gives insight into the indigenous adaptation strategies through the territorial water cooperation, and describes how water can appear as a ground for cooperation. It explains the water supply systems and social aspects of water in central Iran. Topics include the territorial water cooperation, qanat’s, the traditional water management and sustainability, the socio-economic context, the sustainable management of shared aquifers system and more.

Adaptive Strategies for Water Heritage
Adaptive Strategies for Water Heritage

Author: Carola Hein

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-10-18

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 3030002683

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This Open Access book, building on research initiated by scholars from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development (CHGD) and ICOMOS Netherlands, presents multidisciplinary research that connects water to heritage. Through twenty-one chapters it explores landscapes, cities, engineering structures and buildings from around the world. It describes how people have actively shaped the course, form and function of water for human settlement and the development of civilizations, establishing socio-economic structures, policies and cultures; a rich world of narratives, laws and practices; and an extensive network of infrastructure, buildings and urban form. The book is organized in five thematic sections that link practices of the past to the design of the present and visions of the future: part I discusses drinking water management; part II addresses water use in agriculture; part III explores water management for land reclamation and defense; part IV examines river and coastal planning; and part V focuses on port cities and waterfront regeneration. Today, the many complex systems of the past are necessarily the basis for new systems that both preserve the past and manage water today: policy makers and designers can work together to recognize and build on the traditional knowledge and skills that old structure embody. This book argues that there is a need for a common agenda and an integrated policy that addresses the preservation, transformation and adaptive reuse of historic water-related structures. Throughout, it imagines how such efforts will help us develop sustainable futures for cities, landscapes and bodies of water.

Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road
Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road

Author: Liang Emlyn Yang

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-02-27

Total Pages: 535

ISBN-13: 3030007286

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This open access book discusses socio-environmental interactions in the middle to late Holocene, covering specific areas along the ancient Silk Road regions. Over twenty chapters provide insight into this topic from various disciplinary angles and perspectives, ranging from archaeology, paleoclimatology, antiquity, historical geography, agriculture, carving art and literacy. The Silk Road is a modern concept for an ancient network of trade routes that for centuries facilitated and intensified processes of cultural interaction and goods exchange between West China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. Coherent patterns and synchronous events in history suggest possible links between social upheaval, resource utilization and climate or environment forces along the Silk Road and in a broader area. Post-graduates in studying will benefit from this work, as well as it will stimulate young researchers to further explore the role played by the environment in long-term socio-cultural changes.

Human-Earth System Dynamics
Human-Earth System Dynamics

Author: Rongxing Guo

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-16

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 9811305471

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This book explores the factors and mechanisms that may have influenced the dynamic behaviors of earliest civilizations, focusing on both environmental (geographic) factors on which traditional historic analyses are based and human (behavioral) factors on which anthropological analyses are usually based. It also resurrects a number of common ancestral terms to help readers understand the complicated process of human and cultural evolution around the globe. Specifically, in almost all indigenous languages, the words ‘wa’ and any variants of it were originally associated with the sound of crying of – and certainly were selected as the common ancestral word with the meanings of “house, home, homeland, motherland, and so on” by – early humans living in different parts of the world.This book provides many neglected but still crucial environmental and biological clues about the rise and fall of civilizations – ones that have largely resulted from mankind’s long-lasting “Win-Stay Lose-Shift” games throughout the world. The narratives and findings presented at this book are unexpected but reasonable – and are what every student of anthropology or history needs to know and doesn't get in the usual text. “Professor Guo explores the dynamics of civilizations from the beginnings to our perplexingly complex world. There are lots of thought-provoking ideas here on the rise and decline of civilizations and nations... Anyone wishing to understand global developments should give this book serious consideration.” ----John Komlos, University of Munich, Germany, and Duke University, USA “It is interesting to see a Chinese perspective on the questions of deep history that have engaged Jared Diamond, Yuval Harari and David Christian. Guo argues that understanding cyclical threats has been the key to human progress, which is driven by the dialectic of material privation and human ingenuity.” ----Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, USA

The Cultural Dynamics in Water Management from Ancient History to the Present Age
The Cultural Dynamics in Water Management from Ancient History to the Present Age

Author: Xiao Yun Zheng

Publisher: IWA Publishing

Published: 2021-05-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9781789062038

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The Cultural Dynamics in Water Management from Ancient History to the Present Age focuses on exploring the idea of water culture and how water culture has been generated from water management and social life. It discusses the structure, attribute, type, and the dynamic mechanism of water culture theoretically. It also deals with its diversity and practice in water management with cases from twelve countries, geographically covering most continents of the world. This book is divided into five main sections which include the theoretical discussion of water culture, the historical water culture, the water culture and water management in indigenous societies, the cultural role in local water management, the water cultural practice in the present age using the case of water museum, etc. It is based on a historical and geographical approach to exploring the cultural dynamics in water management. It shows how people abide by their culture to manage water in ancient society and in indigenous, local, social, and urban society. This helps to provide an in-depth understanding of the cultural dynamics in water management to bridge the cultural idea of water management from history to the present and to the future. This book highlights that technical and engineered ways are not enough to solve water problems and achieve water sustainable management if we neglect the cultural dynamic role. Successful water management is always based on the culture from history and this is likely to continue so as to achieve better water management.

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics II
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics II

Author: Emin Özsoy

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-08-13

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 3030749347

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This book develops a fundamental understanding of geophysical fluid dynamics based on a mathematical description of the flows of inhomogeneous fluids. It covers these topics: 1. development of the equations of motion for an inhomogeneous fluid 2. review of thermodynamics 3. thermodynamic and kinetic energy equations 4. equations of state for the atmosphere and the ocean, salt, and moisture effects 5. concepts of potential temperature and potential density 6. Boussinesq and quasi-geostrophic approximations 7. conservation equations for vorticity, mechanical and thermal energy instability theories, internal waves, mixing, convection, double-diffusion, stratified turbulence, fronts, intrusions, gravity currents Graduate students will be able to learn and apply the basic theory of geophysical fluid dynamics of inhomogeneous fluids on a rotating earth, including: 1. derivation of the governing equations for a stratified fluid starting from basic principles of physics 2. review of thermodynamics, equations of state, isothermal, adiabatic, isentropic changes 3. scaling of the equations, Boussinesq approximation, applied to the ocean and the atmosphere 4. examples of stratified flows at geophysical scales, steady and unsteady motions, inertia-gravity internal waves, quasi-geostrophic theory 5. vorticity and energy conservation in stratified fluids 6.boundary layer convection in stratified containers and basins

Qanat Knowledge
Qanat Knowledge

Author: Ali Asghar Semsar Yazdi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-12-01

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 9402409572

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This book offers a ready solution for those who wish to learn more about this fascinating part of our water history and makes accessible to the wider world the traditional knowledge gained from building and maintaining qanats for more than 2,500 years. There is much more here than a summary of the nature and distribution of qanats, and a more extensive journey through the philosophy, methods, tools, and terminology of qanat design and digging than previously assembled. Where does one begin to dig to ensure that the qanat tunnel will flow with water? How are practical considerations of landscape factored into the design? How are water quality and discharge measured? How does excavation proceed through bedrock and unconsolidated soil and how is this knowledge of geology and pedology acquired? How are vertical wells and tunnels excavated to maintain proper air supply, light, and water flow? How does one deal with special problems like tunnel collapse, the accumulation of gasses and vapors, and the pooling of water during construction? How are tools and gauges designed, maintained, and used? How have qanats been incorporated into other structures like watermills, reservoirs, ice houses, and irrigation networks? And how are qanats cleaned, extended, maintained through the ages, and incorporated into modern water supplies? The great contribution of this work is the story it tells of the ingenuity and practical skills of the qanat masters who for centuries and generations have cut an uncountable number of tunnels through bedrock and alluvium using hand tools and homespun solutions to problems that would vex the most experienced university-trained engineers.