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.

Qanat
Qanat

Author: Dale Lightfoot

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-08-22

Total Pages: 881

ISBN-13: 0755650808

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Qanats are ubiquitous, yet unseen, and a clever way to create streams where none exist in nature. For 3,000 years, they have made life possible in impossible places and still sustain life and livelihoods in many countries today. After 30 years of field research, Dale Lightfoot provides the first comprehensive study of the qanat and sheds new light on their unique locations and distribution, their origins and history, their ecology, current status and use. Qanats are remarkably engineered underground aqueducts, using gravity to bring water to villages and towns where reliable flowing surface water is scarce or absent. Although an ancient technology, more than 46,000 of them still flow around the world today, with their sustainable nature making them a focus of renewed interest. Richly illustrated with images and a series of original maps, this is the most complete record to date of the locations and distribution of qanats worldwide, including examples from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Central Asia, China, India, Mexico and South America.

Veins of the Desert
Veins of the Desert

Author: Ali Asghar Semsar Yazdi

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2022-09-01

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 100079346X

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Qanat is a gently sloping subterranean canal, which taps a water-bearing zone at a higher elevation than cultivated lands. A qanat consist of a series of vertical shafts in sloping ground, interconnected at the bottom by a tunnel with a gradient flatter than that of the ground. From the air, this system looks like a line of anthills leading from the foothills across the desert to the greenery of an irrigated settlement. Qanat engages a variety of knowledge and its studying entails an interdisciplinary approach. In a traditional realm, qanats are embraced by a socio-economic system which guarantees their sustainability. The facets of this socio-economic system operate closely together and make it possible for the qanats to remain into future.Veins of the Desert shows that digging a qanat requires a variety of sciences and technologies, though at a glance qanat is just a horizontal tunnel which drains out groundwater. Qanat is a feat of technology left from our ancestors; hidden underground, but its technical importance is apparent, not less valuable than such surface structures as bridges, castles, towers, etc. Qanat enjoys extended structures and sometimes its length reaches tens of kilometers. It passes through geological formations and faces different conditions and obstacles, so the qanat masters' efforts to solve these problems led to the accumulation of knowledge in terms of qanat construction over time, which has been handed down from generation to generation. Qanat is one of the most complicated traditional technologies, which require knowledge on nature ranging from groundwater to management. This indigenous technology used to bring water efficiently from tens of kilometers away to the thirsty lands.This book also gives insight into cultural and social heritages, which have crystalized around this technique.

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.

The Law and the Knowledge of Good and Evil
The Law and the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Author: Chris A. Vlachos

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1597528641

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First Corinthians 15:56, The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, is both puzzling and neglected. It is puzzling since there appears to be no precursor in 1 Corinthians to the law-critical statement found there. It is neglected because of its size. Nevertheless, the short verse offers the opportunity to analyze in a rudimentary state Paul's law-sin notion that appears full-blown in Romans, and the absence of a polemical setting allows scholars to examine a law-critical statement issued during a polemical lull. In The Law and Knowledge of Good and Evil, Vlachos weighs attempts to explain the presence of 1 Cor 15:56 in 1 Corinthians and argues that the Genesis Fall narrative, where the tempter plied his seductions by way of the commandment, provides the theological substructure to Paul's understanding of the law's provocation of sin. In doing so, Vlachos contends that Paul reaches the historical high water mark of his polemic against the salvific efficacy of the law by locating a law-sin nexus in Eden, and, contrary to some recent perspectives on Paul, he argues that the edenically informed axiom in 1 Cor 15:56 suggests that Paul's fundamental concern with the law was rooted in primordial rather than ethnic soil. While studies of Paul and the law have tended to bypass Eden, The Law and Knowledge of Good and Evil breaks ground by moving the argument beyond Second Temple Judaism to the Genesis Fall account, where the prohibition against partaking of the knowledge of good and evil led to the knowledge of sin.

Persian Paradises at Peril
Persian Paradises at Peril

Author: Farzin Fardanesh

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-30

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 3030625508

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This book offers a resourceful collection of essays examining recent efforts to respond to the challenges of planning, management and conserving landscapes in contemporary Iran, the home of Persian gardens. Drawing on selected recent studies, the chapters discuss the following topics: The sphere of knowledge and theoretical bases, including a survey of recent and ongoing research; Persian gardens remaining from the 6th century BC to the 19th century AD, which have influenced garden design in a vast geographic domain extending from India to Spain; Management and conservation of cultural landscapes, historic urban landscapes (HUL), road landscapes, and natural landscapes in the face of changes in climatic conditions and livelihood practices affecting their delicate dynamic balance and functions essential to their distinctive character; and Historic Territorial Landscapes (HTL) formed and evolved along the Silk and Spice Roads as compositions of tangible and intangible elements resulting from movement, exchanges and dialogue in space and over time. The book is a useful resource for a range of academics and professionals, such as landscape architects and managers, landscape historians and conservationists, and urban planners and managers.

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” .

The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Landscape Heritage in The Asia-Pacific
The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Landscape Heritage in The Asia-Pacific

Author: Kapila D. Silva

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-29

Total Pages: 580

ISBN-13: 1000604578

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The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Landscape Heritage in the Asia-Pacific revisits the use, growth, and potential of the cultural landscape methodology in the conservation and management of culture-nature heritage in the Asia-Pacific region. Taking both a retrospective and prospective view of the management of cultural heritage in the region, this volume argues that the plurality and complexity of heritage in the region cannot be comprehensively understood and effectively managed without a broader conceptual framework like the cultural landscape approach. The book also demonstrates that such an approach facilitates the development of a flexible strategy for heritage conservation. Acknowledging the effects of rapid socio-economic development, globalization, and climate change, contributors examine the pressure these issues place on the sustenance of cultural heritage. Including chapters from more than 20 countries across the Asia-Pacific region, the volume reviews the effectiveness of theoretical and practical potentials afforded by the cultural landscape approach and examines how they have been utilized in the Asia-Pacific context for the last three decades. The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Landscape Heritage in the Asia-Pacific provides a comprehensive analysis of the processes of cultural landscape heritage conservation and management. As a result, it will be of interest to academics, students, and professionals who are based in the fields of cultural heritage management, architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, and landscape management.