Irrigation: Qualities, Drawbacks, and Comparisons

ABSTRACT

Irrigation is multisecular, being necessary for the people of antiquity and across centuries for their food needs. The article proposes an overview of the various irrigation systems in several countries across the globe, from the European continent to the Middle East, and from South America to Far East Asia. I analyse the evolution of these techniques, and the factors that allowed them to be maintained, to disappear, or to deteriorate. I also question the new methods of irrigation and their effects on nature and ecosystems in the context of global warming and the erosion of biodiversity, especially in this period of the opening of the COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Darius the Great or Darius I lived from 550 BC to 486 BC. He reigned over Persia and restored the great Pharaonic canal linking the Red Sea to the Nile delta at Bubastis, begun under Nekao II.

2. In the Iranian irrigation systems, the historical hydraulic system of Shushtar has also been listed as a masterpiece of human creative genius by UNESCO. It is said to have been undertaken as early as the reign of Darius the Great, in the 5th century B.C. It consists of two large canals to divert the waters of the river Kârun. One of them, the Gargar Canal, still provides water to the city of Shustar through a series of tunnels, and operates a whole set of mills. After a spectacular cliff, the water cascades into the lower basin before entering the plain south of the city, where it has allowed the development of orchards and agricultural land over an area of 40,000 ha. known as Mianaâb (Paradise). The property includes remarkable sites, including the Salâsel Castle, the control centre of the entire hydraulic system, the Kolâh-Farangi tower that measures the water level, dams, bridges, basins and mills. It bears witness to the know-how of the Elamites and Mesopotamians, as well as the more recent expertise of the Nabataeans and the influence of Roman civil engineering.

3. Archaeologists and geographers from the Casa de Velázquez worked on these canals, and one of the geographers, André Humbert, a pilot, took aerial photos from the sky, which clearly show the networks of canals running through the Andalusian sierras.

4. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was a sovereign state in southern Europe that existed from 1816, the year of the unification of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples, until 1861, the year of the annexation of the Two Sicilies to the young Kingdom of Italy following the Expedition of the Thousand and the Second War of Independence. Governed by four kings of the Bourbon-Sicilian dynasty, it extended over southern Italy and Sicily. But it had an earlier history, since it was created in 1130.

5. The author of this article had the opportunity to visit it.

6. Spanish term for the white, fragrant citrus flower.

7. The author of this article went to Afghanistan twice, first by car from France in 1968, then by plane in 1972. He made a film about the country lasting about an hour with a Beaulieu 16 mm camera, which has been digitised.

8. The author of this article knows this farm (‘Pedro Espiga’) whose owners are French, specialised in the production of peaches, they also own another irrigated property near Huelva, also of 1000 hectares, and they had, for several years, an irrigated land of about 1000 hectares in Morocco, whose advantage lay in the much lower social charges. Near Seville, the farmers tried for a few years the cultivation of asparagus on 300 hectares, which is inconceivable elsewhere, especially in France. During the peach harvest, more than 1500 workers are recruited from the destitute and sometimes from North African immigrants. Shipments are made by refrigerated trucks to Northern Europe, and for several years the shipment to Northern Europe was also made by refrigerated planes.

9. The newspaper Le Monde reported on this and denounced the conditions of its often-mistreated Moroccan immigrants.

10. This information was provided by three people from the area and the settlement, including the President of the Algaida Residents’ Association. This traffic helps to understand why some farmers who have a 1 hectare plot have luxury cars and houses with underground parking and several chimneys. The author of this article and his colleague Marianne Cohen have witnessed this traffic: while waiting for an interview with a farmer in a venta, three luxury cars arrived, the drivers got out and sat down at the venta; a sound of an airplane was heard, but it was a helicopter that landed in the field across the street, the drivers of the cars took crates from the trunks and brought them to the helicopter, which loaded them and took off immediately; did these crates contain tomatoes or zucchini? Certainly not.

11. Source: UNESCO World Heritage site file.

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Notes on contributors

Yves Luginbühl

Yves Luginbühl is a Agricultural engineer, doctor in geography, emeritus director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France). Former member of the Casa de Velázquez. Co-founder of the LADYSS research laboratory at the CNRS and the Universities of Paris 1, 7, 8 and 10. Responsible for numerous research programmes on landscape. Co-writer of the European Landscape Convention. Consultant to the Council of Europe on the implementation of the European Landscape Convention. Author of over 130 articles and books, including 7 editorships of collective works and 2 individual works.