Environmental Anthropology of the Qanat System in Iran: the Clash of Water, Modernisation, Tradition, and Technology in Contemporary Iran

Qanat is an ancient Iranian groundwater supply system which has diffused to numerous areas outside of Iran as well. In addition to its eco-friendly techno-physical structure, the Qanat system includes many socio-institutional and ritual dimensions such as Boneh and Qanat marriage rites. The present research reviews the current literature on the Qanat system to investigate the impacts of technical, socio-institutional, and intellectual/ritual aspects of the Qanat system on water resources. This traditional system has been replaced with inefficient technologies and rural institutions through a countrywide change during the 1960s. By including the process of water management modernisation in Iran, a comparative assessment of Qanat and its modern alternatives will become part of this study too. In this way, my research can indicate while the integrated sociocultural and technological system of Qanat sustainably provided water for millennia, contemporary water management systems have been demonstrated to be unsustainable. I draw on a conceptual framework which derives from ecological anthropology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge studies.