Early Islamic Water Management in Northern Mesopotamia

Rayne, L

doi:10.1093/oso/9780198863083.003.0006

Early Islamic Water Management in Northern Mesopotamia

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Louise Rayne ORCiD

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of a book chapter that has been published in its final definitive form by Oxford University Press, 2025.

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Abstract

This chapter summarizes the evidence for a peak in water management activities in early Islamic northern Mesopotamia. The former irrigation systems, from which the early Islamic water strategy developed, are reviewed and the situation that followed it discussed. Medieval hydraulic pathways remained embedded in the landscape of northern Mesopotamia until relatively recently, but since the latter part of the twentieth century the environment of Syria and Iraq has been rewritten. The remains of relict canals were rapidly removed between the 1960s and 1990s to make way for new, large-scale schemes, which replaced rain-fed cultivation.