Channels, terraces, pottery, and sediments – A comparison of past irrigation systems along a climatic transect in northern Jordan

Urban Soil Pollution with Heavy Metals in Hama Floodplain, Syria

“…In fact, wastewater use varies considerably from one region to another, in Hanoi, Vietnam, for instance, up to 80 percent of vegetables produced are irrigated with wastewater [31]. Irrigation plays a crucial role in agriculture in arid and semi-arid climate zones [32], it is very important for food security. In zones where annual precipitation was insufficient for rain-fed agriculture, such as the areas with a Mediterranean climate in the Near East, irrigation could make a major economic difference [32].…”

“…Irrigation plays a crucial role in agriculture in arid and semi-arid climate zones [32], it is very important for food security. In zones where annual precipitation was insufficient for rain-fed agriculture, such as the areas with a Mediterranean climate in the Near East, irrigation could make a major economic difference [32]. In Orontes basin, the accelerated demand for water pushes local farmers to use non-conventional water for irrigation as the sources of fresh water became short.…”

Conceptualising and Implementing an Agent-Based Model of an Irrigation System

“…Irrigation is an activity that typically develops in situations when available rainfall does not support cultivation of crops or meet humans' irrigation water expectation-either because of low amounts of rainfall (important in arid and semi-arid regions [17]) or because the rainfall is not distributed according to the preferences of (the growers of) crops (which is also relevant in more humid climate zones) [18]. An irrigation setting can be defined as a landscape with river courses and hydraulic infrastructures that store, divert, channel, or otherwise move water from a source to some desired farms for the purpose of producing crops [19].…”

Ancient agriculture in Southeast Arabia: A three thousand year record of runoff farming from central Oman (Rustaq)

“…Runoff farming (also referred to as 'rainwaterharvesting agriculture'; Bruins, 1986) provides moisture by collecting surface or subsurface runoff from a catchment area using channels, dams and diversion systems. Some of the oldest traces of runoff farming date from the Neolithic, and numerous systems have been identified and studied mainly in the Southern Levant (Israel: Evenari et al, 1971;Bruins et al, 1986;Ashkenazi et al, 2012;Jordan: Kirkbride 1966;Helms, 1981 ;Levy and Alon, 1983;Gilbertson, 1986;Barker et al, 1999;Meister et al, 2017 ;Lucke et al, 2019a), Yemen (Brunner and Haefner, 1986;Ghaleb, 1990;Wilkinson 1999Wilkinson , 2005Wilkinson , 2006Harrower, 2009), as well as a North America (Nabhan, 1983;Doolittle, 2000;Sullivan, 2000;Sandor et al, 2007). Some of these systems have functioned for centuries and have allowed for the development and survival of semi-permanent settlements and regional exchanges of fruit trees, cereals and fodder crops (Beckers et al, 2013;Müller-Neuhof, 2014;Ashkenazi et al, 2015).…”