Hydro-political organization in Iranian history

Abstract

This paper examines the interrelations between water resources and political organization, with a focus on Iran, and the different shapes of those relations found in river-based and qanat-based economies, from a historical point of view. At least since the Sassanian Empire, governments have had a systematic dependence on a river-based economy nourished by irrigated cultivation. Hence, governments used both bureaucratic and military tools to secure their control over water—the vital source of revenue. Nonetheless, governments’ interests were not limited to water only as source of finance, but they were also concerned about water to strengthen their political ties with their preferred territories through water allocation systems. Within their kingdoms, some hydro-social territories were given primacy in terms of water shares, through intensive hydraulic constructions and water management systems. Hydro-social borders were delineated by the political organization through water allocation based on political, religious and social priorities. Those borders altered from time to time following political changes. Such governmental interventions in water affairs could lead to inequitable water allocation, a socio-political pattern that seems to have prevailed in Iranian history. This paper also shows how water management could set the stage for collapsing political organizations, when it outgrew the governments’ internal capacities. However, in a qanat-based economy, water management was more endogenous, handled by all shareholders, which appears to have resulted in a more cohesive community. As such, a qanat-based economy may have disfavored accumulation of power and centralized governments.