Falaj, also known as qanat or aflaj, is an ancient water management system, that has watered the Arabian Peninsula’s arid lands for centuries. Qanat comes from the Semetic word meaning to dig and some say that the qanat systems are as long as the distance from the earth to the moon. Long-ago tribesmen found underground springs in the foothills of the region, and engineered a technology that channels the water over the land, irrigating farms and oases and supplying households with water as needed.  Although some say that falaj is a concept 3000 years old, others claim 5000 years. We reported on the Al-Baydha project for regenerative agriculture in Saudi Arabia with similar aims here.

What we do know is how admirable and sustainable the falaj system is, built entirely from local materials and hewed out of rock and earth by hand.  First deep wells were dug, or  underground springs redirected, to flow into tunnels that emerge on land and into stone channels containing the streaming water. The waterflow moves across miles of land, as determined by the ancients, entirely by gravity. 

Shafts whose function is to regulate the flow of water are sunk in the channels about every 20 meters.  Today, field irrigation is managed by government-appointed overseers, who monitor which fields receive water, and for how many hours. This is done in some areas by removing covers of brick, stones and sheep fleeces from the openings of the shafts to let the water run in another given direction, then replacing the covers to force the water back.

The Aflaj Irrigation Systems of Oman are ancient water channels from 500 AD located in the regions of Dakhiliyah, Sharqiyah and Batinah. However, they represent a type of irrigation system as old as 5000 years in the region named as Qanat or Kariz as originally named in Persia. This one is in the UAE.

In other falaj,  slab-like barriers are inserted into points built into the channel walls to divert the water, then put back as needed.

Falaj comes from the word aflaj, meaning split, or divided. As the photo above shows, the channels may be split to provide field irrigation on one side, and household water on the other.

Walk through a village in Oman, and you’ll  see pure, channeled water flowing in the streets and between houses. Some channels may be partially covered with slabs of stone placed at regular intervals over the top, to prevent night animals that come to drink from falling in and polluting the water.  

There might even be a bath house for the community, with the water provided by the falaj. In the 14th and 15th centuries, governments whose falaj systems had deteriorated rebuilt the tunnels and overland channels. Recognizing the huge value of the ancient waterways,  today’s Emirati and Omani governments have repaired many and put them back in use. Some areas in Oman have over 50 working falaj.

In the UAE there are seven oases, the largest in Al Ain. The stream rippling and burbling between thriving date palms and water greenery is a beautiful thing to see, and it also irrigates 1.200 acres of land, supplying over 550 farms. 

Community areas were once cleared around the mouths of the channels, where the tribes met to take their share of the crop and hold festivities.  Forts and castles were built around the Al Ain oasis to protect it from marauders, and important archaeological discoveries have been made there. UNESCO declared five of the UAE falaj systems to be heritage sites in 2011. 

The falaj system is said to have originated in ancient Iran early in the first millennium BCE, spreading to China and India.  Tribal laborers known as muqannis hand-built and maintained the water channels and shafts, as their descendants do to this day. 

The post This ancient Arab irrigation system invented before Rome’s aqueduct appeared first on Green Prophet.

Christo, the artist who temporarily wrapped acres of fabric around the Pont Neuf and the Reichstag, now plans to stack thousands of empty oil drums in the Abu Dhabi desert in his first ever permanent installation. The finished work will rise 150 meters above the desert, a mass that would eclipse the Great Pyramid of Giza: is this magnificent public art or environmental boondoggle?

Entitled The Mastaba, the structure will be built from almost half a million empty oil barrels in the sparsely populated desert region of Al Gharbia, 100 miles from Abu Dhabi city.  The flat-topped structure was conceived in the 1970’s in a series of drawings created with his design partner and wife, Jeanne-Claude.  She passed away in 2009.  If only this project died instead.

Sheik Hamdan bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince’s older brother, is collaborating on the project.

The Guardian reports that the project name and geometrical form are “inspired by an ancient Mesopotamian mud bench” upon which desert travelers would rest. Architectural dictionaries define a mastaba as a burial structure, but dare academics dither with the man who calls his work a “scream of freedom”?

A site near Liwa oasis has been approved, on land owned by the Abu Dhabi ruling family. This region plays host to subdued overnight eco-trips from Abu Dhabi.  Liwa (perhaps the largest unspoilt Mid East oasis) holds some of the world’s highest sand dunes, towering date palms, tranquil Bedouin villages, and freewheeling gazelles.

He’ll paint the barrels in sand-inspired yellows and reds to invoke Islamic mosaics, predicting that, “When the sun rises, the vertical wall will become almost full of gold.” He told  The Observer that he wants to create a sculpture that is “deeply rooted” in Islamic architecture: “When Louis XIV was building that kitschy castle Versailles, the greatest architecture in the Middle East had incredible simplicity.”

The Emirate’s been flexing its cultural muscles with a heavy portfolio of projects incuding a Louvre Museum satellite, Frank Gehry’s  new Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (the world’s largest Guggenheim), and Sir Norman Foster’s Zayed National Museum. Perfect time to resurrect this artwork with Abu Dhabi-sized ambitions.

The Bulgarian-born American claims The Mastaba will be the world’s biggest permanent sculpture. Independently financed through private investors and sales of his works, it’s $340 million pricetag also makes it the world’s most expensive.

Often controversial, his installations frequently raise environmental eyebrows.  Eco-groups clashed over a proposed-but-not-yet-realized Colorado project, where the Federal Government approved a plan to hang fabric over 5.9 miles of river canyon.  A consortium of environmental groups condemned the plan as an “industrial-scale facility . . . inappropriate for public lands,” according to the Denver Post.

Activists cited dangerous congestion along the narrow highway as tourists came to view the works, predicting that traffic delays during construction and exhibition would hurt local businesses, increase pollution and disturb area wildlife.

In 2005, Jeanne-Claude and Christo constructed 7,500 saffron-hued cloth “gates” in New York’s Central Park. For two weeks, New Yorkers could follow the 23 mile course of The Gates, a serpentine canopy threading through the great park.  The vibrant fabric billowed in the icy wind, glowing curtains in stark contrast to leafless trees and winter grey city walls.  It was gorgeous and sensual. The installation was less about the physical structures, and more about the kinetic experience of moving through, around, beneath them.

That project laid particular emphasis on environmental issues. Profits from the sale of souvenirs, posters, T-shirts and maps, were donated to the city’s parks and to a local nonprofit that supported the environment. The entire installation (metal frames, fittings and miles of nylon fabric) was dismantled and sent to recycling plants.

There is no mention of an environmental impact assessment related to The Mastaba.

Supporters claim that the region will benefit financially from initial construction.  Once built, Christo installations draw crowds like flies on a camel. Five million people visited the Reichstag during the two weeks it was wrapped. Four million visited Manhattan’s The Gates in a similar time-frame. Big numbers, but most were city workers and residents.

In an economic analysis, referred to but unreleased, Christo predicts that up to 2 million visitors a year will come view The Mastaba: they’re unlikely to be the local Bedouin.  Development plans include an “art campus”, a luxury hotel and a restaurant. Construction will take 30 months and involve an army of workers.  Where will they live?

Attracting millions to a major metropolis is an environmental drop-in-the-oil-drum.  Cities like Berlin and New York have the infrastructure to transport, feed and house tourists without noticeable impact on the daily city workings. There are no wild gazelles to spook, and those temporary installations didn’t warrant new highway construction, or overburden water supplies.

This self-indulgence-in-the-sand will incite crowds in cars and buses to crisscross pristine desert wetland ecosystem to gape at the oddity, grab a swanky meal, and then what?  What inappropriate development will follow?

How permanent is The Mastaba?  What’s the barrel specification?  Are they cleaned?  Coated?  How will they be joined? And, in a cradle-to-cradle consideration, how will it ultimately be dismantled?

An underground steel oil tank has a lifespan of about 15 years.  What’s the ongoing maintenance program to ensure this “sculpture” remains standing for more than a decade? Is he designing bespoke equipment to perform periodic structural integrity checks? How will workmen safely access the thing to make repairs?

During the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, after the showing of a documentary about his work, Christo predicted a 2015 completion. An absolute decision about project approval is yet to be announced.

He’s been quoted as saying, “All these projects are totally useless, irrational and have no reason to exist. Nobody needs these projects.”

In his book The Mastaba, Project for Abu Dhabi, published this month, Christo recalls the words of Jeanne-Claude: “We only do works of joy and beauty.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, indeed.

All images from the Christo + Jean-Claude website

The post Christo Stacks Oil Drums in Abu Dhabi Mastaba Artwork Mimicking Pyramids appeared first on Green Prophet.

You might have already read about the first part of our journey where our bus kept breaking down on the road to Siwa. When our host Yehia secured permission from the Egyptian army manager for us to take photos at the carpet factory in Siwa, my traveling companions and I lost no time. Veiled women are usually exceptionally camera shy so this opportunity was at once unusual and exhilarating.

Of course, the women were less thrilled than we, so when they turned away from our peering lenses, I put my camera away.

But before that, I was able to capture a scene that will give our readers a unique glimpse into a world that few people get to see. “The Productive Unit for Environmental Industries” in the Siwa oasis near Libya is working to revive a dying heritage. (See our story on Bokja in Beirut to understand why traditions are important).

Here local Berber and Bedouin women are trained in the traditional craft of weaving Kleem (rugs). In return, they receive both a small salary and commission.

It isn’t easy to communicate with the people at the carpet factory in Siwa. Had I known that behind this ambiguous sign – “The Productive Unit for Environmental Industries” – sat a group of women who earn an income for their families by weaving rugs in the traditional way, I would have visited with a translator. But I had no way of knowing that and our trip here was not planned.

Even so, I was able to extract a few crucial details, and pictures tell a compelling story too. Mr. Khaled Amam, the army manager who oversees the day to day running of the factory, shares an easy camaraderie with the weavers who were very curious about our clicking entourage. Many of the women stopped working, others carried on.

Kleem making has a long history in this region, and rugs developed here used to be shipped to different parts of the world, but globalization and capitalism has diminished the viability of this industry and the skills traditionally passed from women to women were at risk of extinction.

Dr. Eng. Shereif A. Temraz, Prof. Assistant, Faculty of Specific Education, Alexandria University-Egypt says that “The significance of the popular heritage (folklore) in studying of the design is…linked to our roots and ammunition against the cultural invasion aiming to deprive us from our Egyptian entity and the future of the traditional crafts.”

For the last 15 years, dozens of women have been trained to use longstanding symbols such as circles, representing the completion of life, and triangles that show the link between earth and sky, in unique designs woven with weft and warp technique.

Roughly 25 weavers and their families currently benefit from this cottage industry, though it is unclear who initiated it, who funded that initiation, and whether the project continues to receive outside help. What is clear is that these rugs, along with bags and other accessories, are sold in the factory, in downtown Siwa, and in Cairo, Alexandria, and other commercial centers scattered throughout the country. Mr. Aman said that the women receive a small stipend in addition to commissions on rugs sold, so it may be that the project is self-sustaining by now.

The Wikipedia definition of sustainable development is as follows: “a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come (sometimes taught as ELF-Environment, Local people, Future).”

While it won’t make them rich, this effort to empower the weavers of Siwa is an inspiring example of sustainable development. Last year we wrote about an Egyptian photographer’s efforts to draw attention to the way in which unsustainable development and tourism threatens the unique culture of this beautiful oasis town. Let this post be a testament to their resilience.

More on Sustainable Tourism in Egypt:

Romantic Desert Lodge in Egypt Offers Fresh Eggs and Sanity

Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis Trampled by Tourism

Bake Bread Like an Egyptian

The Famous Potters of Egypt Got Soul

Green Prophet’s Whirlwind Tour of the Siwa Oasis in Egypt

The post Siwa Oasis and the Veiled Weavers Society appeared first on Green Prophet.