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The
dam of Beni Isguen in one of its sporadic moments of flood that
even occur every ten years, when the water intakes channel the
flows towards the single parts of the palm-grove and replenish
the water table.
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The
dam of Beni Isguen, one of the settlements of the pentapolis of
Ghardaia. The dam is not used to create a water basin but rather
it retains the flows in the subsoil and water is drawn up from
the wells like that above on the right.
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Ghardaia,
a big water sharing device used to distribute and channel the
precious floods according to the different oases.
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Ghardaia,
a torrent-street. When floods occur the street directs water to
the gardens beyond the lateral walls. On the right the figure
shows the water intake which intercepts the liquid in the torrent-street
and directs it to the gardens.
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Wadi
Dhahr (Yemen). The landscape of roads, gardens and cultivations
created thanks to the water distribution technique of the torrent-streets.
The water intakes open into the gardens situated between the walls
of the narrow streets. The whole system works by gravity and determines
a rigorous organization which fully functions only when of the
sporadic floods occur and the pathways turn into watercourses.
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The
Hadramaut valley and the ancient walled town of Shibam surrounded
by the embankments and the channels of the traditional system
of flood sharing and cultivation of the fields, most of which
are now abandoned.
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In
Yemen mausoleums and holy places are almost always related to
water harvesting. The Hadramaut valley: the sanctuary above channels
the runoff along the slope into the room of ablutions and prayer
below.
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In
Yemen mausoleums and holy places are almost always related to
water harvesting. Northern Yemen: the rainfalls collected in the
courtyard for prayer fill up the open-air cistern.
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Shibam
(Yemen). The ancient dam was not used to create an open-air basin
but rather to direct the floods.
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Shibam
(Yemen). To the embankments, the channels and the depressions
in the gardens.
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Shibam.
The dams conveyed the flows down the small watersheds where the
soil saturated with humidity could be cultivated all the year
round.
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The
harvesting systems of the floods in small depressions and gardens
separated by land embankments are still in use in al-Hajarain,
in the homonymous wadi, one of the numerous tributaries of the
Hadramaut.
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Petra,
big open-air cistern. The structures built in the classic era
present a regular geometrical shape and large excavated volumes.
In some cases they have arches covered with stone slabs.
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Petra.
The interior of a cistern.
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Petra.
a device for harvesting humidity along the slope, here called
khottara, that works by means of channels that catch water on
the walls and convey it to the pools underneath.
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The
famous monuments of Petra, wrongly defined as tombs, were the
representative places, deposits of goods and places for family
rituals. All the excavations were also in connection with water.
The figure shows the so-called Palace Tomb, a monumental complex
situated at the end of the long aqueduct of wadi al-Mataha which
formed a big cascade.
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Sasso
Barisano, one of the two large depressions forming the ancient
town of Matera. The houses, terraces and gardens develop in successive
circles and surround the riverbed of the narrow drainage stream,
the "grabiglione", now paved. The high spur of the Civita, where
the Cathedral stands on a rise, overlooks the urban landscape.
The dwellings envelop the limestone bed by stretching out into
the rock with deep underground cavities whose entrances may be
observed where the buildings become fewer and leave the rock matrix
bare.
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Sion
(Valais), landscape created by the bisse technique, with terraced
slopes where high quality grapevines are grown thanks to an irrigation
system carried out by means of hydraulic devices. The outlet of
the latter determines the location of the historical settlements.
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In
Shibam the habitat is important for the fertilisation of the fields
with which it interacts in an indissoluble cycle of careful use
of the resources. The town is able to meet the need of collecting
human excrements, thanks to the kind of closet, the fabric of
the houses and the whole planimetry. Excrement, essential in order
to cultivate the desert , is dried in the sun. Thanks to the supply
of flood waters impounded by deviation dams, the excrement turns
into humus and colloidal material, which is dug out and used for
building and periodically renovating the tall adobe houses of
the town. Depressions are made, surrounded by embankments and
channels and shaded by the palm-grove. Their function is that
of providing agricultural foodstuffs and protecting the habitat
from the floods by absorbing and storing quantities of water.
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Application of the phytodepuration system by means of terraces in wadi Hadramaut (Yemen). Below the town a system of consecutive terraces (A) in harmony with the traditional landscape drains wastewater that would otherwise stagnate in the environment that lacks rivers able to collect them (Laureano, 1993).
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A proposal for rebuilding the water system and the tilled terraces of wadi al-Mataha (Petra). The restoration of the ecosystem and the revival of the vegetation are not only a new archaeological attraction managed by the bedu groups, but also the defence of the environment against the erosion and demolition of the sandstone walls.
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