Traditional Water Division Systems in Iran and Their Impacts on Society

Water for irrigation is owned by shares. In fact the farmers take turns bringing water to their land. For a particular shareholder, the interval between two irrigations means an irrigation cycle or rotation pattern of irrigation water which may take 6-21 days. This paper is a study on correlation between the rotation pattern and the environmental and social factors such as soil conditions and the number of shareholders. Also the paper examines the issues of water division units in traditional irrigation. To measure the irrigation shares the farmers are entitled to, they have invented some units which vary from area to area with the local conditions and the volume of the water available. In sum, there are three types of water division units traditionally used by the Iranian farmers as follows:1- Units based on the area of farm land.2- Units based on the volume of flow3- Units based on timeWe describe these types of units and the way the farmers used to ration water among hundreds of shareholders without any dispute or waste

Traditional Water Division Systems in Iran and Their Impacts on Society Keywords:

Rotation Pattern of Irrigation Water , Water Division Units , Traditional Water Management Systems , water shareholders