A Note on the Gargar Irrigation System

Sasanian’s imperial policy aimed to construct new towns, massive irrigation infrastructures, and land modification bydepopulating rural areas in order to carry out massive agriculture projects particularly in Khuzestan. Shushtar with itsancient relics presents a unique chance to investigate some of these development activities, mainly in terms of irrigation.Several chief irrigation organs have been identified inside and to south of Shushtar to shift parts of the Karun River waterto the Gargar and control its flow in order to create a complex transformed landscape where it is known as the Mianabplain today.The Gargar Channel and its expansion over the plain have not yet been systematically investigated. One of the mainissues is whether the Gargar was opened as an artificial channel during Sasanian period or it was a natural stream, the flowand capability of which was utilized by ancient people for irrigation purposes. Two major obstacles to address this issueinclude lack of sufficient historical accounts about this ancient irrigation system, and landscape elucidation, i.e. separatingchanges created by human and those formed naturally through field examinations.Evidence presented and briefly discussed in this article would hypothesize that this watercourse was originally a manmade channel that was later on changed its course and formed a naturally cut river. That is why two terms are presentedhere: the Gargar “Channel” and the Gargar “River”. It is also proposed that an avulsion had occurred at the point whereBand-e Mahibazan is located and changed the course of the Gargar Channel forever.

Keywords:

Shushtar , Mianab Plain , Gargar River , Gargar Channel , Sasanian Irrigation System