Ancient qanat in Tehran to be restored, revived
TEHRAN- The centuries-old Qanat of Behjat-Abad, which is stretched from the towering Alborz Mountains southward to central Tehran, is planned to be restored and revived in the near future, an official with the Tehran Municipality announced on Wednesday.
There are several qanats in this region of the city, which were the main source of water in old times, but now they are suffering a lot of damages as they have been unused for years, Mehdi Hushiar said.
Nowadays as we are facing the shortage of water, reviving these qanats could be a good solution and they will be used for watering the city’s green spaces after being fully restored, the official added.
The concept of “Persian Qanat” was registered on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2016. According to the UN cultural body, Persian qanats provide exceptional testimony to cultural traditions and civilizations in desert areas with an arid climate.
For thousands of years, qanat systems have supplied water to agricultural and permanent settlements in arid regions of Iran, tapping alluvial aquifers at the heads of valleys and conducting the water along underground tunnels by gravity, often over many kilometers.
The qanat system relies on snow-fed streams, which flow down the foothills of surrounding mountains channeling through sloping aqueducts, often over far distances to discharge into the city’s underground reservoirs or ab-anbars. Such constructions are still in practice, many of which were made from the 13th century onwards.
ABU/AFM