Ancient and traditional hydraulic systems record and store valuable information about the long-term interactions between humans, water, and climate. Underground aqueducts and qanats, reservoirs, terraces and irrigation systems demonstrate ancient societies’ deep understanding of hydrology, hydraulics, and waterscapes; moreover, they unveil their advanced sustainable water management practices and their ability to adapt to changes in climate and environmental conditions, and to the complexities of hydrosocial dynamics. Their preservation offers unique opportunity to examine how human-water interactions have evolved over millennia, how ancestral water knowledge has been transferred (or lost) across generations, and how this knowledge can be preserved and used to inform contemporary water pressures, and sustainable goals.

This session invites interdisciplinary approaches to multi-temporal hydraulic systems beyond an archaeological perspective. We welcome contributions that view of these systems holistically, as living systems, environmental and climate archives, and the repositories of ancestral water knowledge and hydrosocial dynamics. Contributions may address, but are not limited to:

-Design, construction, operation, maintenance, adaptation, and continued use;
-Geospatial and other emergent technologies to document, map, reconstruct, and monitor hydraulic landscapes;
-Social dynamics surrounding water infrastructure, including ancient, traditional, and local knowledge and their intergenerational transfer or loss;
-Contemporary pressures, including groundwater depletion, water pollution, agriculture, land-use change and climate change;
-Lessons from ancient hydraulic practices for water security, climate adaptation, community resilience, and sustainable water management; and
-Integration of archaeological, hydrological, hydrogeology, geospatial approaches with ancient, traditional, and local knowledge to understand socio-hydrology and coupled human–water systems and inform public policies.

The session brings together the fields of anthropology, archaeology, hydrology, hydrogeology, environmental sciences, and emerging geospatial technologies to explore how knowledge from the past, combined with contemporary science and technology, can offer new perspectives for sustaining knowledge transfer, addressing water pressures, and in informing future water policies.