From Qanats to Water Bazaar: The Evolution of Water Governance in Yazd

We refer to the modern use of our ancestral approaches to confront today’s challenges as Reflexive Modernization. This article seeks to depict a civilization that survived and expanded based on water scarcity by explaining the socio-environmental history of Yazd through the lens of everyday life design, using photographs of the remained city’s historical water structures. The era of the Qanat is explained through three fundamental reflexive elements: transparency, public participation, and openness, within what we have defined as the three phases of “Qanat and Sustainability,” “Water Pump and Risk,” and “Reflection for Ecological Transformation.”

Taking a reflexive approach, this research engages with historical-environmental analysis of the Middle East and discusses key socio-environmental theories of the Qanat era in this geography, revolving around theories of climate change and drought, nomadic invasions, and Oriental despotism. It presents a new form narrative of Iranian water governance history, focusing on the civilization of Yazd, grounded in the Qanat system and other historical hydraulic structures, while examining the relationships between people, nature, and the dimensions of water governance.

Considering water's key role in Yazd's development, we analyzed the collapse of the Qanat-based civilization with the rise of the industrial era, marking a transition from sustainability to the age of risk. Our modern measures to address water risks and strive for ecological transformation are rooted in this historical understanding. As a pragmatic outcome of this reflection, we recently established the Yazd Water Bazaar. The introduction of this market represents the latest phase of our reflexive modernization. It demonstrates the role of an updated, dynamic tradition in developing innovative, nature-adaptive solutions for water governance in Yazd.