イラン乾燥地農業と水 : マルヴダシト地方における潅漑農業の形態

I studied the Iranian farms in Iran, Afganistan and Turkey as a member of the“Geographical Research of West-Asian Villages”. In order to study the irrigation system, I stayed in two villages which are located in the Marvdast Plain of Fars Province in southern Iran. This paper deals with the characteristics of the agriculture in the dry area and the role of irrigation. The paper is divided into the following three parts; (i) effects of irrigation on the productivity of agriculture, (ii) effects of the recent changes of irrigation system on the local society, (iii) traditional method of water division in the classical river irrigation area. (1) The role of the irrigation in the dry area, is not only it grows the plants better by the supply of water, it enables the formulation of the technical system which helps the increase of the productivity. The quantity of water decides the amount of fertilizer and seedlings as well as the labour system. In the area where there is no irrigation, agricultural technology is very primitive and the productivity stays very low. (2) Formerly, main sources of irrigation beside for rivers were, qanat, spring and well. In recent years, motivated by the land reformation, powered-well replaced the other systems. This change caused the significant increase of the productivity of agriculture. The major part of this introduction was carried out by the modern agriculture practitioners who became powerful short after the land reformation. (3) Irrigation using of the river water has been used since one thousand years and the traditional method of water division among villages as well as within a village had not changed until recent years. In these days, however, the system was completely changed and farmers have to buy the water from the government after the modern large-scale dam was constructed in 1972 and the government began to own the water. As the result, the old water usage was abolished