Salinity Management in Arid Regions - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 417

FIGURE 21.1 ( Continued ) Irrigation practices in the United Arab Emirates (old farm well
head, restored channels in an ancient oasis, drip apparatus sustaining a tree, and a small farm
growing fodder for camels) and Syria (diesel pumps and metal and plastic piping sustaining
large-scale grain fields).
None of this is new. Marsh and land salinization have been recurring problems
in southern Iraq, evidence for which extends back thousands of years. Sumerian and
Akkadian lamentations recorded as cuneiform inscriptions (France 2007) bemoan
the problem, as the following three examples show:
Below, the water from the depths is bolted, it does not flow/ That is why the dark
ploughland has whitened/ That is why in the pastureland grains do not sprout.
(Atahasis II)