DESTROYING A SYMBOL OF THE IRANIAN HERITAGE
Qanats have represented a major technological advance and solution for water supply in arid and semi-arid regions for millennia and their history is entangled with the emergence of several civilizations over time.
The region of Mashhad includes one of the richest samples in Iran with 88 qanats running around and through the city for a total length of more 500 km.
The dramatic population growth that invested Mashhad brought to the destruction of 86 of the 88 qanats that were directly supplying more than 10,000 litres of water per second and that represented an important pieces of heritage for the city. The freely available scientific publications proposed below provide detail on the history, mechanisms and effects of this disaster.
Salehi, F., Ghafoori, M., Lashkaripour, G., & Moghadas, N. H. Evaluation of Qanat Collapse Hazard in Mashhad City (Case study: the zone 11 of municipality of Mashhad, Iran) 2010. In Proceedings of The 1 st International Applied Geological Congress, Department of Geology, Islamic Azad University - Mashad Branch, Iran, 26-28 April 2010, 379-383.
Hosseini, S. A., Shahraki, S. Z., Farhudi, R., Hosseini, S. M., Salari, M., & Pourahmad, A. 2010. Effect of urban sprawl on a traditional water system (Qanat) in the City of Mashhad, NE Iran. Urban Water Journal, 7(5), 309-320.
Moteahed, F. S., Ghafoori, M., Lashkaripour, G. R., & Moghaddas, N. H. 2014. Evaluation of Qanat subsidence potential map in west of Mashhad City NE of Iran. Jordan Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences, 6(1), 15-20.