Dean Shaff Personal Blog: Jterm 2016

Over J-term, I had the opportunity to leave coding, electronics and Physics aside for a few weeks. I took a class in which we travelled all over the UAE and part of Oman. I was able to make some new friends and spend some quality time with my boy Eder. The class itself was interesting as well. In principle, the purpose of the class was to study the interaction between three different landscapes in the region (Oasis, Coast and Mountain, also the name of the course). In my mind the overriding themes of the class were water management, increased dependence on modern economies, and the interaction between place, state, and identity.

Compared to the part of the world where I come from, the UAE and Oman don't really have much water. Back home, when I tell people that the UAE has a lot of farms they often express disbelief, scoffing at the notion of growing food in such an arid climate. Historically, people in this region have devised a pretty ingenious system of bringing water from aquifers at the base of mountains to settlements. This falaj system involves digging a tunnel from the mountain to the settlement and then systematically diverting the flow of water (using only gravity the entire time) to farms. The main tunnel from the mountain to the oasis might be many miles long. Imagining people digging these tunnels without modern tools and safety equipment is baffling and quite extraordinary. These falaj systems aren't used for industrial agriculture in the UAE anymore, but they are in Oman. In the UAE, falaj is a system associated with traditional date cultivation, not with contemporary farming techniques. Nowadays the move is to dig a well and use other irrigation techniques to water plants. My understanding is that the water table is dropping in the UAE as a result of extracting groundwater faster than it can be replenished. While I don't remember getting confirmation in Oman, I think this is the case there as well. Aquifers can't be replenished because of systematic lack of rain in recent years and increased demand for water.

Now for some pictures. While I wrote a bunch of field logs during the trip, I don't really feel like giving a super detailed account of the trip...

Reclining in the finished plot. We had the chance to dig out a plot on a terraced farm in Jebel Al Akhdar. This plot is the fourth terrace down, and is fed by falaj water.