Qanat of Baladeh, Ferdows

The Qanat of Baladeh supplies the town of Ferdows, in the north of South Khorasan. A qanat is an ancient Iranian technique for bringing water to the desert: a gently sloping tunnel dug from the foot of the hills, where groundwater lies, out to the fields and houses of a settlement, with a line of vertical shafts for access and air. From the air, a qanat appears as a string of round mounds across the plain, each one the spoil heap of a well.

Baladeh is one of the eleven qanats inscribed by UNESCO in 2016 as the Persian Qanat, chosen to represent tens of thousands of such channels across Iran. According to the nomination dossier it runs for about 19 kilometres, with 153 wells and fifteen branches, each beginning at its own mother well. Its age is debated: the nomination gives a date of around 1600, while local tradition and some writers place its origins much earlier.

A qanat is a social institution as much as a work of engineering. Its water is shared among the families who hold rights to it, in turns measured by time, and in each community a mirab, a water master, oversees the cycle. In the past the time was kept with a water clock, a bowl with a hole that sank in a basin of water.

Qanats are under pressure across Iran, as deep wells lower the water table, and Baladeh has suffered dry periods. Its listing is both a recognition and a reminder: these channels made life possible on Iran's dry plateau for thousands of years and depend on careful shared stewardship.