A Note on the Gargar Irrigation System

Sasanian’s imperial policy aimed to construct new towns, massive irrigation infrastructures, and land modification by depopulating rural areas in order to carry out massive agriculture projects particularly in Khuzestan. Shushtar with its ancient relics presents a unique chance to investigate some of these development activities, mainly in terms of irrigation. Several chief irrigation organs have been identified inside and to south of Shushtar to shift parts of the Karun River water to the Gargar and control its flow in order to create a complex transformed landscape where it is known as the Mianab plain today. The Gargar Channel and its expansion over the plain have not yet been systematically investigated. One of the main issues is whether the Gargar was opened as an artificial channel during Sasanian period or it was a natural stream, the flow and capability of which was utilized by ancient people for irrigation purposes. Two major obstacles to address this issue include lack of sufficient historical accounts about this ancient irrigation system, and landscape elucidation, i.e. separating changes created by human and those formed naturally through field examinations. Evidence presented and briefly discussed in this article would hypothesize that this watercourse was originally a man made channel that was later on changed its course and formed a naturally cut river. That is why two terms are presented here: the Gargar “Channel” and the Gargar “River”. It is also proposed that an avulsion had occurred at the point where Band-e Mahibazan is located and changed the course of the Gargar Channel forever.