Modelling Southern Mesopotamia Irrigated Landscapes: How Small-scale Processes Could Contribute to Large-Scale Societal Development

Early Southern Mesopotamia shows a complex history of expansion of (irrigated) farming in relation to urban developments and changing landscapes. As a first step to study expanding irrigated farming system, an irrigation-related agent-based model was developed to explore farm(land)s and irrigation systems in relation to decision-making processes, both of farms and their farmlands (an agriculture unit) and collective decision-making processes for irrigation system management-especially sharing water between farms. The decision-making processes include options to move farms, expand the system, or start a new system, as these would be options available for Mesopotamian farmers as well. In this text, we report how model parameters contribute to the generation of various patterns of yields and expansion of farms and system. Additionally, the Gini coefficient (based on yields) is applied to estimate levels of inequality among farmers. Our results show how (1) human decision-making determines the level of influence of and benefits for farms, as well as the overall irrigation system; (2) Gini values effectively capture the degree of inequality in yields among farms based on water availability; and (3) our model is a suitable base for further study, by incorporating additional agents into the irrigation system and expanding the spatial-temporal scales of the irrigated landscapes, to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of irrigation systems in Southern Mesopotamia.

Automated summary

This article presents an agent-based model to study the expansion of irrigation farming systems in early Southern Mesopotamia. The model explores the decision-making processes of farms and their farmlands, as well as collective decision-making for irrigation system management. The results show that human decision-making plays a crucial role in influencing the influence and benefits of farms and the overall irrigation system. The Gini coefficient effectively captures the level of inequality in yields among farms based on water availability. The model provides a suitable base for further research on the evolutionary dynamics of irrigation systems in Southern Mesopotamia.