Maurits Ertsen

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Delft University of Technology

The Neo-Assyrian empire offers a clear example of the key relationship between imperial power and water management. Irrigated landscapes under the direct impulse of the Assyrian state were important during its imperial heydays of the late 9th to 7th centuries BC. In the very heartland of the empire (the “Assur-Nineveh-Arbela Triangle” this imperial...

The accomplishment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is intrinsically connected to improving livelihoods in the Rural Global South (RGS). RGS livelihoods are complex, showing multiple dimensions beyond mere economic considerations. However, many related development policies (over)simplify livelihoods to income thresholds, leading to flawed in...

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, b...

Smallholder farmers (SFs) are cornerstone actors in eradicating poverty and hunger. Companies have recently focused on SFs as potential customers and suppliers. Several hindrances yet prevent SFs to be commercially viable actors. In this respect, sustainable business models (SBMs) bring opportunities for companies to increase profit, improve SFs' l...

Despite extensive research on farmers' constraints and decisions, technology developers, policymakers and development organizations still encounter difficulties in relating policies to farmers' strategies. Often, the concept of ‘smallholders' is applied as explaining and predicting farmers' decisions—suggesting that specific strategies of farmers c...

The year 2007 marked the beginning of a journey to secure food in Rwanda. The country introduced the Crop Intensification Program (CIP), which promotes the farmland use consolidation (LUC). This study assesses the effect of farmland use changes on the agriculture production. We collected data at four research sites and considered three agriculture...

Recognizing the interrelatedness of water use and conceptual value of IWRM, progressive water resource management systems are moving beyond hierarchical arrangements toward more integrated networks. Increasing calls for participation recognize the value of broadened perspectives that provide both technical expertise as well as social, cultural, and...

Improved water management is an important strategy to support smallholder farming, and thus to foster food security and improved livelihoods. Within this strategy, technologies like water pumps, especially those operating on renewable energies, are key, as they are more environmentally sound and affordable alternatives. Their successful and sustain...

The literature on irrigated agriculture is primarily concerned with irrigation techniques, irrigation water-use efficiency, and crop yields. How human and non-human agents co-shape(d) irrigation landscapes through their activities and how these actions impact long-term developments are less well studied. In this study, we aim to (1) explore interac...

this article empirically assesses the relations between land tenure security and smallholder farms' crop production in Rwanda. We show that the general assumption that secure land tenure improves farm level harvests, is not found for smallholder farms in Rwanda. We defined a farmland tenure security index based on plausible threats as conveyed by s...

Sand dams are impermeable water harvesting structures built to collect and store water within the volume of sediments transported by ephemeral rivers. The artificial sandy aquifer created by the sand dam reduces evaporation losses relative to surface water storage in traditional dams. Recent years have seen a renaissance of studies on sand dams as...

In the first decade of the 21st century, a water harvesting approach based on contour trenches—ditches to catch runoff—from Kenya was proposed as groundwater recharge technology in a semi-arid area in Ninh Phuoc district, Vietnam. In order to modify this solutions to tackle water scarcity, hydrological conditions at the site needed to be known. For...

An Advanced Irrigation-Related Agent-Based Model (AIRABM) of farmers' decision-making mechanism and feedback among farmers is developed. The model explores the interactions among human and non-human agents in the irrigation system. In this paper, we discuss harvest patterns as they result from more equal or unequal water distribution in the system....

Droughts and changing rainfall patterns due to natural climate variability and climate change, threaten the livelihoods of Malawi’s smallholder farmers, who constitute 80% of the population. Provision of seasonal climate forecasts (SCFs) is one means to potentially increase the resilience of rainfed farming to drought by informing farmers in their...

Emerging societal complexity is closely linked to water systems within archaeology. When studying water-based societies, climate is usually conceptualized as an external force. Such an perspective risks missing how societal agents change both meaning and effects of climatic changes. This chapter proposes to develop an model-approach based on contin...

This paper assesses the success of sand-storage dams in Kitui, Kenya—with “success” being considered to relate to the amount of water that dams can store, and the usability of the water in terms of access, quantity and quality. Building on a series of recent larger and smaller research projects, the paper sketches the complex interactions between c...

Sand dams have become popular in many parts of the arid world as a relatively cheap and effective water harvesting technology. Kenya is one of the countries with the highest number of such dams, with semi-arid Kitui County having become a major hub in recent decades. These sand dams are used for water storage in the beds of Kitui’s seasonal rivers....

This paper reviews the scholarly literature discussing the effect(s) of land registration on the relations between land tenure security and agricultural productivity. Using 85 studies, the paper focuses on the regular claim that land registration’s facilitation of formal documents-based land dealings leads to investment in a more productive agricul...

Pumped irrigation is a way to intensify smallholder production. In this context, the Dutch company aQysta has developed the Barsha pump (BP), the first-ever commercial version of the spiral pumps. BPs, however, face several constraints that affect the decision-making and access of smallholders to this and other agricultural technologies, thus to th...

Severe water scarcity in recent years has magnified the economic, social, and environmental significance of water stress globally, making optimal planning in water resources necessary for sustainable socioeconomic development. One of the regions that is most affected by this is the Sistan region and its Hamoun wetland, located in southeast Iran. Wa...

Pumped irrigation is a way to improve water control for smallholder farming, hence to intensify its production. In this context, the Dutch company aQysta has developed the Barsha pump (BP), the first-ever commercial version of a hydro-powered pump traditionally referred to as spiral pump. BPs, however, have to deal with several constraints that aff...

Water pumping systems driven by renewable energies are more environmentally sound and, at times, less expensive alternatives to electric- or diesel-based ones. From these, hydro-powered pumps have further advantages. Nevertheless, these seem to be largely ignored nowadays. More than 800 scientific and nonscientific documents contributed to assemble...

Archaeological studies typically describe arid areas as extremely unpleasant areas for human occupation and use. Without suggesting that arid areas are pleasant places, however, this paper provides a reassessment of the meaning of aridity for an area showing a vast amount of evidence of (past) human activities. Several climatic proxy data suggest t...

Dealing with uncertainty is key in socio-hydrological analysis. As such, thinking through what uncertainties mean for whom and when is key. This discussion contribution introduces three issues related to defining uncertainties. The first issue deals with the problem of defining uncertainty as a given external reality. The second issue deals with wh...

Global food production needs to increase. Such an increase can come from intensified irrigated agriculture. Many current irrigation technologies are energy-and cost-intensive. Providing irrigation services instead of selling hardware addresses the (financial) reality of smallholder farmers and builds a sustainable business model rather than relying...

We explore the concept of scales to examine emerging irrigation realities, i.e., connecting more agents within larger spaces - relates to the complexity of irrigation systems. Modern hydraulic models allow the inclusion of emerging multi-scale issues over time, including social issues related to different spatial and temporal scales. We show that t...

This chapter traces the career steps and decisions of Dutch irrigation engineer De Gruyter between 1920 and 1961 to discuss how the Dutch irrigation engineering network managed to emerge and continue by defining what its members considered ‘good practice’. Irrigation education in Delft permitted entrance to working practice. Only those working proc...

Water is an important key to understand Maya society, especially water availability within a context of climatic changes. Increasing drought would have pushed the Maya water systems into collapse. This paper studies the Maya water systems from an action‐oriented perspective, in order to understand what challenges the Maya had to overcome when deali...

Based on a review of key concepts in agent-based modeling for irrigation systems and coupled human-water systems in general, this study presents a proof of concept of an agent-based model based on the existing Irrigation Management Game. After the modeling philosophy and main characteristics are outlined, a number of pilot applications are presente...

This paper argues that human and material agents co-shape ‘morality’. Water systems will be discussed in more detail. Artefacts (technologies) relate humans and their worlds, but the specifics of this relationship become meaningful only within specific actor-networks. As such, the material influences the moral decisions of humans. Examples from the...

Many small-scale water development initiatives are accompanied by hydrological research to study either the form of the intervention or its impacts. Humans influence both the development of intervention and research, and thus one needs to take human agency into account. This paper focuses on the effects of human actions in the development of the in...

In the first half of the 20th century, colonial rulers, a British firm and Sudanese farmers changed the Gezira Plain in Sudan into a large-scale irrigated cotton scheme. Gezira continues to be in use up to date. Its story shows how the abstract concept 'development' is shaped through the agency of humans and non-humans alike in government offices a...

Since the 1990th Sasol, a local Non-Governmental-Organization (NGO), builds sand storage dams, to mitigate the consequences of droughts in the semi-arid county of Kitui, Kenya. Sand storage dams are dams constructed in ephemeral rivers which increase the storage capacity of the riverbeds. The water stored by sand storage dams enables local people t...

Drought is a hazard that occurs everywhere in the world (both in dry and in wet areas). Despite the controversy regarding drought changes in the last decades [1–3], increases in drought intensity are clearly identified in some areas [4] and it is believed that although increased heating from global warming may not directly cause droughts, it is exp...

When visiting the Gezira in 1942 after a few years on voluntary duty in the Sudan Defense Forces (SDF), Syndicate inspector F. Bertram Hunt entrusted to his diary that he had decided to leave the SPS. He did “not like the atmosphere,” as there was too much “[p]etty self-seeking,” including “jockeying for position and trying to catch the bosses’ eye...

New Syndicate inspectors received detailed information about the rhythms of Gezira in the shape of a booklet with notes. The booklet served as their first encounter with Gezira tenants, “the most important factor contributing to the success of the Gezira Scheme,” as well. Knowing tenants’ “background and characteristics” was considered “essential t...

When he could find a moment in his hectic 1946 working schedule, the director of Irrigation and Irrigation Advisor to the Sudan Government, R. J. Smith, looked back “with nostalgia to the carefree days of pre-war extensions to the Gezira, with the confident planning and certain execution of works.”1 He was in a good position to compare the postwar...

Well before the first 300,000 feddans were irrigated from Sennar in 1925, enlarging the irrigated area in Gezira became a shared desire of the Sudan Government and the Sudan Plantations Syndicate (SPS). Extending the irrigated area would allow more extensive use of Sennar Dam and its canal system—the two most expensive elements—and increase revenue...

Despite the changes in Gezira over the years, Sudanese farmers were still irrigating fields and Sudanese staff was still doing supervisory activities in the Gezira Scheme. Whatever one’s ideas about the correct direction of development, something still happened in the Gezira Scheme of the 1970s and 1980s, even though it would not have been what man...

On July 1, 1950, the Sudan Plantations Syndicate no longer managed the Gezira Scheme. The Sudanese “became owners of one of the most spectacular agricultural experiments in the Middle East and Africa, certainly the largest agricultural unit of its kind in the world, and one of the most profitable.” With the Sudan Gezira Board taking over scheme man...

The year 1904 was an excellent year for new initiatives in Sudan. Hunt established his Sudan Experimental Plantations Syndicate, Garstin published about irrigating the Gezira, and the Egyptian Public Works Ministry created its Sudan Irrigation Branch. Charles Edward Dupuis became the first Inspector General of Irrigation in Sudan.1 In 1908, he pres...

In the early 1950s, it was clear—even to the British—that in a near future Sudan would become much more, if not completely, independent.1 At the same time, the United Kingdom wanted to keep some kind of influence in the country. One of the possible ways was to clearly offer support to Sudan’s development efforts, with irrigation high on that agenda...

Khartoum, Monday, February 18, 1907, at ten past six in the late afternoon to be exact, it was “all over now”; Charles William Lee Crompton had fallen victim to a fatal illness.1 Born in 1860, Crompton had been superintendent of the Gezira Surveys between 1902 and 1907. It was his task—with his team of assistants—to survey the Gezira Plain to clari...

Many small-scale water development initiatives are accompanied by hydrological research to study either the shape of the intervention or its impacts. Humans influence both, and thus one needs to take human agency into account. This paper focuses on the effects of human actions in the intervention and its associated hydrological research, as these e...

The Hohokam, an irrigation-based society in the American South West, used the river valleys of the Salt and Gila Rivers between 500 and 1500 AD to grow their crops. Such irrigated crops are linking human agency, water sources and the general natural environment. In order to grow crops, water available through rain and river flows needs to be divert...

In the Zerqa triangle in the Jordan Valley, irrigation would have been an important instrument to deal with the arid climate and its associated uncertainties concerning rainfall for societies in different periods. Before irrigation modernization efforts were started in the 1960s, the people of the Zerqa area used the known ethnohistorical irrigatio...

The typical image of the Gezira Scheme, the large-scale irrigation scheme started under British colonial rule in Sudan, is of a centrally planned effort by a central colonial power controlling tenants and cotton production. However, any idea(1)s of planned irrigation and profit in Gezira had to be realized by African farmers and European officials,...

We propose and test the theory of endogenous change in societal institutions based on historical reconstructions of two ancient civilizations, the Indus and Hohokam, in two water-scarce basins, the Indus Basin in the Indian subcontinent and the lower Colorado Basin in the southwestern United States. In our reconstructions, institutions are approxim...

Ancient civilizations may have dispersed or collapsed under extreme dry conditions. There are indications that the same may hold for modern societies. However, hydroclimatic change cannot be the sole predictor of the fate of contemporary societies in water-scarce regions. This paper focuses on technological change as a factor that may ameliorate th...

The ancient civilization in the Indus Valley civilization dispersed under extreme dry conditions; there are indications that the same holds for many other ancient societies. Even contemporary societies, such as the one in Murrumbidgee river basin in Australia, have started to witness a decline in overall population under increasing water scarcity....

When simulating social action in modeling efforts, as in socio-hydrology, an issue of obvious importance is how to ensure that social action by human agents is well-represented in the analysis and the model. Generally, human decision-making is either modeled on a yearly basis or lumped together as collective social structures. Both responses are pr...

We propose and test the theory of endogenous change based on historical reconstructions of two ancient civilizations, Indus and Hohokam, in two water scarce basins, the Indus basin in the Indian subcontinent and the Lower Colorado basin in Southwestern United States. The endogenous institutional change sees changes in institutions as a sequence of...

In Iran, along the northern and eastern fringes of the Pasargadae plain, five dam remains from the Achaemenid period (550-330 BCE) present an important footprint of the human impact and reshaping of the region. The dams are predominantly found in dry wadi beds. In the framework of the Joint Iranian-French Archaeological Project at Pasargadae, these...

This paper builds the theory of endogenous institutional change, first proposed by Greif and Laitin (2004), for water scarce regions in context of water institutions. The current emphasis on environmental change, including hydrological change, largely ignores the adaptation of human societies to change. Humans have mostly been considered as boundar...

Climate change has been one of key concerning factors for the origin and evolution of hydraulic engineering projects. The study of ancient irrigation systems in the context of long-term climate change enables us to improve the understanding on the response of human beings to variations on their environment. And niche construction starts to be used...

The pressure on irrigation is increasing worldwide, not only because of – perceived or real – high water consumption in the irrigated sector, but also because an increased world population puts stress on food production. Numerous irrigated areas around the world face similar issues of water scarcity, disparity in water distribution and deficient in...

Introduction of the large gravity irrigation system in the Indus Basin in the late 19th century without a drainage system resulted in a rising water table, which resulted in water logging and salinity problems over large areas. In order to cope with the salinity and water logging problem, the Pakistan government initiated installation of 10,000 tub...

This volume contains thirty-five papers from a 2010 conference on landscape archaeology focusing on the definition of landscape as used by processual archaeologists, earth scientists, and most historical geographers, in contrast to the definition favored by postprocessual archaeologists, cultural geographers, and anthropologists. This tension provi...

This article summarizes the outcome of a workshop sponsored by the Durham University Centre for Iranian Cultural Studies, where papers were presented on the entire chronological range of water management systems in Iran from around 8000 years bc until around 1000 ad. The primary aim was to recognize major research questions that could be used to cr...

Irrigation systems could be regarded as major links between human agents and their environment. In continuous interaction humans adapt to their environment overcoming the limitation of natural conditions, through modification of the environment. The paper aims at reproducing the original appearance of an ancient irrigation system and understanding...