Today, our societies face great challenges with water, both in terms of quantity and quality, but many of these challenges also existed at points in the past. Focusing on Asia, Water Societies and Technologies from the Past and Present seeks to highlight the issues that emerge or reemerge across different societies and periods and asks what they can tell us about water sustainability. Incorporating cutting-edge research and pioneering field surveys on past and present water management practices, the interdisciplinary contributors together identify how societies managed water resource challenges and utilized water in ways that allowed them to evolve, persist, or drastically alter their environment.
 

Mark Altaweel is a Reader in Near Eastern Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology having held previous appointments and joint appointments at the University of Chicago, University of Alaska, and Argonne National Laboratory. He has conducted fieldwork in various parts of the Middle East and North America, focusing on environmental and social-environmental interactions in modern and ancient societies. In addition to fieldwork, Dr Altaweel focuses on the use of quantitative and analytical methods to gain insight into water management and water use issues. Yijie Zhuang has conducted intensive fieldwork in different parts of East and Southeast Asia. He is primarily interested in the reconstruction of water management systems and agricultural ecologies of both the monsoonal and arid regions of Asia and how these related to long term social evolution.