Karez System Cultural Landscape

The Karez system is a traditional form of water management in arid and semi-arid areas, believed to have originated in Persia in the first millennium BCE and spread along the Silk Road to China and the Mediterranean. A karez consists of mother well, where the water is tapped, and a series of vertical shafts connected by sloping tunnels. Underground water is delivered by gravity to the surface from higher-lying regions. Today, there are more than 1,000 functional karezes in Balochistan, of which four representative sites have been selected for this proposal.