Ecological wisdom, an intellectual foundation in hydraulic heritage for the development and co-evolution of coupled human-water systems

Abstract

Sustainable-integrated structural, functional, and management systems of water resources with emphasis on understanding the dynamics and co-evolution of coupled human-water systems have created concepts such as environmental hydrology, social hydrology, water sociology, etc. The evolution of the science of hydrology based on the theory of socio-ecological systems faces various challenges, including missing ring of social capital, local management, and regeneration of ecological wisdom governing the common resource, which requires the recognition of the semantic interaction and co-evolution of ecological wisdom and social hydrology. The current descriptive-analytical research formulates a conceptual framework for the development of social hydrology based on ecological wisdom intellectual foundation governing the ancient hydraulic heritage. The analysis of commonalities and differences in ecological wisdom, social hydrology, and their study paths based on comparative analysis emphasizes the realization of new insight in light of ecological wisdom, which, while linking procedural and conceptual approaches, provides a framework for the coupled systems co-evolution, with the potential to fully understand complexities, connections, and feedbacks, transform conflicts into interactions, analyze past events, strengthen the participation of stakeholders, predict long-term consequences of today's decisions, and facilitate the policymaking, decision-making processes, and formulation of efficient management strategies at various local, national, and regional scales.

Keywords

• socio-hydrology
• ecological wisdom
• co-evolution of systems
• hydraulic heritage
• social capital