My interest in traditional irrigation began when I started my Archaeology degree in the University of Granada. Studying in this region of Spain, rich in historical and natural heritage, gave me the opportunity to conduct research on traditional irrigation practices. Since many irrigation systems in Granada were originally designed by Muslim societies from al-Andalus between the 8th-15th centuries and are still operative, they represent a conspicuous example of resilient and sustainable water management.

I began my research on historical irrigation systems through the Biocultural Archaeology Laboratory MEMOLab, where I trained in Hydraulic Archaeology and Landscape Archaeology. I engaged with different irrigation communities, observing particularities between systems and learning about the practices that farmers implement to ensure proper water management. These traditional practices are part of a vast body of ecological knowledge developed within each community. In the DAWN project I will study and gather traditional irrigation knowledge, explore their degree of overlap with the knowledge on irrigation held by engineers, and explore the potential to merge both epistemologies to make irrigation models more valuable for science and policy-making.