Bart Schultz
In the Netherlands, these are currently laid down in, among other things, the Environment and Planning Act and in the Water Authorities Act. The Water Authorities themselves have regulations that stipulate how water management is to be implemented in their management area, as I briefly described earlier in Water Management and Polders in the Netherlands I and II and The Water Authorities in the Netherlands.
As far as is known, the first legislation to include articles in the field of water management dates back to approximately 1753 BC, and is known as the Code of Hammurabi. It is the longest, best organized, and best preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. Hammurabi was King of Babylon, in the downstream part of Mesopotamia, from approximately 1792 to 1750 BC. This legislation therefore dates back nearly 3,800 years.
The Code consisted of 282 and possibly 285 articles. This latter uncertainty is due to damage and was later traced back through other means. At that time, irrigation was the predominant water management method in Mesopotamia, and floods occurred regularly. Nasrat Adamo and Nadhir Al-Ansari (2020) describe that Hammurabi devoted much care to the repair and expansion of the irrigation systems.
Regarding water management, and thus particularly irrigation, a number of articles can be mentioned in this context. I have based these on the text of the Code translated into English by the British Assyriologist C.H.W. Johns in 1911. Most articles deal with water. The last two deal with land.
48. If a man has a debt upon him and a thunderstorm ravaged his field or carried away the produce, or the corn has not grown through lack of water, in that year he shall not return corn to the creditor, he shall alter his tablet and he shall not give interest for that year.
53. If a man has neglected to strengthen his bank of the canal, has not strengthened his bank, a breach has opened out itself in his bank, and the waters have carried away the meadow, the man in whose bank the breach has been opened shall render back the corn which he has caused to be lost.
54. If he is not able to render back the corn, one shall g ive him and his goods f or money, and the. people of the meadow whose corn the water has carried away shall share it.
55. If a man has opened hls runnel to water and has neglected it, and the field of his neighbour the waters have carried away, he shall pay corn like his neighbour.
56. If a man has opened the waters, and the plants of the field of his neighbour the waters have carried away, he shall pay ten GUR of corn per GAN (note: GUR and GAN are old units)
259. If a man has stolen a watering machine from the meadow, he shall give five shekels of silver to the owner of the watering machine.
260. If he has stolen a watering bucket or a harrow, he shall pay three shekels of silver.
62. If the field which has been given him to plant he has not planted as a garden, if it was corn land, the gardener shall measure out corn to the owner of the field, like its neighbour, as produce of the field for the years that are neglected, and he shall do the ordered work on the field and return to the owner of the field.
63. If the field was unreclaimed land, he shall do the ordered work on the field and return it to the owner of the field and measure out ten GUR of corn per GAN for each year.
From these articles, it can be deduced that irrigation was very important in Mesopotamia at that time for a good crop yield, but also that flooding of agricultural lands could occur. When such flooding was caused by negligence, resulting in damage to others, compensation was required.
It is also known that floods caused by extreme discharges of the Euphrates and Tigris occurred regularly in Mesopotamia. A good impression of this can be obtained from the Epic of Gilgamesh, of which, among others, an English translation was published in 2000 by Andrew George (see image).
