Traditional irrigation has a very long history in Europe and is probably as old as the beginnings of human settlement in Europe. On this website you will find the latest news on traditional irrigation as a European cultural heritage from the perspective of the International Centre for Traditional Irrigation (IZTB) and a look back thousands of years to the Bronze Age.
This is how Bronze Age settlers might have seen the primeval rivers of Europe (photographed on the Aare near Wynau BE, Switzerland, 2008). The idea of water being channelled away or supplied to irrigate a field is not far off. Picture © Werner Stirnimann