Free lecture with Erin Addison.

Thursday, March 2, 7:30 p.m.
Santa Ynez Valley Grange.
2374 Alamo Pintado Ave, Los Olivos.

Erin Addison is an historian and landscape architect who has worked in Jordan since 1994. She began her work in the Middle East as a Fulbright scholar researching the water infrastructure and politics of the Umayyad Caliphate in the 8th century bilad al-sham region. Addison returned to the School of Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona in 2002 to retool for work on environmentally sustainable development of arid lands. Since 2003 she has consulted on environmental projects throughout Jordan, serving as the senior environmental expert on the award-winning Strategic Masterplan for Petra Region. Dr. Addison will be introducing new and ongoing research on a network of 1st and 2nd century Nabataean water and soil conservation systems at Ba’aja, in the northern Petra Region. The Nabataean agricultural installation has been re-used and adapted over centuries, up to the present day. Addison will also discuss the ways in which water policy and land use reflect the politics of “development” and its relevance for planning and landscape integrity today. Addison is the author of Documenting Deforestation at Sadd al-Ahmar, Petra Region, Jordan: 1924-2011 (2011).

Featured image: Double channels carved into the sandstone of the Ba’aja massif both harvest and control runnoff onto the agricultural plain below.

Photos: Erin Addison