WADIS · Water Agency in Desert Infrastructural Systems. Reconstructing Human-Water-Landscape Dynamics in Ancient Egypt's Eastern Desert

Securing and managing water in extreme environments was crucial for the success of ancient societies—a challenge still urgent in today’s arid regions. Despite extensive research on the Nile Valley, the strategies used by communities in surrounding deserts to cope with scarce water and environmental stress remain poorly understood. At the centre of this question is the Wadi al-Garawi Dam (WaGD) in the southeast of Cairo, the earliest large-scale dam in Africa and unprecedented in Pharaonic hydraulic engineering. Despite its scale, WaGD has never been systematically studied, leaving unresolved why it was built, how it functioned, and its role in desert societies.The WADIS project pioneers a multidisciplinary investigation of this unique structure, asking why ancient Egyptians invested in such an exceptional hydraulic system outside the Nile Valley. Using hydrological modelling, GIS-based spatial and network analysis, 3D reconstruction, and comparative studies, it will: (1) reconstruct palaeoenvironmental and hydrological conditions to test the dam function; (2) examine its construction, operation, and integration within socio-political and logistical networks; and (3) develop a replicable framework to study desert water management in Egypt and other arid regions.Hosted at Uppsala University, the project includes a secondment to HiSoMA Lab (France), and short visits to the University of Freiburg (Germany) and the UNESCO Chair in Science and Technology for Cultural Heritage (Egypt), providing advanced training in archaeology of water management, geomatics, and hydraulic modelling to consolidate the fellow’s independence and transferable expertise.WADIS will transform understanding of desert water strategies by situating the WaGD within debates on environmental stress, technological innovation, and state power, while also providing new tools to study resilience in arid landscapes and significantly enhancing the fellow’s capacity to lead EU interdisciplinary research.