A Patchwork of Ill-Digested Schemes: Rivers, Surface Waters and British Colonial Development in Mandate Palestine (1917-1948)

The British mandate (1917-1948) was a time of significant physical and environmental change in Palestine. Much previous scholarship has focused on how this affected the land of the country, which has overlooked the significant changes to the surface waters of the country during this period. The rivers, wadis and wetlands of Palestine were targeted by British colonial developmental practices as a way of modernising the country and keeping to Britain’s promises to the League of Nations under the mandate. The instructions and records left behind create the paper trail for a series of projects and schemes that would outlive the British administration, and remake parts of the landscape in Palestine to the point that they became unrecognisable. Through thorough examination of archival documents, maps and files, this study charts the course of British hydrological developmental policy in the mandate, detailing how it was established and then how and why it developed during the mandate. The case is made throughout this research for the applicability and value of historical scholarship of the environment in settings outside of academia, particularly in informing modern environment re-wilding projects. Using a number of geographical case studies, I argue that British hydrological policy underwent a significant ‘change in direction’ during the 1930s, seeing a shift from laissez-faire, generalist hydrological developmental policy to a state-led, technocratic developmental policy. The findings of this research represent the first extended environmental history of water during the British mandate period, and illustrate the importance of considering more than just land when we consider the history of environment and landscape in Palestine.