De ældste kendte kanaler var vandingskanaler i [[Mesopotamien]] ca. 4.000 f.Kr., i hvad der nu er Irak og Syrien.<ref>[http://hypermedia.educ.psu.edu/k-12/edpgs/su96/meso/mesopotamia.html#city educ.psu.edu: The sumerian city-state] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090604023035/http://hypermedia.educ.psu.edu/k-12/edpgs/su96/meso/mesopotamia.html#city |date= 4. juni 2009 }} Citat: "...The people who established the world's first civilization around 3500 B.C. in southern Mesopotamia were known as the Sumerians. The Sumerians learned to control the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers by constructing levees and irrigation canals. As a result, a stable food supply existed, and the Sumerian villages evolved into self-governing city-states..."</ref>
<ref>[http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/nile/t1.html Sandra Postel: Egypt's Nile Valley Basin Irrigation] Citat: "...The earliest evidence of water control in ancient Egypt is the famous historical relief of the mace head of Scorpion King which dates to around 3,100 BC. It depicts one of the last predynastic kings, holding a hoe and ceremoniously cutting a ditch in a grid network. Besides attesting to the importance of these waterworks and the great ceremony attached to them, this picture confirms that Egyptians began practicing some form of water management for agriculture about 5,000 years ago.[4]...", [4] Karl W. Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt: A Study in Cultural Ecology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976); quote from M.S. Drowser, "Water-Supply, Irrigation, and Agriculture," in C. Singer, E.J. Holmyard, and A.R. Hall, eds., A History of Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).</ref>
<ref>[http://www.theplumber.com/history.html theplumber.com: The History of Plumbing – Babylonia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150810204455/http://theplumber.com/history.html |date=10. august 2015 }} Citat: "...King [[Hammurabi]] who belonged to the first dynasty of [[Babylonien|Babylonia]] lived around 1760 B.C. He personally directed provincial governors to dig and dredge the canals on a continuous basis..."</ref> For ca. 3000 år siden dukker [[qanat]] undergrunds brønd og kanalsystemet op i [[Iran]].
<ref>[http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/qanats/ waterhistory.org: Qanats] Citat: "...Many qanats are still in use stretching from China on the east to Morocco on the west, and even to the Americas..."</ref>
<ref>[http://users.bart.nl/~leenders/txt/qanats.html The Qanats of Iran] Citat: "...Today (NB: = 1968!) the system provides 75 percent of the water used in Iran. by H. E. Wulff..."</ref>
<ref>Med farvebillede: www.cais-soas.com/News/2005/October2005/12-10-ICHTO.htm 12 October 2005, cais-soas.com: ICHTO Seeks Registration of Shushtar's Ancient Water Channels. Citat: "...“The construction of the infrastructure dated back to [[Achaemenidiske dynasti|Achaemenid]] [ca. 550–330 f.Kr.] and [[Sassaniderne|Sasanid]] eras. Of course such constructions were also built during the Safavid [år 1501-1722] and Qajarid eras [1785-1925]..."</ref>
Selv i 1968 kom 75% af Irans ferskvand fra qanat-systemerne. I Indus-dalen (ca. 2600 f.Kr.) havde man udviklet sofistikerede vandingssystemer og lagersystemer, herunder reservoirer bygget på Girnar i 3000 f.Kr. I Egypten kan kanaler dateres tilbage til mindst den tid [[Pepi 1. Meryre]] (regerede 2332-2283 f.Kr.), der lod bygge en kanal for at omgå [[Nilens katarakter]] nær [[Aswan]].
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