Six thousand years ago farmers in Mesopotamia dug a ditch to divert water from the Euphrates River. With that successful effort to satisfy their thirsty crops, they went on to form the world's first irrigation-based civilization. This story of the ancient Sumerians is well known. What is not so well known is that Sumeria was one of the earliest civilizations to crumble in part because of the consequences of irrigation.

Sumerian farmers harvested plentiful wheat and barley crops for some 2,000 years thanks to the extra water brought in from the river, but the soil eventually succumbed to salinization--the toxic buildup of salts and other impurities left behind when water evaporates. Many historians argue that the poisoned soil, which could not support sufficient food production, figured prominently in the society's decline.

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