Mapping and Reviving Ancestral Communal Pools (Birket) in Southern Lebanon: Survey Methods, Findings and Policy Pathways

This article presents a mixed-methods survey of 101 birket across 86 villages in southern Lebanon, combining historical cartography, satellite imagery and ground-truthing with oral histories. It details site typologies, spatial patterns, present condition (functioning/abandoned/destroyed) and contemporary uses, and it demonstrates how dispersed small reservoirs can complement centralized systems. A focused case study of the village of Marwaheen traces the pool’s rehabilitation and associated gains in irrigated land and community engagement. Building on a resilience-based assessment (access/equity, adaptability, participation, ecological value, cultural relevance), the article identifies priority pools for restoration and translates results into practical policy pathways for municipal–NGO partnerships. The article offers openly reproducible mapping conventions and field templates to support future documentation without reliance on proprietary basemaps.