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The qanat was an ancient Persian technology to collect subterranean water by building a sequence of channels starting (underground) in the mountains and sloping down into irrigated farmland. It is actually still used today in Iran.
This technology spread to Armenia and Kurdistan, but as far as I know, did not spread far into Anatolia, despite Anatolia having a great deal of semiarid mountains.
If the qanat did become widely used in Anatolia, would this be a great boost to the population?