Historically, when looking at most areas, the majority of civilisations have depended on river systems to sustain agriculture and settlements, but there have been many places within the world that have lived without a flowing river nearby or close to them. Countries like the large desert regions that characterise the Arabian Peninsula and the low-lying coral Islands of the Maldives have grown and developed with a complete absence of perennial surface rivers, leading to those places as an environmental necessity for survival or infrastructure. However, these innovative countries implemented innovative water-security strategies by using natural underground water supplies centuries prior to the adoption of current advanced systems, such as desalination and treated management systems. Seven different Countries have shown how technology can be adapted to provide resources in the driest and most remote geography, which has been achieved through advanced hydraulic engineering and integrated resource management.
