Water is life. Access to reliable water and sanitation is a basic human right. Along with humans’ function to sustain life, water is the source of mental health, spiritual wellness, emotional balance, and happiness. For these reasons, water has been blessed, sanctified for centuries.

            At present, water stress and scarcity (floods, drought, heat waves, and the like), caused by the deterioration of the ecosystem, the demand for water by the global population – surpassing 8 billion, the rapidly increasing urbanization and industrialization, the damage by irrigated agriculture on the hydrolic cycle and water sources, the impaired precipitation regime due to climate change, and the wrongful water management are the primary issue of life. Under these circumstances, the aim of water management, which has become a necessity, is to ensure fairness in accessing water, to sustain water sources, and to develop, distribute and use them in a planned manner. With climate change, water systems and sources have been subject to harms never before experienced, and this has resulted in major vulnerabilities in the ecosystem. In this process, despite the opinion that information pertaining to the past does not constitute an ideal guide in understanding the present and the future, analyzing the sustainability of water sources in a long time perspective may offer opportunities towards achieving derivations. From antiquity to the present, water cisterns have offered the advantage of being accessible for all through “rain water harvesting” (RWH). Based on this approach, this study addresses water cisterns. To this end, water systems and the architectural characteristics and capacities of water cisterns in Anatolia have been analyzed, and the contribution of the old water cistern technology to adaptable and integrated water management has been evaluated.