This paper aims to investigate episodes of water stress and the human response to them in the Southern Zagros Mountains from a long-term perspective. The integrative analysis of data from different archives allows for identification of phases of drought in the region, especially starting from the Sasanian period onwards. This investigation also shows that specific imperial politics such as that of the Sasanian Kings Kawāḏ I and Ḵosrow I helped to ensure that agricultural communities and practices were sufficiently resilient to these changes. These politics were essentially based on tax reliefs for in-need farmers and state investments on the micro-level. However, pastoral and multi-resources lifestyles remained the ultimate resilience strategies in case of severe aridification.