One of the biggest problems associated with Mesopotamian farming techniques was the uncontrolled water supply and irrigation. The Mesopotamian farmers had to find ways to find water for their crops, and they developed effective strategies that enabled them to augment the lands potential and reduce its risks. The societies of ancient Mesopotamia developed one of the most prosperous agricultural systems of the ancient world, under harsh constraints such as rivers whose patterns had little relation to the growth cycle of domesticated cereals, a hot, dry climate with brutal interannual variations, and generally thin and saline soil. The largest problem for farmers in the south seems to have been the salinisation of the soil, which caused an ecological crisis in Babylonia in the 18th-17th centuries BC. However, the ancient Mesopotamians seem to have developed techniques that ameliorated this problem.