Chapter 1

1. Chapter 1 Historical Perspective of Water Use and Development

2. Chapter Headings • Drinking Water for Early Civilizations • Early Irrigation and Flood-Control Projects • Early Water Transportation Development • Early Hydropower Development

3. What is Civilization? • For civilization to emerge you need • Agriculture • Cities • “Leisure time” to develop skilled workers • Among the key features are • Ability to manage water • Suitable soil and climate for agriculture

4. Managing Water Resources • Even in the earliest civilizations we can find evidence of water management • Delivery of drinking water to cities using qanats and aqueducts • Routing of wastewater out of cities • Delivery of water for agriculture through irrigation • Transportation • Hydropower

5. Drinking Water for Early Civilizations • Earliest civilization centers emerged in: • Mesopotamia along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Iraq) • Indus River (Pakistan) • Yangtze River (China) • Nile River (Egypt) • Greek and Roman empires (Mediterranean)

6. Figure 1.1

7. Qanats • Qanat system developed in Mesopotamia area • From a Semitic word meaning “to dig” • Semitic: subfamily of Afro-Asiatic language family that includes Hebrew and Arabic • Delivered ground water by gravity from an upland area where it was plentiful to lowland agricultural areas and cities

9. Qanat shafts served 3 purposes • Air supply • Remove soil and rock • Keep tunnels from being too long • http://www.livius.org/q/qanat/qanat.html View down a shaft to water below Outlet Aerial photo showing collapsed shafts

10. Aqueducts • Roman empire developed an extensive system of aqueducts to deliver surface water by gravity to cities • Water was delivered to fountains and baths where citizens collected and used it • Allowed cities to grow in size • Reduced amount of time that individuals (usually women) spent obtaining daily water

11. Women at a stream collecting water to carry to their village in Cameroon UNESCO www.wateryear2003.org

13. Aqueduct in Segovia, Spain

14. Roman public fountain

15. Roman public bath at Pompei, Italy

16. Coaca Maxima (main sewer) for ancient Rome Example of routing wastewater away from cities http://courses.washington.edu/tande/urb/

17. Wind Gap Pumping Plant, Tehachapi Range north of LA California Aqueduct

18. Drinking Water Today • Supplying drinking water is still an important function today • Many problems • Water quality (bacteria, carcinogens, heavy metals, etc.) • Water quantity (competition with agricultural for water) • We’ll discuss these in later chapters

19. Chapter Headings • Drinking Water for Early Civilizations • Early Irrigation and Flood-Control Projects • Early Water Transportation Development • Early Hydropower Development

20. Early Irrigation and Flood Control • Civilization centers developed where soils were fertile • For soils to be fertile nutrients must be collected and deposited in an area so that they become concentrated • Flooding deposits rich mountain (volcanic) soils in river floodplains • Glaciers deposit rich topsoils at their terminus and in wind blown loess

21. Early Irrigation and Flood Control • Floodplains are often in dry areas that require irrigation • Nile River civilization is a good example • Sediments from the mountains of Ethiopia and Sudan are deposited in the floodplains of Egypt • Ancient Egyptians developed an elaborate irrigation system for Nile floodplain

22. From Chapter 3

23. Simple devices for lifting water from the river into irrigation canals: shadoufs, tambour or Achimedes screw, and saqia water wheel

24. Early Irrigation in the U.S. • Anasazi Indians developed irrigation systems in Southwest desert region around 950 AD

25. Anasazi dwellings at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM

26. R.G. Vivian, Chaco Canyon Handbook

27. Chaco Canyon irrigation R.G. Vivian, Chaco Canyon Handbook

28. Early Irrigation in the U.S. • Brigham Young and Mormon followers began extensive irrigation system in Salt Lake Valley of Utah in 1847 • Region receives 15 in of annual rainfall • Constructed diversion dams across rivers and diverted water into irrigation ditches • Small diversion dams were made of logs, rocks and brush • Irrigation ditches were made using horse-drawn plows and hand digging

30. Early Irrigation in the U.S. • Construction of an irrigation ditch was not simple • A ditch too steep would cause fast flow that would erode the ditch and wash it out • A ditch that was too flat would not move water • Rule of thumb was a fall of about 2 feet per mile

31. Early Irrigation in the U.S. • Homestead Act passed in 1862 • Opened the floodgates of development in the West • Anyone over the age of 21 could acquire ownership of 160 acres if • Lived on it for 5 years • Made improvements to the property • Cost was $1.25 per acre • Water for irrigation became a critical issue

32. Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold windmills to pump groundwater

33. Early Irrigation in the U.S. • In 1870’s Horace Greeley, editor of NY Tribune promoted settlement in the West with the phrase “Go West, Young Man” • Time was ripe for western migration • Civil War ended in 1865 • Transcontinental railroad completed in 1869 • Organized a settlement in Colorado (today called Greeley) to replicate the irrigation successes of Mormons in Utah

35. Early Irrigation in the U.S. • Late 1800’s was a period of unusually wet weather in West • As normal rainfall returned many settlers without irrigation water were forced to abandon their land and move into town to work in other professions • Drought period in 1930’s forced more settlers to abandon land and become migrant workers • Described in “Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck

36. Central Arizona Irrigation Project

37. Irrigation Today • Irrigation today is extensive in western U.S. and other areas of the world • A number of associated problems • Competition for water with urban sources • Salinization of soils • Sedimentation of reservoirs • Effect on stream flow and water quality • Will discuss these in later chapters

38. Chapter Headings • Drinking Water for Early Civilizations • Early Irrigation and Flood-Control Projects • Early Water Transportation Development • Early Hydropower Development

39. Early Transportation Development • One of the reasons civilization centers developed near rivers is these were the “interstates” • River and canal systems used for boat traffic • Nile and Yangtze River are examples • Later extensive canal system developed in Europe

40. Lock and lockkeeper’s house, Castlefield, England

41. Early Transportation Development • Erie Canal constructed 1817-1825 • Connected Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on Hudson River • 363 miles • Cut travel time from 20 days to 6 days • Cut transportation costs from $100 to $5/ton • Ohio & Erie Canal connected Ohio River to Lake Erie

42. Check Google map to see full extent of St. Lawrence River http://www.google.com/maphp?hl=en&tab=wl&q=

44. Canal boat pulled by mule on towpath on the C &O canal In Washington DC; canal ran 184 miles from Cumberland MD to DC

45. Miraflores Lock, Panama Canal (“mules” on tracks)

46. Early Transportation Development • Mississippi River has been through history and continues to be a major transportation system for U.S. • Before steamboats keelboats and flatboats were used to move produce down river • After steamboats developed (1810) traffic ran up and downstream • Army Corps of Engineers responsible for clearing snags

48. Jolly Flatboat men, George Caleb Bingham