Editorial water history issue 3/4 2019

Technical study of the historical aqueduct of Kavala, Greece Abstract Kavala, initially founded as Neapolis in the seventh century BC, and later called Christoupolis, has flourished as an important urban center and port in Eastern Macedonia, Greece, during many historical periods. In this paper, we study the remnants of its historical aqueduct, which carried water to the city from mountainous springs at a distance of 6500 m from the city walls. Our study includes: (a) archeological evidence regarding its construction period, which shows that it was initially constructed during the late Roman era and was heavily reconstructed by the Ottomans, in the first part of the sixteenth century ad, and (b) new topographical measurements and hydraulic calculations, aiming at drawing conclusions, mainly on its carrying capacity. Taking into account the preserved parts of the aqueduct’s channel only, we have estimated that its carrying capacity was quite large, with regard to the population that it was supposed to serve. Moreover, we have delineated the city area that the aqueduct could not serve directly, due to ground elevation differences.

Qanat and territorial cooperation in Iran Abstract In the central plateau of Iran, the climatic and geographical conditions promoted the technology of qanat which on its turn underlay the production systems in this region. A qanat consists of a series of shaft wells interconnected by a subterranean tunnel into a hill slope that drains out the groundwater seepage and conveys it onto the earth surface. This paper takes up the qanat of Hassan Abad and its peculiarities from which a model of common benefit has been abstracted. This model explains how several territories with similar economic structure could have developed a cooperative water management system that ensures sustainable water equality. The Hasan Abad qanat originates from Ebrahim Abad valley near the town of Mehriz and travels 40 km to Yazd. The water of this qanat is shared between the town of Mehriz and the villages of Dehno and Hasan Abad. One of the most important properties of this qanat is its territorial cooperation which relates to the qanat’s dynamics. The paper argues that dormant territorial behavior can pave the way for a high sense of cooperation and social capital, which are all associated with the peculiarities of qanat.

“Cool and tasty waters”: managing Naples’s water supply, c. 1500–c. 1750 Abstract Although Naples was one of Europe’s largest cities (after London and Paris), studies of the management of its water supply during the early modern period are sorely lacking, despite growing interest in the subject at both an Italian and European level. Naples was perhaps unique in relying on a vast and tortuous underground network of reservoirs, cisterns, channels and conduits, accessed by well shafts, all fed by an ancient aqueduct. The present study outlines and evaluates the Neapolitan water supply as it existed in the period, analysing the archival records of the municipal tribunal responsible for the city’s infrastructure, the ‘Tribunale della Fortificazione, Acqua e Mattonata’, and its various ‘Appuntamenti’ (proposals), ‘Conclusioni’ (decisions) and edicts. This is interwoven with reference to pertinent printed accounts, from contemporary guide books to medical regimens and health manuals. We examine both water quantity, in terms of availability and accessibility (by looking at the structure and its management, and the technicians responsible for its maintenance) and water quality (by looking at contemporary attitudes and perceptions). In the process we are able to question the widespread view of early modern Naples as chaotic and uncontrolled, governed by a weak public authority, as well as widely held assumptions about the “inertia” of the pre-modern hydro-social system more generally.

The story of the Dutch boy who prevented a flooding disaster: origin and variations on the theme Abstract The tale of the boy who is said to have prevented a flooding by putting his finger in a hole of the (Spaarndammer) dike in the Netherlands, is well known all over the world. However, little is known about the origin of the story or about the wide range of variations that have been published and are still being published. This paper argues that the French author of children tales Rébecca Eugénie Rodrigues-Henriques (1796–1852) published the first version of the story under the pseudonym Eugénie Foa in French, with the title Le petit éclusier, “the little sluicer”. However, the story has been made famous by the American author Mary (Elisabeth) Mapes Dodge, who included the tale in her book Hans Brinker, or The silver skates. A story of life in Holland. The paper shows as well that this remarkable tale has found its way into a huge amount of books and other forms of information transfer in at least thirty-five languages. In more or less chronological order, this history will be described, focusing on how and in what variations the story has arisen, been retold and what significance we can assign to all the story variants.

Colonial modernity shaping the pipe dream: a historical account of advent of the modern water supply system in Trivandrum Abstract The history of introduction of a “gravitation” water supply system in Trivandrum illustrates how a distinct colonial engineering ethos, amidst the prevailing state of affairs in the Travancore princely state, shaped critical decisions including coverage area, service level, and disposition of engineers towards traditional water bodies. The paper argues that the attempt to replicate an integrated hydrological system of the type adopted in London or Paris contained in itself a germ of failure from a financial standpoint. In addition to correspondence between engineers and administrators, the paper relies on the proposals submitted by colonial engineers to the Government of Travancore between 1882 and 1923 to illustrate the process of conception and introduction of the modern water supply system in Trivandrum. The continued focus on replicating this ideal, without any meaningful engagement with the local social and environmental context, partially explains the prevailing inequitable access to service provision and the acute public financial constraints faced by India’s small and medium towns.

Venetian gondolas on the Illinois River: water analysis and the cultivation of progressivism in the river cities, 1865–1910 Abstract In the late nineteenth century, the city of Chicago built a Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) to carry the city’s wastewater downstream while allowing ships to travel freely between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. The project drew a wide range of responses downstream. While sanitarians warned that the CSSC would be a conduit for epidemics, city boosters in Joliet, Illinois envisioned tourists floating in Venetian gondolas on the Illinois River. Other Illinois River cities shared this sanguine view of the CSSC. Historians traditionally associate progressivism with national, state and urban settings. This paper argues that Illinois public health leaders successfully cultivated progressivism in cities along the Illinois River as an integral part of their efforts to solve regional water supply, wastewater and transportation problems. These cities readily adopted the progressives’ faith in scientific expertise: as they weighed waterway development against potential health threats from Chicago’s effluent, these cities welcomed the counsel of scientific experts from the Illinois State Board of Health (ISBH) and area universities. This essay is structured around three critical junctures when Illinois Rivers cities partnered with scientific experts on large-scale water analysis projects to assess the Illinois River system: the ISBH studies led by John Rauch (1865–1879); John Harper Long (1885–1889); and Long and Arthur William Palmer (1895–1902). In addition to supporting ISBH initiatives, downstream cities secured state funding for water analysis and expansion of local water systems from the Illinois legislature, evidence of their faith that scientific expertise would protect their cities’ health and commerce.

Editorial Issue 1, 2019

Evolution of the dry zone water harvesting and management systems in Sri Lanka during the Anuradhapura Kingdom; a study based on ancient chronicles and lithic inscriptions Abstract A significant number of written sources report on the development of ancient dry zone water harvesting and water management systems in Sri Lanka. This paper attempts to address the lack of a systematic assessment of the information given by sources on the spatial–temporal development of the system, using methods of source criticism. After the removal of double entries, 255 text passages containing 837 different records on ancient irrigation were compiled as a database for the period from the fifth century BCE to the tenth century CE. The majority of the 625 analyzed records were derived from inscriptions, 212 records originated from chronicles. Geocoding was successfully performed for 40 records. It was possible to link 173 text passages to a specific king’s reign. Altogether 362 records (43.2%) mention a tank or its construction. The categories “grants of irrigation” and “irrigation incomes” are represented with 276 records (33%) and 75 records (9%). Records on canals and irrigation management occur with a share of 8.2% and 6.2%, equaling 69 and 52 records. The spatial distribution of records in general largely corresponds to the extent of the Dry Zone and northern intermediate zone. With 490 records, Anuradhapura district shows the highest density of information on the ancient water harvesting and management system. The analyzed data are not equally distributed throughout the investigated period and show a distinct peak in the second century CE. In conclusion, the conducted analysis documents the potential of the analyzed source genres for the derivation of information on different aspects related to the spatial, temporal and administrative development of the ancient water management system in Sri Lanka.

Anthropology of changing paradigms of urban water systems Abstract The dynamic interaction between society and nature is influenced by the prevailing normative, cognitive, and regulative societal systems, which guide the relationships between society and nature or ecology. Therefore, mature cities with increasingly complex urban interactions must shift from the simple agenda of demand–supply to multi-criterion models that takes into account factors like impacts of climate change, variation in settlement patterns, human vulnerability, and resource optimization to balance the society–ecology relationship. However, rapidly growing megacities have failed to balance their development and associated societal goals. This paper presents an assessment of the paradigm shift in the relationship between people and water as a resource, or the hydro-social construct, along a temporal gradient from about ad 1206 to the present for an ancient Asian city, namely Delhi. The city struggles at present with many challenges, including demographic fluctuations, increasing geographic spread, economic restructuring, changes in land use and settlement patterns, and, most relevant here, the transition from a water-sensitive city to a water-scarce city. The study identifies the causes of shifts in the water–society relationships and areas of interventions, that takes into account the physical, economic, and social characteristics of the city’s water resource to ensure that water, a basic human need, must be accessible to all inhabitants of the city.