Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
environmental history, it will provide some elements of synthesis, and some
highlights carefully chosen to exemplify a number of issues. I will explore the
various facets of the humanity/water resources relationships, by studying on a very
long term the main usages of water, even if my attention will be drawn upon the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which a hugely increasing demand and use of
water transformed the daily life and the environment of millions of people.
4.2 Narratives of Water Resources
'“
Bene
ts
”
4.2.1 Water Between Environment and Health
Human communities
had always been dependent on basic
vital needs, and the problem of food and water supply is one of the most crucial for
urban authorities. Getting enough water for a growing population was a major
challenge, inspiring sometimes ingenious solutions. For ancient Middle East,
archaeology and environmental sciences discussed the so-called Mesopotamian
model and some case studies emphasized the idea of an initial development of local
hydraulic communities, able to produce a social regulation system of water resources,
even without a centralised state and bureaucracy.
4
During the Roman period, cities
acquiredmost public facilities related to water control andmanagement: the aqueduct/
fountain couple became a standard pattern of the Roman city-planning.
5
Water towers
(castella), networks of pipes (stulae), public taps (salientes) represented expensive
equipment that was
—
and especially cities
—
nanced by public funds, then by rich people like Agrippa,
the son-in-law of Augustus. The Augustean period marks the generalization of a
water management policy: beyond technical progress and the diffusion of hydraulic
monuments, new administrative structures were set up, and the distribution of water
carried by aqueducts to domestic buildings broadened from aristocratic houses to
“
rstly
domus.
For centuries, water was generally not delivered to urban houses (or provided to
a very small percentage of buildings), while the locations of rural settlings were
often chosen because of the existence of a spring, a pond, or the digging of a well,
indispensable to satisfy the vital needs of the human beings as well as domestic
animals and plants. A few cities had aqueducts, the best example being Republican
and Imperial Rome; in other cases, urban dwellers relied upon hundreds of thou-
sands of private wells or sometimes cisterns gathering rainwater, or a combination
of those systems, like in Jerusalem. The richest citizens could afford the service of
water haulers. It is only very recently, compared to the long-standing nature of the
urban phenomenon, that people have been able to turn on a tap to get the precious
middle-class
”
4
Wittfogel (
1957
). For a recent discussion, Special Issue: Ancient Near East and Americas 2010.
Water History 2/2.
5
Bruun (
1991
).
