A Water Story: Learning from the Past, Planning for the Future

A WATER STORY

Learning from the Past, Planning for the Future

GEOFF BEESON

© Geoff Beeson 2020

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Front cover: (top) section of Brewarrina Aboriginal fish traps (photo: Bradley Moggridge); (bottom left) windmill at Mount Arapiles, Vic. (photo: Ed Dunens/Flickr, CC BY 4.0); (bottom right) Solar power-driven aluminium flume gates (photo: Geoff Beeson)

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Foreword

A Water Story: Learning from the Past, Planning for the Future is an important contribution to a major debate which Australians must have – but are only tinkering with.

We live on the world’s second driest continent (only Antarctica has less rain), 90 per cent of us live near the coast and our red, arid centre is more of a national myth than direct experience, somewhere we fly over or drive through at high speed. Our river systems are stressed beyond endurance, with record fish deaths, loss of habitat and the retreat of birds.

In contemporary Australia, when there is a conflict between science and politics, politics nearly always wins. We make short term decisions based on votes in communities which depend on extreme water use, because nature – like posterity – has no vote.

Geoff Beeson’s book is encyclopedic with powerful explanations of how past civilisations have struggled to provide clean, healthy and sustainable water supply for humanity’s survival.

The world’s population is soaring – 7.6 billion in 2019, projected to be 9.8 billion in 2050. And we are living longer, far longer, and our per capita consumption rates rise exponentially. The melting of ice caps and glaciers will provide more water, but it won’t be potable and the impact on coastal communities will be catastrophic.

Geoff has provided us with an essential resource which should be widely read.

We must consecrate ourselves to saving Planet Earth, our home, where our species, homo sapiens, lives and depends for survival. All nations, and all people, must dedicate themselves to protecting our global home rather than short term national, regional or tribal interest. We must save the air, save the soil, save the oceans to guarantee that our species, and the environment, shall not perish from the Earth.

Barry Jones

AC, FAA, FAHA, FTSE, FASSA, DistFRSN, FRSV, FRSA, FACE

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Challenges and opportunities

1Water and the earliest civilisations

Ancient Australia

Water management in ancient worlds: irrigation, canals, cities

Qanats

The earliest aqueducts

The Romans

2Water use across the Roman Empire

A new water supply for Nemausus (Nimes)

Wells and cisterns: the basic water source

Further developments in urban water management

Building aqueducts

North African variations

Decline of the Roman Empire

3Some basics about Earth’s water

The water cycle

Evaporation and evapotranspiration

Salinity

El Niño and La Niña

Coping with a paucity of fresh water

4Water supplies for the First Fleet colonists

The situation the First Fleeters left behind

Water issues for the new arrivals

Efforts to become self-sustaining

The colony grows

Pollution of the Tank Stream

A new source of water

5The search for water inland

Oxley: the Lachlan and the Macquarie

Sturt, the Darling, and dreams of an inland sea

Mitchell: seeking the elusive ‘Kindur’

The situation at mid-century

Rainfall patterns in Australia

6Aboriginal Australia

Colonisation

Living as part of the country

Managing water resources

Changes to the country after 1788

7The Great Artesian Basin

Artesian bores

Wasting GAB water

8Groundwater: more than the GAB

Groundwater worldwide

Consequences of over-extraction

Groundwater in Australia

Some examples of groundwater use

Threats to groundwater resources

9Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre and its basin

The Lake Eyre Basin

Effects of floods on Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre

Management of the Lake Eyre Basin

Northern rivers beyond the Lake Eyre Basin

10 The golden pipeline

A new gold rush in Western Australia

Shortage of fresh water

Attempts to overcome the water shortage

The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme

Development of the scheme since 1903

11 Adding water to the land: irrigation

Sources of irrigation water

The beginnings of irrigation in Australia

The Murray River

Major river works

North of the Murray River

The Ord and Burdekin rivers

Methods of irrigation

Negative consequences of irrigation

Modernising irrigation systems

12 Dams and reservoirs: storing water

The beginning of the age of dams

What dams are

Dams in Australia

The world context

Adverse effects

Dams for hydroelectricity

Lakes: natural water storages

Colour plates

13 The Murray–Darling Basin

The Murray–Darling Basin as a geographical entity

Working rivers

The Darling River

Some special places in the Murray–Darling Basin

The lower Murray River

A controlled and managed system

14 Saving the Murray–Darling Basin?

The Murray–Darling Basin Authority

The Basin Plan

Implementing the Basin Plan

The situation five years after acceptance of the Basin Plan

15 Water for cities, towns and farms

The capital cities

Water sources for regional and remote cities and towns

Water for farms

16 Living with scarcity

Looming shortages

New sources of water

Desalination

Recycling wastewater

Managed aquifer recharge

Stormwater harvesting

Water sensitive urban design

Rainwater tanks

Water trading

17 Facing the future

Rainfall diversity across Australia

Ongoing issues: ways forward

Addressing the future: opportunities for action

Where to from here?

Glossary

Appendix I: Case Study: South Australia’s long-term water plan

Endnotes

Index

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the assistance and advice I received from many people during the writing of the book. Miles Lewis AM provided valuable feedback on early drafts of the chapters concerning ancient civilisations, and Don Gibb commented on drafts of the historical chapters about early European Australia. Both sets of comments were helpful in refining these sections of the book. Jason Alexandra made constructive observations after reading draft material on the Murray–Darling Basin. These observations formed the basis for some worthwhile discussions we had on this complex topic.

My thanks also go to Helen Symmonds who read each chapter as it was written, Melissa Beeson who commented on specific sections, and Amanda Lazar who made constructive comments on the first draft of the book as a whole, and who provided significant support on other aspects of preparing the book for publishing. Michael Buxton read a draft of the whole book from a public policy perspective, and his comments assisted in further refining the draft. I am indebted to Bradley Moggridge for his feedback on the sections relating to Aboriginal Australia, and to Anna Adams for the preparation of several of the maps and diagrams.

Finally and most importantly, I express my thanks to my partner, Brenda, for her understanding and support during the whole writing process, but especially for her invaluable company and discussions during our many expeditions, which included visits to key water locations in diverse parts of the country over many years, and for her constructive comments and suggestions on drafts of the book.

Challenges and opportunities

The story of water told here leads to the inescapable conclusion that now, late in the second decade of the twenty-first century, we are at a critical time in our water history. Water scarcity is increasing, as it is in other parts of the world, and at the same time, the populations of our major cities are exploding. We are making greater demands on irrigated agriculture to provide food and fibre for the growing populace and for worldwide export. Across the country, water sources are increasingly under stress, and the reality of climate change is here now. The need for action and consistent long-term planning cannot wait. Despite our vastly increased knowledge and our undoubted scientific expertise, we are unfortunately still seeing inertia and back-sliding by governments and other water decision-makers, especially notable in the all-important Murray–Darling Basin. But there are also some positive signs, particularly in relation to city water supply, with the implementation of increased numbers of innovative, water-saving, and environmentally friendly schemes.

This book is about water and Australia – how the Aboriginal peoples were sustained by the land’s water for tens of thousands of years, and how our use and management of this indispensable substance has developed and changed since Europeans’ continuing occupation of the land began in 1788. It is also about the sources and availability of water across the country and the relationship between water, the landscape and the people who live in it. It draws on a range of historical and contemporary sources, anecdotes and personal experience to provide a readable and comprehensive account relevant to all Australians. It is intended to fill a gap in the Australian literature about water, and to stand alongside and extend such works as Michael Cathcart’s history The Water Dreamers, the earlier Thirsty Country by Asa Wahlquist, and more professionally-oriented texts such as John Pigram’s Australia’s Water Resources.

The management of water, humankind’s most critical resource, has been fundamental to the development and survival of civilisations. Through the ages, innovations in water engineering and effective husbanding of water resources have enabled civilisations to develop and grow; neglect and over-exploitation of the sources and their environments have resulted in decline. Understanding how earlier civilisations, including early Australians, sourced, managed and used water, and the consequences of their decisions and actions, can help us to comprehend our own situation more clearly and prepare to cope with future water crises or, preferably, avoid them.

The ancient Roman civilisation is rightly celebrated for the ways it provided growing cities and towns with prodigious amounts of fresh water, and early civilisations in the Indus Valley also made some impressive, if less well-known, achievements in city water management. The Roman water systems endured for several centuries before being destroyed by invaders or falling into disuse through lack of maintenance. Remarkably, it was not until the late nineteenth century that water provision and sewerage for cities approached the sophistication of the Romans. The ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Chinese civilisations developed irrigation systems to suit their different environments, in order to support and expand their empires. These early water schemes were fundamental precursors to modern water supply systems, including our own.

From the time of arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and the establishment of British colonies in Australia, the struggle to provide fresh water underlay the struggle for development. The newcomers tried to impose English methods on a landscape much drier and very different from the one they were familiar with. Their search for water sources inland in the forms of large rivers or an inland sea was shaped by their much wetter homeland on the other side of the world. In this search, they found difficulties and disappointments. It didn’t occur to them to examine the achievements of Aboriginal peoples and how they managed their water sources and lived compatibly with the land. This, despite the obvious health and fitness of the local people.

Australia is characterised by extreme variability in rainfall – from place to place across the country, and from year to year for a given region – and therefore highly unreliable natural water supplies. Cycles of drought and flood are the norm, and many streams stop flowing in the dry seasons. Australia’s largest lakes are usually dry, devoid of any water. In the vast arid parts of the continent, groundwater, especially from the Great Artesian Basin, provides an essential source for life. But there are very wet areas as well as arid ones – occurring mostly in mainland coastal areas and in Tasmania – emphasising the wonderful variety of our country. Variability and unreliability are being intensified by climate change, a challenge now upon us.

Over more than two centuries of European occupation, many water projects have been realised that have demonstrated exceptional ingenuity and engineering achievement in water storage, supply and management, in both arid and wet parts of the country. These have included schemes to bring water to parched regions in support of vital enterprises; ambitious irrigation projects to provide reliable water supplies for farming regions and their communities; monumental projects to ensure that homes, businesses, industries and recreation facilities in large cities have clean, fresh water always available; and strategies to secure water needed for food supplies and to support economic development. Research and practical experience have led to enormous increases in knowledge and understanding of water sources and their relationship to the total environment.

And yet, as well as successes, our water history is littered with blunders: pollution followed by destruction of primary fresh water sources in embryonic cities; wastage of untold amounts of water from the Great Artesian Basin for close on a century; over-exploitation of rivers in the Murray–Darling Basin; repeated failure to match our water demands to the nature of the country; environmental degradation resulting from carelessness, over-use and lack of long-term planning; salinisation of vast tracts of countryside; and more recently, disregard for the impacts of climate change. Worse still, we have often not learned from previous mistakes, but keep repeating them.

By understanding the relationship between water and the Australian landscape, and embracing the lessons from our water history, we will be better prepared to address the issues now facing us.

Chapter 1 outlines achievements of ancient civilisations in managing their water resources, starting with the oldest – the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. It describes, in particular, the way the ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Chinese civilisations developed irrigation systems to support and expand their empires. Chapter 2 reviews the remarkable achievements of the ancient Romans in providing their growing cities and towns with fresh water. In these cases, the methods resonate with those used in the modern world and provide lessons for us to contemplate. Chapter 3 covers basic facts about the earth’s water, including the water cycle and ingenious methods used in past (and present) ages for providing and securing water supplies in areas where there is a natural paucity.

Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the struggles of the British newcomers in the months and years after their arrival in 1788 as they tried to come to terms with the Australian landscape and its water environment. Chapter 6 outlines the way the Aboriginal peoples made use of available water resources and protected and managed them with great resourcefulness to support their life and culture.

Chapters 7, 8 and 9 investigate the nature of water sources in the vast inland regions and the ways the European explorers and settlers attempted to capitalise on them to support new ventures. Chapters 10–15 examine the development of various forms of water infrastructure across Australia over the last two centuries, including immense achievements in irrigation and in providing growing towns and cities with reliable supplies of fresh water. These developments are compared with the situation in other parts of the world, and the account includes consideration not only of beneficial outcomes but also harmful side effects and instances where inappropriate methods or over-exploitation have had devastating effects.

With increasing water scarcity due to population growth and climate change, Chapter 16 examines ways of using available water more effectively. These methods are less wasteful, are not destructive of the natural environment, and do not deplete resources available for future generations. Chapter 17 provides a summary of our water history with its highs and lows and where we stand at present with respect to water resources in Australia. It urges us to reflect on the water practices of the country’s first inhabitants. Critically, this final chapter identifies ways forward for unresolved issues and opportunities for action to secure our water future while avoiding continued environmental degradation.

1

Water and the earliest civilisations

The stunning water engineering achievements of the ancient Roman civilisation, such as imposing aqueduct bridges and grand public baths complexes, are familiar to most of us. Some 2000 years ago, they were parts of sophisticated water management systems for Roman cities and towns. Even older civilisations, as far back as 7000 years, made impressive achievements in managing their water, mainly for irrigating farmland. These include the ancient Egyptians and civilisations in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Although these are vast periods before our own time, they are dwarfed by the tens of thousands of years during which the Australian Aboriginal peoples managed the available water sustainably to meet their needs.

Ancient Australia

The remarkable achievement of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia was to continue to live sustainably in the land over a period of more than 50 000 years, perhaps as long as 65 000 years. They lived throughout the country, from the tropical north to the cool Tasmanian south; from the western plateau to the eastern highlands; in hill country and on the plains; in deserts and in well-watered lands. They adapted to extraordinary climate change and lived through drought and flood. Their achievement was not dependent on building large water-engineering works, but on managing the landscape in a systematic and meticulous way to ensure there was abundant food and water available, despite the dramatically variable Australian climate. Several factors were fundamental to their success, including their detailed knowledge of the characteristics, requirements and tolerances of plants and animals; careful protection and husbanding of available water resources; development of water storages, including wells and dams; and their making of smaller scale modifications to streams and wetlands as well as broader scale modifications to the landscape. Knowledge and experience were passed down through the generations as part of Aboriginal Lore, which prioritised and protected water places. This approach enabled the Aboriginal peoples to live in harmony with the environment; it did not lead to degradation, such as through erosion or salinisation, or need periodic corrective measures to maintain the system.¹

These matters are discussed further in later chapters, especially Chapter 6.

Water management in ancient worlds: irrigation, canals, cities

Irrigation was one of the earliest forms of water management and distribution, stretching back thousands of years. Examples can be found in ancient Egypt, Mesopotomia, the Indus Valley and China, but are not limited to these cultures. Some early civilisations developed ingenious methods of supplying large cities with water, including those in Assyria and in the Indus Valley.

Egypt: the Nile Valley

The Egyptians began practising some form of water management around 3000 BC (though there is evidence of farming before 5000 BC). In ancient Egypt, the Nile River was the key to life because there was (and still is) very little rainfall in that country. The river flooded each year with predictable regularity, with all of the water coming from outside the country, most of it from the Ethiopian Highlands. Once the waters had receded from the wide floodplain, wheat and other crops were planted in the now well-watered soil, which was also fertilised by the rich silt carried down from the highlands. Egyptian farmers developed a style of water management called basin irrigation, which was dependent on the natural rise and fall of the river. They built networks of earthen banks, some parallel to the river and some perpendicular to it, thereby forming flat-bottomed basins of various sizes, into which floodwater could flow via regulated sluices. The water was allowed to stand in the basins for 1–2 months and was then drained off downstream back into the river when the time came for planting the crops.

With the river flooding reliably, there was always plenty of water. Increasing soil salinity was not a problem because the month or two of inundation took any salts that had accumulated in the upper soil layers down to below the root zone (see box: ‘Requirements for sustainable irrigation’). Consequently, the irrigation practised along the Nile was not only productive but sustainable – it lasted for 5000 years. However, not all was perfect: a low flood could lead to famine, and a high flood could destroy dykes and other earthworks. Knowing the height of the Nile flood in advance was critical to the success of the irrigation system. Early on, the ancient Egyptians developed a system for measuring the height of the Nile at various points along the valley. ‘Nilometers’ were structures made of stone and of various designs, such as a marked column submerged in the river’s edge, a stairway leading down to the water with graduations on the walls or a more complex design.²

A clear advantage of being able to direct the flow of water onto the fields was that no lifting of the water was required. However, there were places where fields were too high to receive water from the river or canals. The shaduf, a water-lifting device, appeared in upper Egypt sometime after 2000 BC and was already in use in Mesopotamia. It consisted of a bucket on the end of a cord that hung from the long end of a pole which swung from a pivot and was counterweighted at the shorter end. It allowed farmers to irrigate crops near the river or canal banks when the water level was low during the dry season. Use of the shaduf led to an increase in the area under cultivation of 10–15 per cent. The shaduf was later supplemented by the noria, a waterwheel with attached pots for raising water.³

More than 25 centuries after the beginning of irrigation in Egypt, Herodotus, referred to by his admirers as the ‘father of history’, visited the country and commented on the role of the Nile. Writing in the fifth century BC, he reported that ‘when the Nile overflows, it floods not only the Delta but parts of the territory on either side … to a distance of two days’ journey – in some places more, in some less’. He also referred to the ‘innumerable dykes, running in all directions, which cut the country up’, and consequently made the country ‘unfit for horses or wheeled traffic’. He described how the purpose of the dykes had been to supply water to towns which lay inland at some distance from the river. He also believed that the people of the lower Nile ‘get their harvests with less labour than anyone else in the world’.⁴

According to fresh water expert Sandra Postel,² the early Egyptian irrigation works were not centrally managed, unlike in other ancient civilisations. It appears that water management was carried out at the local level, with decision-making and responsibility close to the farmers. She suggests that this may have been an important factor in the continuity and longevity of the basin irrigation system as the farmers might well have been able to continue their irrigation practices while political disruptions and wars engaged the state bureaucracy. The basic simplicity of the system was also a factor; substantially less labour and maintenance were required than in other irrigation networks such as those of Mesopotamia.

Requirements for sustainable irrigation

For a region to be irrigated on a long-term basis, it has to have

•an abundant supply of water

•well drained soil

•good drainage through the region

•a supply of fertiliser for the soil.

One of the greatest threats to the long-term sustainability of irrigation in a region is increasing soil salinity. River water is never pure, as it contains dissolved mineral salts. Evaporation makes it saltier. As water flows out over the soil in a thin sheet during irrigation, it evaporates and consequently becomes more saline. If the water dries up altogether, it may leave a thin layer of salts on and in the soil. In addition, plants absorb moisture from the soil, thus leaving the soil more saline. All of these processes contribute to the salt build-up in the surface layers of the soil until the area becomes too saline to support the growth of crops and pasture.

The only way to overcome this problem is to apply enough water to flush the salt off the surface or through the soil. Unless the salt is flushed away completely from the region along natural or artificial drainage channels, the salt will just be shifted to another area, including possibly to downstream users or into groundwater.

Flushing also leaches out soil nutrients, which must be replaced for agriculture to be sustainable.⁵

Mesopotamia

In Ancient Mesopotamia (‘land between the rivers’), civilisations relied on the life-giving properties of two rivers – the Tigris and the Euphrates. The rivers run roughly parallel to each other and formed the western (Euphrates) and eastern (Tigris) boundaries of Mesopotamia, located in present-day Iraq, mostly, but also parts of modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. (Today, the rivers join before emptying into the Persian Gulf, but in ancient times the sea came further inland, and the rivers emptied into the sea separately.) The plains between the rivers were dry, with little rainfall, but they were fertile, especially near the rivers. Unlike the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates could be wild and turbulent, and floods were frequent, meaning a different approach to tapping and using the waters was needed.

Important ancient civilisations in Mesopotamia included the Sumerians in the south, the Babylonians in the central and southern areas, and the Assyrians in the north.

The Sumerian civilisation

The Sumerian civilisation lasted from ~5000 BC to 1750 BC. Sumerians were sowing and harvesting in southern Mesopotamia in the fertile soil just north of the Persian Gulf by ~7000 BC, and practising irrigation before 4000 BC. Communities of farmers dug tanks and reservoirs to store water, and built ditches to lead the water to their fields during the growing season. Over time, these simple arrangements were extended and developed into more sophisticated systems involving networks of dams, reservoirs, canals and drainage channels, enabling farmers to grow their crops outside the short rainy season. Crops included wheat, barley, onions, turnips, grapes and apples, and people kept cattle, sheep and goats. The consequent increase in productivity meant that food could be stored for use in leaner seasons or be used in trade for needed goods not available in the area, such as stone for tools, decorations and weapons.

Increased productivity also resulted in the population increasing greatly during the period 6000 BC to 4000 BC, based on irrigation of the fertile soil that had been deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates over millennia. Cities of thousands or even tens of thousands of people developed. It is also interesting to note that these people fought over water rights, a source of conflict that has repeated down through the ages.⁶

The Babylonian civilisation

The Babylonian civilisation endured from the eighteenth to the sixth century BC. The Babylonians inherited the technical achievements of the Sumerians in irrigation and agriculture, maintaining and extending the system of dykes, canals, weirs and reservoirs constructed by their predecessors. The maintenance work required was considerable – canals became blocked with silt brought by the rivers, and floods had the potential to destroy dykes and weirs.

Herodotus records the work of two Babylonian rulers in modifying the course of the Euphrates River, which divided Babylon in two. Around 600 BC the queen Semiramis ‘was responsible for certain remarkable embankments in the plain outside the city, built to control the river which until then used to flood the whole countryside’. Five generations later, queen Nitocris had changes made to the river in order to improve the security of the city. By cutting channels upstream she caused the river to wind through the city instead of running straight. She built high embankments on both sides of the river, and she had a basin dug for a lake ‘some forty-seven miles in circumference’. These were all designed to slow the flow of the river and to make life difficult for invaders.⁷

Assyria

Assyria existed as an independent state from ~2500 BC to 605 BC. The highpoint of the Assyrian’s achievements in water management was truly remarkable, and was reached under King Sennacherib in the late eighth and early seventh centuries BC. Sennacherib had a vast network of canals built in four stages, into which half of the water from a river flowing from the Zagros Mountains was diverted. The remains of this system can still be seen. Evidence includes inscriptions of the king himself, written in cuneiform texts on clay tablets and on the irrigation features themselves, and remnants of weirs, canals and aqueducts visited opportunistically by travellers and archaeologists since the 1850s. More recently, Jason Ur, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University, has examined the canal networks using recently-declassified intelligence satellite photographs taken by the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s and low-level aerial photographs acquired by a private firm in the 1950s.⁸

The first stage, a canal 13.4 km long and leading to Nineveh, the new imperial capital, was commenced in ~702 BC and would have irrigated ~12 km² of land. The final stages, which included the true engineering achievements, were completed ~690–688 BC. Two basic forms of canal were built: earthworks constructed across a watershed to direct the water flow, and channels 6–20 m wide and 2 m deep, their course dictated by the local terrain. Altogether, more than 100 km of canals were constructed, having a rock or pebble bottom so that the water flowed clear, and there were tunnels, weirs, reservoirs, and takeoffs for irrigation. The longest canal, the stage four Khinis canal, stretched 55 km across the parched countryside from Khinis in the north, to join the Khosr River, which formed an additional 34 km of natural canal ultimately leading to Nineveh. The average gradient of this canal, and most of the others, was about 1 m/km, or 1 in 1000. It appears that this was the slope Sennacherib’s engineers determined was the optimum: shallow enough to avoid scouring of the canal by fast-rushing water but sufficiently steep to slow the build-up of silt.

At one place, about midway along the Khinis canal at a place called Jerwan, there was an intermittent stream in its path, so in a staggering piece of engineering for the times, an aqueduct was built to cross the steam. The aqueduct was 9 m above ground, 22 m wide and 280 m long, and two million perfectly carved limestone blocks were used in its construction. The remains are still visible.⁹

Jason Ur argues that that the canal network developed by Sennacherib had the purposes of both supplying water to Nineveh, where Sennacherib developed great parks and gardens, and of irrigating the broader region. The agricultural productivity of northern Assyria would have been greatly increased by a reliable supply of irrigation water. As he expanded the Assyrian empire, Sennacherib had a policy of relocating the populations of captured towns and regions. He brought the majority back to Nineveh and resettled them in the surrounding region. Ur argues that ‘The combination of reliable water supplies and efficiently distributed labor would have enabled the great agricultural surpluses required by the new imperial capital at Nineveh’.⁸,¹⁰

Ancient texts reveal that Sennacherib developed a grand garden in Nineveh that recreated a mountain landscape. It boasted terraces, pillared walkways, exotic plants and trees, and rippling streams. Following long-term study of the evidence, Stephanie Dalley of Oxford University has concluded, somewhat controversially, that these gardens were the famed Hanging Gardens – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – built by the Assyrians at Nineveh, rather than by Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon as traditionally believed. An expert in ancient Middle Eastern languages, she argues that the gardens belonged to Sennacherib’s palace, and were constructed of artificial arched terraces on which the soil for growing the plants was suspended. The estimated 300 tonnes (300 000 L) of water needed daily to keep the plants growing were supplied from Sennacherib’s canal system. The water was raised to the top of the gardens, from where it flowed down through the lower levels, by water-raising screws made using a new method of casting bronze.¹¹ Astonishingly, this predated the invention of Archimedes’ screw by some four centuries.

Despite all these achievements, the irrigation system developed silt and salinity problems. Silt that built up in the canals could be overcome by dredging, but this required significant manpower and organisation. Flooding problems were more serious in Mesopotamia than in Egypt because the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers carried several times more silt per unit volume of water than the Nile, causing the rivers to rise faster and change their courses more often in Mesopotamia. A more insidious problem was the tendency for salt to build up in the soils because it was difficult to drain water off the fields, and this, over time, destroyed the agriculture of the region.¹²

The Indus Valley

Extensive water management measures were also used in the ancient civilisation of the Indus Valley. One of the world’s earliest urban civilisations, and contemporary with the civilisations of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, it occupied the north-west region of the Indian sub-continent, including most of present-day Pakistan and extending into western India. Major cities included Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and Dholavira, which flourished in the period 2600–1700 BC. Evidence suggests they had populations of up to 50 000, and there could have been as many as five million people in the whole Indus River basin in this period. These cities were well planned with wide streets, public and private wells, bathing platforms, reservoirs, and significantly, the first known sanitation system.

Excavations in Mohenjo Daro have revealed that almost every house unit was equipped with a private bathing area with drains to take the dirty water out into a bigger drain that emptied into a large covered sewerage channel. In many of the bathing areas, the floors were made waterproof to prevent moisture from seeping into the other rooms nearby or below. Private wells were rebuilt over many generations to serve the needs of a large household or neighbourhood. In Harappa, a large public well and public bathing platforms have been uncovered. It is thought that these public bathing areas may also have been used for washing clothes as is common in many traditional cities in Pakistan and India today. The city of Dholavira appears to have had several large reservoirs, which were filled by an elaborate system of drains that collected water from the city walls and house tops.

The remains of a ‘Great Bath’ have been discovered at Mohenjo Daro, representing ‘without doubt the earliest public water tank in the ancient world’. The tank itself measures ~12 m long and 7 m wide, with a maximum depth of 2.4 m. Two wide staircases lead down into the tank, and there are adjoining rooms. It is thought that the tank was used for special religious functions where water was used to purify the bathers and enhance their well-being.¹³

The population was supported by the products of the rich agricultural region, watered by snow melt from the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges to the north, and seasonal monsoon rains. It is argued that some form of irrigation must have been used to generate sufficient surpluses to support the many city residents, such as artisans and traders, who were not engaged in agriculture, as well as to trade with the surrounding cultures in the Arabian Gulf, West and Central Asia, peninsular India and Mesopotamia.¹³ Evidence of irrigation from this period is somewhat sketchy; much may have been obliterated by repeated catastrophic floods over the centuries.

China

The ancient Chinese civilisation began on the plains of the Yellow River around 1500 BC or perhaps earlier. There is some evidence that over the succeeding centuries efforts were made to find a solution to the devastating floods on the river – canals were dug to channel excess water out into the countryside and then down to the sea.¹⁴

The Dujiangyan irrigation system was one of ancient China’s great achievements. Its origins date back to 256 BC, when the provincial governor Li Bing set up a scheme to counter the ruinous floods caused by the Min River, a tributary of the Upper Yangste River. The system split the river into an inner flow for irrigation and an outer flow for flood control and made subtle use of the local topography. The system is still in use today, together with modern adaptations, for irrigating the Sichuan Basin.¹⁵

Other major water management schemes initiated by the ancient Chinese involved canal building. The construction of the Zhengguo Canal, 150 km long and connecting the Jing and Luo rivers, was originally begun as a ploy to divert the resources of the ancient kingdom of Qin in order to limit their capacity to fight wars. However, although the Qin discovered it was a ploy, they completed the canal which then allowed them to irrigate thousands of square kilometres of agricultural land, thus providing the kingdom with huge additional resources. To this day, the land surrounding the canal is extremely fertile.

The 36.4 km Lingqu Canal, the oldest canal in the world still in operation, is located in Guangxi Province. It was built to connect the Xiang and Li rivers for grain transport, and was completed in 214 BC.¹⁴,¹⁶

The Grand Canal, at ~1750 km, is the longest artificial waterway in the world. It was commenced in the sixth century BC. Further sections were completed in subsequent centuries and the whole canal was completed by the seventh century AD. China’s rivers run west to east; the Grand Canal runs north–south ‘to break this grip of geography’.¹⁷ Used for transporting grain and other goods, it improved the economy as well as acting as the government’s courier system and a cultural conduit. The Grand Canal is still a major transport route, though major sections of it are now silted up and not navigable. A section has recently been upgraded to serve as part of the massive South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

Other civilisations

There were also water management works in other ancient civilisations. In Peru, archaeologists have found evidence of canals used to irrigate fields as long ago as 4700 BC.¹⁸ Complex irrigation works in ancient Sri Lanka date from ~300 BC, and the floodplain of the Santa Cruz River in what is now southern Arizona and northern Mexico was extensively farmed during the Early Agricultural period, around 1200 BC to AD 150.¹⁹

A stable climate which allowed the growing and harvesting of crops was critical for human settlements to grow and prosper. This occurred generally from ~7000 years ago, allowing flourishing civilisations along the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus and Yellow rivers. When the necessary climatic conditions declined due to drought or flood, civilisations were threatened and in some cases collapsed. These ancient river valley civilisations depended on the ebb and flow of the seasons to provide water at the times and in the quantities needed for agriculture.²⁰

Qanats

Qanats are an ingenious and important means of water supply that enable water to be delivered over long distances under gravity and without loss due to evaporation. This is especially important in hot, dry climates. Qanats originated in what is now the United Arab Emirates (where they are called Falaj), where several qanats dating from ~1000 BC have been excavated on the northern outskirts of the city of Al Ain and in regions further north.²¹ Their introduction was a revolution in ancient irrigation systems and must have had a substantial impact on the distribution of settlements, industry, and especially cereal production. From the United Arab Emirates they spread to Iran, and later to Egypt and other predominantly arid areas. Qanats still form a reliable water supply for irrigation, livestock and human settlement in countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, China, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Israel and Yemen.²²

A qanat consists of a gently-sloping tunnel driven into a hillside to tap an aquifer (Fig. 1.1).²³ The tunnels were frequently quite long; qanats of 10–15 km in length were not unusual, with the largest known being 33 km, at Gonabad in present-day Iran.²⁴ Vertical shafts every 20–30 m along the course of the qanat provided access for digging the tunnel and the removal of excavated soil. Some of the excavated soil was used to build a small ring-shaped mound around the entrance to the shaft to prevent surface run-off bringing silt and other contamination into the shaft. Once the qanat was in operation, the shafts provided ventilation and access for repair and