Page 4 - Urban water supply handbook

Source: URBAN WATER SUPPLY HANDBOOK

CHAPTER 1
URBAN WATER

INFRASTRUCTURE:

A HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE

Larry W. Mays
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona

Attention to water supply and drainage is the sine
qua non for urbanization, and hence for that human
condition we call civilization. In fact, development
of water supply, waste removal, and drainage made
dense settlement possible. Crouch (1993)
Cities are systems within systems of cities.
Berry (1964), given in
Lees and Hohenberg (1988)

1.1 CITIES AND WATER KNOWLEDGE

1.1.1 The Beginning
Humans have spent most of their history as hunting and food gathering beings.
Only in the last 9000 to 10,000 years have we discovered how to raise crops and
tame animals. Such revolution probably first took place in the hills to the north of
present-day Iraq and Syria. From there the agricultural revolution spread to the
Nile and Indus valleys. During this time of agricultural revolution, living in per-
manent villages took the place of a wandering existence. About 6000 to 7000
years ago, farming villages of the Near and Middle East became cities. The first
successful efforts to control the flow of water were made in Mesopotamia and
Egypt. Remains of these prehistoric irrigation canals still exist.
About 5000 years ago the science of astronomy began and observation of other
natural phenomena was leading to knowledge about water resulting in advances

1.3
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