Water and history

Problems like water scarcity and droughts as well as inundations, floods and storm surges are as old as mankind. Water management, therefore, has existed for thousands of years. In the absence of advanced technology, the efforts undertaken by people in the past to supply themselves with sufficient water to meet the various demands of society were based on thorough observation of nature. At the same time, people managed to build, maintain and manage hydraulic structures in harmony with their natural environment as well as in close co-ordination with state-hood building. The sustainability of traditional systems in general is substantially better than that of today's' systems. The need to improve the performance of many modern systems can benefit from historical experiences. Speakers showed surprising evidences of humankind overcoming the constraints of nature in constructing systems for irrigation, drainage and water supply from Antiquity until the end of the nineteenth century and ranging from Japan, through Jemen, Greece and Rome to Peru and Bolivia.