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INTRODUCTION
Water distribution systems (WDSs) have an interesting and ancient history, which consists of not only steady advancements, but also deep declines. Undeniably, developments in WDSs and other engineering sciences emerged with the progress of nations, and stagnated or even retrogressed when nations declined. Ewbank (1858) states that ‘science and the arts are renovating the constitution of society [ … ]. Historians will hereafter trace in them the rise and fall of nations; for power and pre-eminence will depend upon new discoveries in and applications of science.’ Correspondingly, understanding the history of a particular engineering science is important in order to realise the broader linkages by which the science developed. This paper presents a coherent history of such developments in WDSs inclusive of devices for raising water and water pumps, water quality and water treatment, hydraulics, network analysis, and optimisation of WDSs.
Water distribution systems
The history of water distribution is very ancient in development. Indeed, urban WDSs date back to the Bronze Age (circa 3200-1100 B.C.), with ‘several astonishing examples’ from the mid-third millennium B.C. (Mays et al. 2012). These include, for example, a system of hundreds of wells supplying water to domestic demands, and private and public baths (Mays et al. 2012). Crouch (1993), who documented water management in ancient Greece, revealed that the very first piped water supplies including pressure pipes had been known as early as the second millennium B.C. It is documented that ancient Minoan and Greek civilisations had urban water reticulation, sewerage and drainage systems, with wells, cisterns, tanks, reservoirs, dams, channels and water pipes made of terracotta (clay) and lead (Crouch 1993; Angelakis et al. 2005; Mays et al. 2012). Moreover, the ancient Greeks constructed ‘long-distance water supply lines with tunnels and bridges’ referred to as aqueducts, which are dated back to the eighth to sixth century B.C. (Crouch 1993).
Greek technologies were subsequently inherited by the Romans (circa 100 B.C. to 500 A.D.), who developed them further and implemented them at an enlarged scale (Mays et al. 2007; Angelakis et al. 2012). In particular, Roman aqueducts, which carried water from a source to the Roman cities, could extend over more than 100 km in length (Viollet 2000; Haut & Vivier 2012). They could incorporate an inverted siphon,...