Maurits W. Ertsen

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step – human agency, hydrological processes and time in socio-hydrology

Introduction Conclusions References

‘Friendship is a slow ripening fruit’: an agency perspective on water, values and infrastructure

ABSTRACT This paper argues that human and material agents co-shape ‘morality’. Water systems will be discussed in more detail. Artefacts (technologies) relate humans and their worlds, but the specifics of this relationship become meaningful only within specific actor-networks. As such, the material influences the moral decisions of humans. Examples from the larger Mesopotamian area, on both state-led and community-managed water systems, are discussed to show that these result from activities of individuals, households and groups manipulating water fluxes in short time periods of hours and days. Analysis of these daily activities, and especially of how the material acts, offers options for archaeologists to trace morality in action.

Tony Wilkinson and the water history of the Near East

Water figured centrally throughout Tony Wilkinson’s spectacular career in landscape archaeology in the Near East. His case studies ranged geographically from Yemen to Turkey, Syria to Iran; they included arid desert fringes and (relatedly) moist foothills. The water systems he studied varied in scale from households to villages to states, with a general trend through time from small self-organized systems to massive imperial schemes. Wilkinson drew on any discipline from which data were available, and from which a collaborator or two could be procured. In all cases, however, empirical data from field archaeology held the central position. Despite the scale and number of his projects, collaborations, and students, these field data were overwhelmingly obtained by Wilkinson himself, often under the most challenging weather conditions, made necessary by local agricultural and university academic calendars—negotiating between when fields were clear and courses needed to be taught. Wilkinson often tackled the traces of daily life, the kinds of land use that occurred outside of the interest or notice of the palace elite that have consumed most of the attention of archaeologists. Some of his earliest research investigated falaj (qanat or karez) systems on the Omani coast, which fed sunken fields and powered mills in small oasis towns. He returned to the Arabian peninsula, to trace the small-scale runoff irrigation systems that fed the terraces of highland Yemen. His most widely cited scholarship, however, revolved around the dry-farming agricultural systems that sustained the earliest cities in northern Mesopotamia. He demonstrated how inter-annual variability in rainfall, and householdbased adaptations via manuring, imposed a ceiling on urbanization. Wilkinson’s model

Long term effects of climate on human adaptation in the middle Gila River Valley, Arizona, America

The Hohokam, an irrigation-based society in the American South West, used the river valleys of the Salt and Gila Rivers between 500 and 1500 AD to grow their crops. Such irrigated crops are linking human agency, water sources and the general natural environment. In order to grow crops, water available through rain and river flows needs to be diverted to land where the plants are grown. With a focus on the Gila River, this paper uses the potential harvest of maize (a main Hohokam crop) as a proxy for evaluating the influence of natural water availability and climatic changes on irrigation options for maize. Available climate variables derived from tree-ring proxies are downscaled. These downscaled data are used as input for a crop growth model for the entire sequence of Hohokam occupation along the Gila River. The results of the crop model are used to discuss the potential influence of climatic variability on Hohokam irrigation and society. The results will show that climatic change alone cannot be used as an explanation for developments in Hohokam irrigation. Societal development resulting in growing population and extensive irrigation systems increasing pressure on water sources over time would have been a key factor to include to understand Hohokam society between 500 and 1500 AD.

Editorial issue 1 2013

In our first issue of 2013, two important fields within water history are highlighted: military history and archaeology. The historian David A. Biggs, author of Quagmire: NationBuilding and Nature in the Mekong Delta (University of Washington, 2010), introduces the first set of papers which focus on the role of wetlands in military-environmental history. Wetlands have posed challenges to societies and their institutions. We are most familiar with the struggles between humans and their riverine environments. Just think of the monumental efforts to control the Mississippi floods or the efforts to drain the wetlands of Mesopotamia to reclaim agricultural lands. The technical, financial, and labor costs associated with such efforts meant such Herculean feats were often military affairs. But as Biggs reminds us wetlands also have been key sites of actual war (as well as hideouts for recalcitrant outlaws). The first paper by Jack Hayes analyzes classic Chinese military literature and several Chinese wetlands to contextualize regional warfare prior to the 1960s. He presents these wetlands as ‘‘literary and tactical characters’’ in Chinese military history. The second paper takes us to the South Pacific during World War II and the Battle for the Guadalcanal. Through a detailed case study of the U.S. 1st Marine Division, Dylan Cyr illustrates how water shaped both the daily experiences of the division members and U.S. military strategy. Together with Biggs’s introduction, these papers show the important role of wetlands in military life, strategy, and literary traditions. We hope they are just the beginning of what will be an on-going discussion of military-water history in the pages of Water History. The next set of papers continues our discussion of the contribution of archaeology to water history. Firstly, Kirk French, Christopher Duffy and Gopal Bhatt examine the hydraulics of water management in the ancient Maya site of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. How successful were the Maya in coping with droughts, floods and water supply problems that evolved from their own hydraulic designs and urban hydrologic manipulations? Using a hydroarchaeological method to project watershed models, they show how alternating landscape and meteorological conditions can affect a local watershed. The next paper by Kevin Edwards and Edward Schofield builds upon previous discussions in Water History

Editorial issue 2/3 2018

In this double issue, numbers 2 and 3 of 2018, we are happy to present papers offering new ideas in terms of areas that we study and methods that we use to develop a fuller picture of water history. The first two papers bring us to the Hellenistic water world in very different ways. In ‘‘Running water for the officials, rainwater for the poor’’, Yannis Spyropoulos discusses water management on Crete between 1645 and 1830. In this detailed analysis of challenges faced by administration and population on an island with limited water resources, our attention is redirected from heavily-populated cities and plains to smaller regions. In their contribution, Patrik Klingborg and Martin Finné present their modelling efforts on rainwater harvesting cisterns of Olynthos in Thessaly and Dystos on ancient Euboia—both in ancient Greece. Their results suggest that cisterns could provide freshwater to households and act as buffers in shorter (monthly), and longer terms (seasonally, yearly and between years) of water stress. Their work explains the efficacy of cistern systems by bringing together the predictable variability of water availability and active participation from members of the household. In the second portion of this double issue, we welcome guest editors Nicolas Maughan, Alexey Kraikovski and Julia Lajus. Their set of five papers has a separate editorial introduction about urban water, with specific attention for the evolution of both water supply systems and wastewater technologies through the centuries. These articles bring us to Venice, Sint Petersburg, Versailles, and late Imperial and Soviet Russia (Lake Baikal and River Vuoksi). Together, the papers present new developments in histories of urban water. We are very happy to publish the results of what started as a series of environmental history workshops dealing with the history of urban landscapes and water management held in the European University at St. Petersburg and Venice, plus during thematic sessions of ESEH, ASEH and IWHA Conferences.

Dutch Irrigation Engineers and Their (Post-) Colonial Irrigation Networks

This chapter traces the career steps and decisions of Dutch irrigation engineer De Gruyter between 1920 and 1961 to discuss how the Dutch irrigation engineering network managed to emerge and continue by defining what its members considered ‘good practice’. Irrigation education in Delft permitted entrance to working practice. Only those working procedures that had proven themselves in actual irrigation practice became accepted solutions, both in colonial times and after 1945, when colonial irrigation knowledge was made into international expertise. This redefinition of colonial engineering allowed engineer De Gruyter and many of his colleagues to become active in the international field of irrigation and development.

Reconstructing Ancient Hohokam Irrigation Systems in the Middle Gila River Valley, Arizona, United States of America

We explore the concept of scales to examine emerging irrigation realities, i.e., connecting more agents within larger spaces - relates to the complexity of irrigation systems. Modern hydraulic models allow the inclusion of emerging multi-scale issues over time, including social issues related to different spatial and temporal scales. We show that the time needed to manage irrigation efficiently relates to the size of a system. By reconstructing ancient Hohokam irrigation systems in Arizona, we identify how longer-term extension of spatial scales created management problems beyond the scope of available technology. This approach allows greater understanding of how stresses in daily irrigation management may have impacted longer-term societal stability.

Editorial issue 4, 2017

One of the most delightful aspects of working with this journal is that we get to see the remarkable variety of water issues that concern historians, archaeologists, scientists, activists, and citizens around the world. Perhaps there is no more universally experienced concern than access to and control of water; except, perhaps, for the question raised in our first article of the issue: ‘‘Where’s the loo?’’ A. Kate Trusler’s article publishes the results of several seasons of field work at the site of ancient Pompeii. Pompeii has long been a laboratory for efforts to learn more about Roman domesticity. Mapping the locations of downpipes and latrines to spatially model the distribution and location of residential toilets, Trusler’s article offers important conclusions that add greatly to our understanding of the use and function of Roman domestic spaces. This issue highlights articles that address the relationship between cities and water. Our authors examine the water infrastructure of Pompeii, Athens, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Beijing. Spanning the globe, the essays highlight how local politics, power, and economies shaped domestic access to water and water infrastructure, and how the role of the state mattered in that relationship. Users of water are often highlighted less in water history than the larger, more powerful actors who shape water’s supply. These articles, all case studies of single cities, suggest the relevance of focused attention on the users and consumers of urban water supplies as well as on the institutions and arrangements that procure and maintain them. In this issue we are presenting results of a study of the history of water in Athens over the longue duree. In a two part study, M. Christaki, G. Stournaras, P. T. Nastos, and N. Mamassis assess the history of the water supply of their city. The first article covers a surprisingly long span of time—from the founding of the city through the nineteenth

Editorial issue 2 volume 8

In this second issue of volume 8, the papers cover much of the globe, as we encounter studies on China, Peru, Portugal, Cyprus, and Crete. Themes include water conflict, water use, floods, and climate from 10,000 years ago to the more recent past. The first contribution by Shen Yuling discusses water conflicts in Xinjiang in the Republic of China during the early twentieth century. Based on government documents produced between 1937 and 1949 in the Hetian District, water regulations and water conflicts at the local level are presented and explained in terms of changes in both the amount of land available for irrigated agriculture and the changing water regulations. Opening up of unused land (considered ‘‘wasteland’’) was the main reason for water conflicts. In the second paper, Klas Rönnbäck discusses how the environmental Kuznets Curve was expressed in water pollution in Göta Älv, Sweden, between 1895 and 2000. The pattern observed in this particular case related to actors’ learning about the negative environmental impact of various types of pollution and how to address these problems. One of these possible problems, health, is the topic of the paper by Kathleen Peralta on colonial Lima, Peru. Peralta shows that despite local rules and practices to maintain existing irrigation systems, between 1535 and 1635 Lima’s municipal government disrupted these indigenous waterworks under the guise of promoting human health. Using the urban water system, the town council extended its jurisdiction over both urban and rural spaces and their inhabitants. In the fourth paper, Markonis and colleagues discuss longer term climatic variability and how the evolution of water technologies in Crete, Greece, could be related to that variability. The paper presents characteristic examples of the ancient hydraulic works and