Water Control in the Greek Cities
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Water systems and urbanization in Africa and beyond Uppsala, Sweden, 2012, 1-2 March 2012 Water control in the Greek cities Demetris Koutsoyiannis Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering School of Civil Engineering National Technical University of Athens, Greece ([email protected], itia.ntua.gr/dk/) Presentation available online: itia.ntua.gr/1195/ Control in Greek cities? A joke? Images from: http://crisisphotostories.blogspot.com/2012/02/1202.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099230/Greece-Riot-police-flames-protesters-armed-petrol- bombs-rampage-Athens.html http://www.international.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5081 http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/02/13/2024158/obstacles-remain-for-greek-bailout.htmlD. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 2 What went wrong in Greece? Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13798000 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007949/The-Big-Fat-Greek-Gravy.html http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Greece_public_debt_1999-2010.svg D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 3 What went wrong in Greece in terms of water? D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 4 What went right in Greece in terms of water? The Athens water supply system Evinos π. Β. Κη φισ ός Hylike lake ος ρν ς ό νο Μ η . ύ π . Ε π Mornos Marathon 0 10 20 30 km Canal at Delphi Athens D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 5 A state-of-the-art decision support tool for the control of the Athens water supply system Hydronomeas: A decision support tool implementing a new methodology termed parameterization- simulation- optimization See theoretical and practical justification of the approach in Koutsoyiannis and Economou (2003); Koutsoyiannis et al. (2002, 2003); and Efstratiadis et al. (2004) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 6 Why the Athens water supply system is so big? Population Mean annual rainfall dynamics : (mm) Current (2011) population of Greater Athens: 3 812 000 (35% of the Greek population) Climate : Annual rainfall in Athens: 400 mm (among the driest places of Greece) insufficient water resources D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 7 Back in time: Climate and the ancient Greek civilization Mean annual rainfall Why ancient Greeks (mm) chose the driest places for their cities? Or Athens Why the settlements on driest places were Delos the most flourishing? (Life in dry climate is more convenient Thera and healthier?) What are the consequences/impacts Mycenae of water scarcity on Knossos cultural progress? Sparta (Can scarcity trigger progress in technology and management?) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 8 Ancient Greek civilization vs. preceding ones Greece & main colonies Mesopotamia Tigris & Euphrates India Indus Egypt Nile Most earlier civilizations bloomed in large river valleys (water abundance) Greece does not have large rivers (water scarcity) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 9 Is abundance a paradise? In Paradise (Eden), Adam and Eve enjoyed abundance of everything – including water However, they were expelled from this nice place; this was a punishment because Eve could not resist to the goods of the knowledge tree Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise - Marc Chagall, 1961, France http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/marc-chagall/adam-and-eve-expelled-from-paradise-1961-6 D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 10 An opposite view: The myth of the competition of Athena and Poseidon To choose their patron god, Athenians organized a competition for two candidates: Athena (goddess of wisdom) and Poseidon (god of waters) Poseidon offered abundant spring water Athena offered the olive tree and an explanation why it would be wiser to choose her gift Athenians opted for wisdom Scarcity may not be a punishment (as in the biblical story) – but a choice Wisdom may be more powerful than abundance D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 11 What is paradise? Abundance (no effort required) Or Scarcity (triggering knowledge/wisdom and progress) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 12 Stages of cultural and technological progress in Greece Technology based on empirical knowledge Social organization and institutions Philosophy and science Technology based on scientific knowledge D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 13 Technology based on empirical knowledge: some examples Main periods of Greek antiquity Minoan : Island of Crete, ca. 3500 - 1450 BC (mostly known from large houses and luxurious palaces, e.g. Knossos, Zakros, Mallia, Gortys, Phaestos) Cycladic : Islands of the Aegean, ca. 3100 - 1600 BC Mycenaean : Mainland Greece, ca. 1550 - 1150 BC Greek Dark Age (a misnomer) also known as Geometric or Homeric Age: ca. 1200 - 800 BC Archaic : ca. 800 - 500 BC Classical : 500 BC - 336 BC Hellenistic : 323 BC (death of Alexander the Great) - 146 BC (annexation by Rome) Note: chronologies not generally agreed D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 15 Minoan civilization: Water resources development Groundwater exploitation (Knossos, Zakros, Palekastro) Springs combined with aqueducts and/or cisterns Wells Rainwater collection (Phaestos, Chamaizi) Cisterns Well used for water supply at Palekastro Cistern at the pre-palatial house complex in the vicinity of the village Chamaizi, near the town of SitiaSeteia dated dated in inthe the turn turn from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BC D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 16 Minoan water supply systems In the Knossos Palace, water was conveyed from springs at distances 700 m – 5 km using terracotta pipes Terracotta pipe sections (Buffet and Evrard, 1950) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 17 Modern research with due respect for our ancestors’ technology An ongoing experiment in the Applied Hydraulics Laboratory (NTUA) to investigate the hydraulic behaviour of the ceramic Minoan pipes; the research is made using replicas of the original pipes (same geometry and material) by Panos Papanicolaou and Menelaos Xirouchakis D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 18 Minoan flushing toilets Sewer Door Wooden seat Gypsum floor F l Wooden u s h seat i Flushing conduit n g c ‘Hood’ o n d u i t Sewer 1 m Door Section and plan of ground-floor toilet in the residential quarter of Palace of Minos (Angelakis et al., 2005) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 19 Minoan sanitary and storm sewers Part of restored stairway with parabolic runnels in Knossos Palace (Angelakis et al., 2005) Parts of the sanitary and storm sewer systems in Agia Triadha (Angelakis et al., 2005) “One day, after a heavy downpour of rain, I was interested to find that all the drains [of the Villa Hagia Triada] acted perfectly, and I saw the water flow from the sewers through which a man could walk upright. I doubt if there is any other instance of a drainage system acting after 4000 years. ” Angelo Mosso from his visit in Aghia Triada (Escursioni nel Mediterraneo e gli scavi di Creta, Treves, Milano, 1907) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 20 Cycladic bathrooms in the Island of Thera West House, Bathroom at Room 4a with a sewer made of clay pipes of size 20 cm discharging to a pit built externally near the foundation; from Marinatos (1999) Bathroom’s Pit Bathroom Bedroom D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 21 Cycladic terracotta bathtubs in the Island of Thera Large bathtub Medium bathtub Little bathtub A set of bathtubs with various sizes; photos from Marinatos (1999) D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 22 Classical era: The water supply of Samos and the tunnel of Eupalinos The most famous hydraulic work of ancient Greece was the aqueduct of ancient Samos, which was admired both in antiquity (e.g. Herodotus) and in modern times The most amazing part of the aqueduct is the «Εὐπαλίνειον ὄρυγμα», or “Eupaninean digging”, after Eupalinos, an engineer from Megara: a 1036 m long tunnel dug from two openings Its construction started in 530 BC, during the tyranny of Polycrates, and took ten years Owing to the text of Herodotus, the Top (+225) entrance of the aqueduct was Spring (+57.60) uncovered in 1856; +55.83 +55.26 only ninety years later, between 1971 and Sea Q 1973, the German 0 100 200 m N Archaeological City tank Institute of Athens Spring North t entrance c uncovered the entire Meeting u South (inlet) point D entrance t tunnel c (outlet) u Tunnel C E P D N A D F S Sketch from Koutsoyiannis et al. (2008) B D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the Greek cities 23 The great achievements of Eupalinos He constructed the first known deep tunnel in history; shallow tunnels are much easier to construct (qanat technology) Like in modern construction practice, he started from two openings (N and S); the point E where the two construction lines met is known To carve segments of the same straight line from two openings in a mountainous terrain, he must have had a good working knowledge of geometry and geodesy There is evidence that Eupalinos solved the problem with simple means and in an accurate manner by putting poles up over the mountain along the path in a straight line (a simple method used even today in engineering geodesy, but for simpler problems – not for the construction of tunnels); then he lined up the workers in the tunnel segments with these poles Top (+225) Spring (+57.60) +55.83 +55.26 N E S Sea D. Koutsoyiannis, Water control in the