River Ganges
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RIVER SEINE River of Life Source to Mouth The Seine, at 780 km (485 miles) long, is France's second longest river. The longest is the Loire. The Seine rises in the region of Burgundy and then flows through Troyes and Melun to Paris. Beyond the capital, the river meanders in large loops through Normandy and Rouen, entering the English Channel in an estuary between Le Havre and Honfleur. Its name has Celtic roots and means “sacred source” or “sacred river”. The Seine is dredged to allow ocean-going vessels to dock at Rouen, 120 km (75 miles) from the sea. Commercial riverboats can use the river from Bar- sur-Seine, 560 km (350 miles) from its mouth. At Paris, the river is only 24 metres (80 feet) above sea level and 445 km (277 miles) from its mouth. The river is slow flowing here and easily navigable by shallow draught vessels. The water of the Seine is an important resource. Power stations, both thermal and nuclear, pull cooling water from the river. Half the water used in the Paris region, both for industry and for consumption, and three quarters of the water used in the area between Rouen and Le Havre, is taken from the river. Intensive farming has developed over 60% of the Seine basin, which produces about 80% of French sugar and 75% of the country's rapeseed and vegetable oil crops. A direct result of this is that a high level of agricultural wastewater leaches into the river. In Paris, worse things end up in the Seine. During periods of heavy rainfall, to prevent the sewage system from overloading, raw sewage can be discharged into the Seine. The Seine enters Paris at its southeast corner, it arcs northward and bends out of Paris at its southwest corner (see aerial photograph left). Traveling in a downstream direction, the right bank of the river is known as the River Droit (Right Bank) and the left bank as the Rive Gauche (Left Bank). At water level, some 30 feet below street level, the river is bordered, at least on those portions not transformed into expressways, by cobbled quays graced with trees and shrubs. From street level another line of trees leans towards the water. Between the two levels, the retaining walls, usually made of massive stone blocks, are decorated with the great iron rings that are reminders of a past age of busy river commerce. The old buildings, riverboats, gardens, and 32 bridges compose one of the world’s grandest and most endearing cityscapes. In recognition of this, the banks of the Seine were added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1991. River Seine was compiled by Adrian Evans in 2009 Rivers of the World is a Thames Festival project delivered in partnership with the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms with support from HSBC Global Education Programme www.riversoftheworld.org RIVER SEINE Polluted River Les Egouts In 1815, by comparison with Paris, London was a sweet-smelling city. Households in London had a flush-sewage system while the Paris sewers still served mainly as street drains (see left). Cesspools had to be emptied periodically, resulting in a disgusting smell. While Parisians barely consumed 7 litres of water a day, every citizen of London had the use of 62 litres; only one in five Parisian houses had running water. In Paris, a series of cholera epidemics in the 1830s forced a rethink. A consequence was a complex system of new covered sewers called Les Egouts. Designed by Eugéne Belguard, construction of this system started in 1850, and by 1870 over 500 km of new sewers were either in service or under construction. The sewers were the pride of Paris and tours around them became a tourist offer. The King of Portugal was the first guest of honour to make the descent. Impressive though these sewers were, the areas best served by them were where the rich lived. The one third of homes without running water were disproportionately situated in the poorer neighbourhoods and it was here that dysentery, typhoid fever, diptheria, whooping cough, smallpox and tuberculosis were most likely to be prevelent. Today's network of more than 2,100 km (1,312 miles) of underground tunnels carry drain water from the streets, sanitary sewers (now in separate pipes), mains for drinking water, the water used for street cleaning, telecommunications cables and pneumatic tubes between post offices. The cables that operate the capital’s traffic lights also run through the sewer pipes. The main sewer pipes take much of the sewage that Paris produces to the purification plant at Achères, 12 miles northwest of the capital (pictured left) From their opening, the Paris sewers have never lost their tourist appeal. People were initially carried by carts that were suspended from the walkways along the tunnel walls, later by carriages drawn by a small locomotive, and until the 1970s, in little boats. Today, the carts and boats are gone, having been replaced by an even better attraction: the Musée des Égouts de Paris, or Paris Sewers Museum. This museum is located in the sewers beneath the Quai d'Orsay on the Left Bank. And, where else but in Paris could a sewer system inspire a blockbuster musical – Victor Hugo set part of Les Miserables in Les Egouts. River Seine was compiled by Adrian Evans in 2009 Rivers of the World is a Thames Festival project delivered in partnership with the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms with support from HSBC Global Education Programme www.riversoftheworld.org RIVER SEINE Polluted River Clean Water In 1500 there were 17 public fountains in Paris and these were embellished and added to in the mid- century. The most striking addition was the Fountain of the Innocents. Sculptural reliefs from which are shown on the left. In the 19th Century, as part of a massive modernisation scheme for Paris, Napoléon Buonaparte and his master planner Baron Haussmann restricted the waters of the Seine and Canal d’Ourq for public consumption. In place, and at enormous cost, they built an impressive series of aquaducts to bring fresh water into the city from outlying sources. By the 1870s Paris’ water consumption had increased ten fold over that in the 1850s and around two thirds of all private homes had running water. These days, half of the capital’s drinking water arrives via these and other aqueducts and tunnels; the other half is pumped from the rivers Seine, Marne, and Oise and filtered in treatment plants around the City. Five great reservoirs around Paris store this water, emptying during the day and refilling at night, ensuring a continuous supply, even in times of shortage or drought. There’s even a huge pipe skirting the city, linking all five reservoirs to balance demand. Part of today’s purification process echoes natures own, allowing the water to seep naturally through successive layers of filtering substances until it attains a purity similar to source water. The dark green Wallace fountains (see left) were donated to the city by the English philanthropist Richard Wallace after the Prussian war of 1870 and are scattered around main intersections and thoroughfares, as well as numerous parks and city squares. Wallace designed the fountains himself, with the dual aim of producing something artistic as well as utilitarian. His criteria for construction were impressively strict. They had to be practical, but still pleasing to the eye; easy to spot for thirsty travellers, but not so tall as to blemish the landscape; affordable so that many could be installed; and finally, resistant to the weather, easy to manufacture and simple to maintain. In the 16th arrondissement, hidden away in the Square Lamartine, flows the last vestige of one of Paris’ 63 underground water sources. A deep well taps the ancient underground River Albien, running 750 metres below the heights of the fashionable Parisian district of Passy, just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. Passy was once a popular spa area going back as far as the 17th century and its water is still considered to have therapeutic properties, including healing lumbago, alleviating arthritis, and leading to longer life. River Seine was compiled by Adrian Evans in 2009 Rivers of the World is a Thames Festival project delivered in partnership with the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms with support from HSBC Global Education Programme www.riversoftheworld.org RIVER SEINE Resourceful River Flooding Historically, the Seine was prone to flooding. It was particularly bad in 1740 and 1801-2. As a result, Napoléon Bonaparte decided to construct an embankment, the Quai d’Orsay, running without a break between the Pont Royal and Concorde. The Quai was completed in 1806 and in March 1808, Napoleon issued a decree to continue the quais from the Concorde all the way to the Ècole Militaire on the Left Bank. Three years later, he built the short Quai Montebello opposite the Hôtel Dieu. By 1812, the length of the quais constructed over 10 years reached 3,000 metres. Of the Emperor’s many proud achievements, the quais were the ones which evoked the most praise for both efficacy and beauty. It rained steadily through the winter of 1909 and 1910. By 29 January, the waters of the Seine had risen to some 8½ metres – the highest level ever recorded. The Seine at Pont Alexander is shown on the left. Several areas were inundated including the new metro, the pride of the city. Bridges were underwater and people were terrified by press reports of deadly crocodiles swimming out of the zoo. When the waters finally receded in the spring, over 200,000 homes had been wrecked.