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A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO THE HISTORY OF WATER MANAGEMENT FROM URBAN AND RURAL AREAS

R. Zamfir

Abstract

During the history, water resources represented, particularly through the big watercourses, the seesaw of grand civilizations. Indispensable factor of life, water brought the enlargement and also decline to the peoples from antiquity. Water management techniques for rural and urban area became during history much diversified instruments. If till some decades ago, water excess removal was focused almost exclusively on quantitative aspects, modern land drainage is part of water integrated management, removing or conserving the necessary water volumes and being also preoccupied by water quality and environmental values. Water resources integrated management represents a process which promotes the coordination of water development and management with soils and other resources which are relating with it in order to maximize the economical and social sectors in an equitable manner and without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. In this way it is necessary for land drainage as main water excess removal technique to realize a balance between water excess control and conserving soil humidity. The drainage technology had improved considerably, in parallel with the general scientific and technical progress of our civilization. The paper aims to take the readers into a brief history of water management techniques for rural and urban areas, a history of over 2000 years, by presenting their main evolution stages worldwide.

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