Water: Roman Aqueduct Ingenuity Since man has created settlements he has always needed an ample supply of fresh water to sustain life. Small villages and towns grew up along lakes and waterways as man learned to cooperate as a group, farm the land, and prosper. These villages grew and required more land, water, and food. As early as the ancient Minoan society man learned to expand his communities and supply them with water with wells dug to harvest water from underground sources, cisterns to collect large amounts of rain water, and aqueducts to move water from a water source to the community or farm land. The technology to move water from ready sources grew. Mesopotamians, Mycenaeans, Babylonians, Persians, Arabs, and Chinese all used different forms of limited aqueducts and water storage to sustain their civilization. The apex of the ancient aqueducts came with the Romans. The Roman Empire , even Rome itself, could not have grown and prospered as it did without the engineering masterpieces of the aqueducts. Romans built amazing ambitious aqueduct projects across many different types of terrain. These were originally made using the surface terrain to allow the water to flow using gravity. Some were built using ingenious methods to tunnel deep under the ground to conquer features on the surface that impeded water flow. Water was obtained from springs , underground wells, and free flowing rivers. Roman engineers perfected the arch and built massive beautiful arcades that spanned valleys or other terrain that blocked the flow of water. These arcades or bridges also allowed the water to flow at a specific gradient set by the engineers ( Roman engineer and architect Vitruvius recommended 1 to 4800 to ensure water pressure but not allow erosion). These arcades could be one or multiple levels depending on the type of terrain to be traversed. Merriam Webster dictionary defines aqueduct as “a structure that looks like a bridge and that is used to carry water over a valley; also : a pipe or channel that is used to bring water to an area.” The Romans built hundreds of aqueducts across the width and breadth of their empire. They ranged from just few meters to over 90 kilometers long.

Roman aqueducts were also built with tunnels using a engineering tool called a inverted siphon. Workers ( usually slaves) dug deep channels or excavated tunnels to allow the water to flow from the source. When a valley or similar obstruction was reached a tunnel was dug to follow the dip in the land so the water would drop fast enough to be able to flow back up the other side of the dip and resume its flow down the aqueduct. Pipes in these tunnels were made of pottery, concrete, or lead. The tunnels were built with inspection and air shafts so scheduled maintenance could be done to maintain the quality and flow of the water.

To facilitate these engineering feats the Romans had to master the building of the arch with no mortar, each stone was cut to fit perfectly and support each other. Arcades from the Roman aqueduct in Segovia are a perfect example of the strength and longevity of Roman engineering. Engineers also employed new inventions such as water proof cement and concrete in their tunnel designs. The inverted siphons worked best if they incorporated lead pipes so the water could maintain of smooth fast flow. This only happened when the funds were available from the state since lead was very expensive in ancient Rome. Some historians have said that the lead pipes in the aqueducts of Rome could have been a major factor in the downfall of the Empire. Most now believe that the speed of the water flow would not have allowed lead to saturate the water and since most of the water supplied via those aqueducts was hard water the build of of mineral deposits in the pipes would further lessen any transfer of lead to the water. Roman civil engineers also equipped the aqueducts with innovations such as stopcocks to control the water flow , sedimentation tanks to hold water to let contaminants settle , massive underground storage reservoirs, and aerator sections to freshen the water. An added benefit from the aqueduct was run-off channels that were used to control the volume of water delivered which allowed agricultural areas to flourish. As roman engineering allowed population centers to grow so did the empire. In an an interview with NOVA in February of 2000 Peter Aicher, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Southern Maine, said “ The Romans could not have built cities as big as they did without aqueducts—and some of their cities wouldn't have existed at all. Romans sometimes built cities on dry plains … It also would be impossible to imagine Rome, which had about 1,000,000 people at its peak, without its large aqueducts.”(1) Clean potable water was one of the major factors the allowed Rome and the Roman Empire to flourish. The innovations Roman engineers designed , such as the aqueducts, played their part then and continue to play their part in modern societies.