EN have always and everywhere tried to tame and capture rivers water to
Ï M
build their civilizations, to serve their cultivations; to impose their authority
—
'
:
and to create a domination relation with a nature whose wild character is
5
'
=
problematic to them.
..
‘
Development of banks, small dykes, small dams.
.
.dams have often been consubstantial
_
to any civilization enterprise. They have accompanied man’s progress
since ancient
times (the oldest dam known so far was built at the Garawi valley in Egypt 3000 BC.)
.
and served as a vector to economic and social development.
_
Two sorts of water dams were used in antiquity, soil buttress dams, little high but very
long and weight dams, massive but very sensitive to accidental overloads.
We would almost forget that Algeria still contains today the remains of over sixty dams
that go back far in history. ln fact, in arid areas, or when sources’ rate of ow was
intermittent, real dams were built to serve as regulating tanks keeping sufcient water
volume for the dry seas0n. These small dams supplied irrigation aqueducts, often faced
with stone and whose canalization was not covered
In fact, when the subject of water is tackled at the historical level, two strong images
.
come to Algerians’ collective memory: an ancestral and ingenious irrigation and water
distribution system in the South, called “foggaras” as well as the country’s northern
water transfer great “aqueducts”, inherited from the Roman presence.
What about today?
_
.
Ï M
build their civilizations, to serve their cultivations; to impose their authority
—
'
:
and to create a domination relation with a nature whose wild character is
5
'
=
problematic to them.
..
‘
Development of banks, small dykes, small dams.
.
.dams have often been consubstantial
_
to any civilization enterprise. They have accompanied man’s progress
since ancient
times (the oldest dam known so far was built at the Garawi valley in Egypt 3000 BC.)
.
and served as a vector to economic and social development.
_
Two sorts of water dams were used in antiquity, soil buttress dams, little high but very
long and weight dams, massive but very sensitive to accidental overloads.
We would almost forget that Algeria still contains today the remains of over sixty dams
that go back far in history. ln fact, in arid areas, or when sources’ rate of ow was
intermittent, real dams were built to serve as regulating tanks keeping sufcient water
volume for the dry seas0n. These small dams supplied irrigation aqueducts, often faced
with stone and whose canalization was not covered
In fact, when the subject of water is tackled at the historical level, two strong images
.
come to Algerians’ collective memory: an ancestral and ingenious irrigation and water
distribution system in the South, called “foggaras” as well as the country’s northern
water transfer great “aqueducts”, inherited from the Roman presence.
What about today?
_
.