Knowledge and Water: Colorado State University's Water History

Author(s):  
Neil S. Grigg
Keyword(s):  
2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Reuss

The resolution of international water disputes demands historical analysis. Too often, this analysis is not supplied by professional historians but by policymakers, engineers, and others who may lack the required knowledge and skills. The result inhibits rather than advances sound policy. Fortunately, historians are obtaining increased appreciation for what they bring to the conference table. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which the United States recently rejoined, is attempting to further sound historical study; and the recently formed International Water History Association (IWHA) provides a forum to focus on the history of global water issues. These developments afford historians new and important means to make a difference in resolving some of the most pressing international resource issues.


2007 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
Jock Given

For a third of the twentieth century, the only way Antipodeans could talk with people on the other side of the world was by wireless. The submarine cables that traversed the oceans from the 1860s carried messages in Morse code, ‘telegraphy’, but not voice. From 30 April 1930, the wireless telephone service made it possible to conduct a conversation in real time between England and Australia. This article explores the old era of international wireless telephony at a time when wireless is again transforming social and economic possibilities. It examines the economics and politics of the era, the man most closely identified with the Australian services, the technology employed and the way the service was used, identifying similarities and differences between this period and the present.


Author(s):  
Elize Van Eeden ◽  
Mariette Liefferink ◽  
Elise Tempellhoff

This article provides an analysis of the water history regarding the Wonderfontein Spruit Catchment in the former Far West Rand in South Africa. The major scope for discussion is a short analysis of environmental ethics and crime in this area in the past, and how it has affected man and environment as analysed from a 21st Century perspective. The Wonderfontein Spruit Catchment forms part of the present-day Merafong municipal area, formerly Carletonville. Although voices of concern have featured prominently since the 1960s and even earlier, no extraordinary ethical approach towards this environment and its inhabitants is recorded in history. Bibliographic sources of the Wonderfontein Spruit Catchment currently number over 5000 entries. Despite this impressive production resulting from especially research, reports and whistle blowing in the past 55 years, the area was exposed to limited and insufficient ethically inspired actions, that should have had the ingredients to confirm a positive approach by primary role players regarding environmental management.


2007 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
Jock Given

For a third of the twentieth century, the only way Antipodeans could talk with people on the other side of the world was by wireless. The submarine cables that traversed the oceans from the 1860s carried messages in Morse code, ‘telegraphy’, but not voice. From 30 April 1930, the wireless telephone service made it possible to conduct a conversation in real time between England and Australia. This article explores the old era of international wireless telephony at a time when wireless is again transforming social and economic possibilities. It examines the economics and politics of the era, the man most closely identified with the Australian services, the technology employed and the way the service was used, identifying similarities and differences between this period and the present.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 2261
Author(s):  
Theresa Frommen ◽  
Timothy Moss

Although it is self-evident that today’s groundwater issues have a history that frames both problems and responses, these histories have received scant attention in the socio-hydrogeological literature to date. This paper aims to enrich the field of socio-hydrogeology with a novel, historical perspective on groundwater management whilst simultaneously demonstrating the value to water history of engaging with groundwater. This is achieved by applying hydrogeological, socio-hydrogeological, and historical methods in an interdisciplinary and collaborative research process while analysing a case study of urban groundwater management over a 150-year period. In the German capital Berlin, local aquifers have always been central to its water supply and, being close to the surface, have made for intricate interactions between urban development and groundwater levels. The paper describes oscillations in groundwater levels across Berlin’s turbulent history and the meanings attached to them. It demonstrates the value to socio-hydrogeology of viewing the history of groundwater through a socio-material lens and to urban history of paying greater attention to subsurface water resources. The invisibility and inscrutability associated with groundwater should not discourage attention, but rather incite curiosity into this underexplored realm of the subterranean city, inspiring scholars and practitioners well beyond the confines of hydrogeology.


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