Water management and its judicial contexts in ancient Greece: a review from the earliest times to the Roman period

Water Policy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Krasilnikoff ◽  
Andreas N. Angelakis

Abstract From the earliest times, Greek societies prepared legislation to solve disputes, define access to the water resources, and regulate waste- and storm-water disposal. On the one hand, evidence suggests that in Greek antiquity (750–30 bc), scientific progress was an important agent in the development of water management in some cities including institutional and regulatory issues. In most cities, it seems not to have been a prerequisite in relation to basic agricultural or household requirements. Previous studies suggest that judicial insight rather than practical knowledge of water management became a vital part of how socio-political and religious organizations dealing with water management functioned. The evidence indicates an interest in institutional matters, but in some instances also in the day-to-day handling of water issues. Thus, the aim of this review is to follow the development of water law and institutions and their technical solutions in the Greek states during the Archaic through the Roman periods. In addition, it demonstrates that the need for water management regulations is not a modern creation, but there is a long tradition of solving complex issues of water supply and use with rather sophisticated legal measures.

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 301-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Govert D. Geldof

In integrated water management, the issues are often complex by nature, they are capable of subjective interpretation, are difficult to express in standards and exhibit many uncertainties. For such issues, an equilibrium approach is not appropriate. A non-equilibrium approach has to be applied. This implies that the processes to which the integrated issue pertains, are regarded as “alive”’. Instead of applying a control system as the model for tackling the issue, a network is used as the model. In this network, several “agents”’ are involved in the modification, revision and rearrangement of structures. It is therefore an on-going renewal process (perpetual novelty). In the planning process for the development of a groundwater policy for the municipality of Amsterdam, a non-equilibrium approach was adopted. In order to do justice to the integrated character of groundwater management, an approach was taken, containing the following features: (1) working from global to detailed, (2) taking account of the history of the system, (3) giving attention to communication, (4) building flexibility into the establishing of standards, and (5) combining reason and emotions. A middle course was sought, between static, rigid but reliable on the one hand; dynamic, flexible but vague on the other hand.


1973 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 74-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gould

To Professor E. R. Dodds, through his edition of Euripides'Bacchaeand again inThe Greeks and the Irrational, we owe an awareness of new possibilities in our understanding of Greek literature and of the world that produced it. No small part of that awareness was due to Professor Dodds' masterly and tactful use of comparative ethnographic material to throw light on the relation between literature and social institutions in ancient Greece. It is in the hope that something of my own debt to him may be conveyed that this paper is offered here, equally in gratitude, admiration and affection.The working out of the anger of Achilles in theIliadbegins with a great scene of divine supplication in which Thetis prevails upon Zeus to change the course of things before Troy in order to restore honour to Achilles; it ends with another, human act in which Priam supplicates Achilles to abandon his vengeful treatment of the dead body of Hector and restore it for a ransom. The first half of theOdysseyhinges about another supplication scene of crucial significance, Odysseus' supplication of Arete and Alkinoos on Scherie. Aeschylus and Euripides both wrote plays called simplySuppliants, and two cases of a breach of the rights of suppliants, the cases of the coup of Kylon and that of Pausanias, the one dating from the mid-sixth century, the other from around 470 B.C. or soon after, played a dominant role in the diplomatic propaganda of the Spartans and Athenians on the eve of the Peloponnesian War.


1962 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kraus

In ancient Greece the priests of Apollo asserted that freedom of movement was one of the essentials of human freedom. Many hundreds of years later, toward the end of the eighteenth century, people in the Atlantic world again talked of emigration as one of man's natural rights. It was in northern and western Europe that easier mobility was first achieved within the various states. The next step was to use that mobility to leap local boundaries to reach the lands across the western sea. From the “unsettlement of Europe” (Lewis Mumford's phrase) came the settlement of America.Americans and those who wished to become Americans felt at home in the geographical realm conceived by Oscar Wilde. “A map of the world that does not include Utopia,” he said, “is not even worth glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. Progress is the realization of Utopias.” It was the belief that Utopias were being realized in America that caused millions to leave Europe for homes overseas.IA Scottish observer, Alexander Irvine, inquiring into the causes and effects of emigration from his native land (1802), remarked that there were “few emigrations from despotic countries,” as “their inhabitants bore their chains in tranquility”; “despotism has made them afraid to think.” Nevertheless, though proud of the freedom his countrymen enjoyed, Irvine was critical of their irrational expectations in setting forth to America. There were few individuals or none in the Highlands, he said, “who have not some expectation of being some time great or affluent.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilham Ali ◽  
Jay Famiglietti ◽  
Jonathan McLelland

Water stress in both surface and groundwater supplies is an increasing environmental and sustainable management issue. According to the UN Environment Program, at current depletion rates almost half of the world's population will suffer severe water stress by 2030. This is further exacerbated by climate change effects which are altering the hydrologic cycle. Understanding climate change implications is critical to planning for water management scenarios as situations such as rising sea levels, increasing severity of storms, prolonged drought in many regions, ocean acidification, and flooding due to snowmelt and heavy precipitation continue. Today, major efforts towards equitable water management and governance are needed. This study adopts the broad, holistic lenses of sustainable development and water diplomacy, acknowledging both the complex and transboundary nature of water issues, to assess the benefits of a “science to policy” approach in water governance. Such negotiations and frameworks are predicated on the availability of timely and uniform data to bolster water management plans, which can be provided by earth-observing satellite missions. In recent decades, significant advances in satellite remote sensing technology have provided unprecedented data of the Earth’s water systems, including information on changes in groundwater storage, mass loss of snow caps, evaporation of surface water reservoirs, and variations in precipitation patterns. In this study, specific remote sensing missions are surveyed (i.e. NASA LANDSAT, GRACE, SMAP, CYGNSS, and SWOT) to understand the breadth of data available for water uses and the implications of these advances for water management. Results indicate historical precedent where remote sensing data and technologies have been successfully integrated to achieve more sustainable water management policy and law, such as in the passage of the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014. In addition, many opportunities exist in current transboundary and interstate water conflicts (for example, the Nile Basin and the Tri-State Water Wars between Alabama, Georgia, and Florida) to integrate satellite-remote-sensed water data as a means of “joint-fact finding” and basis for further negotiations. The authors argue that expansion of access to satellite remote sensing data of water for the general public, stakeholders, and policy makers would have a significant impact on the development of science-oriented water governance measures and increase awareness of water issues by significant amounts. Barriers to entry exist in accessing many satellite datasets because of prerequisite knowledge and expertise in the domain. More user-friendly platforms need to be developed in order to maximize the utility of present satellite data. Furthermore, sustainable co-operations should be formed to employ satellite remote sensing data on a regional scale to preempt problems in water supply, quantity, and quality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Zdenek Slanina ◽  
Wojciech Walendziuk ◽  
Lukas Prokop ◽  
Martin Kosinka

This study focused on the use of technical solutions for automated parking for urban needs with regard to energetic self-sufficiency, balancing the price and usability of the building area for the optimal number of parking spaces and the goal of the maximum use of the building surface for green areas that provide not only oxygen production but also filtration of dust particles and appropriate water management.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 618-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. N. Angelakis ◽  
D. S. Spyridakis

The evolution of urban water management in ancient Greece begins in Crete during the Middle Bronze and the beginning of the Late Bronze Ages (ca. 2000–1500 B.C.) when many remarkable developments occurred in several stages as Minoan civilization flourished on the island. One of its salient characteristics was the architectural and hydraulic function of its water supply and sewerage systems in the Minoan Palaces and several other settlements. These technologies, though they do not give a complete picture of water supply and wastewater and storm water technologies in ancient Greece, indicate nevertheless that such technologies have been used in Greece since prehistoric times. Minoan water and wastewater technologies were diffused to the Greek mainland in the subsequent phases of Greek civilization, i.e. in the Mycenaean, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods. The scope of this article is the presentation of the most characteristic forms of ancient hydraulic works and related technologies and their uses in past Greek civilizations.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2043
Author(s):  
Kavindra Paranage ◽  
Nancy Yang

Traditionally, the literature on water management has considered water from a techno-realist point of view by focusing on finding the most effective technical solutions to distribute the largest quantities of water among populations. This paper takes an alternative position by suggesting that particular “ways” of managing water are culturally embedded and that water management practices stem from an underlying hydro-mentality among water users and system designers. To this end, we explore two different water systems in Sri Lanka and argue that each system is underpinned by a particular hydro-mentality that influences the ways in which water is managed by downstream communities.


1995 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sitta von Reden

In his analysis of the social and economic conditions of intellectual activity in ancient Greece, Gentili argues that the value of poetry underwent a notable change in the late archaic period. Poetry came to be produced within a contractual relationship between patrons and poets, it became a commercial good available to the one who could pay for it and its value was expressed no longer by honouring the poet but by paying for his product. At the time of Solon and Theognis the producers of poetry had been aristocratic members of the polis giving political advice to their peers and gaining renown by the quality of their advice. Yet Simonides and Pindar wrote under different social conditions. Gentili writes:Fully conscious by now of the dignity and importance of his role, the poet also becomes aware of its [i.e. poetry's] ‘commercial’ value. He puts his own sophia at the disposal of the highest bidder, thereby creating a basis for the tendency to regard wealth and poetic ‘wisdom’ as interchangeable moral equivalents.


2002 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-386
Author(s):  
Probal Dasgupta

Abstract This article explores some topics at the boundary between linguistics theory and the applied linguistic foundations of the practice of translation. Section 1, The irrelevance of the avant-garde , considers the relation between such academic adventures as semiotics and poststructuralism on the one hand and the theory of language and the practice of translation on the other, and argues that radical antiscientism does not bear on the foundations of translation. Section 2, The irrelevance of the technical , looks at formal syntax and semantics in relation to the concepts of applied linguistics and shows that careful contemporary linguistics cannot underpin an applied enterprise that includes translation studies. Section 3, The substantive hase of translation , indicates (in some detail for translation and at a general level for other applied linguistic activities) the direction that the contemporary integration of various lines of linguistic research is taking vis-à-vis the needs of such applied enterprises as translation, literary studies, language planning, lexicography, and language teaching. Section 3 invokes a concept of substance as opposed to form and thus sets the scene for the concluding section 4, Pragmatics, applied studies, and scientific progress , which argues that it is necessary to take help from linguistics in order to construct the field of translation studies in such a way that practitioners can truly benefit freely from all relevant branches of knowledge, in view of the fact that chaos is an obstacle to genuine freedom.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-94
Author(s):  
Anna Berti Suman

AbstractThis monograph investigates the development of the right to water (RtW) and of water law in the Latin American context. Specifically, it examines the significance of Latin American (la) constitutional evolution, doctrine, and jurisprudential contribution in stimulating the social, political, and economic debate on the RtW, regionally and worldwide. Firstly, an overview on the RtW inlaconstitutions is provided and the impact of the findings is highlighted. The mainlawater management systems are then reviewed with an acknowledgment that an analysis of the RtW has to take account of its application in specific contexts. The intrinsic connection between the RtW and the role of the private sector is examined through specific insights into the highly privatized Chilean water services. Lessons learnt from thelaexperience are outlined in the conclusion and their relevance for the global debate on the RtW is illustrated.


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