HIST 100: Engineering The Past

Two Perfect Pages Assignment

by Leave a Comment

If I could travel back in time and advise a country in the Middle East on their water management I would choose Syria. Constant water problems have plagued this country since the first documented water war that occurred at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers over 4,000 years ago. An argument could also be made that the civil war occurring in Syria can be attributed to water problems in the country. Syria has faced some type of water instability over the past decade and has caused major conflict within the country. Syria is heavily dependent on agriculture and is a way of life for many of its people. Since early 2000, water shortages and severe droughts have triggered rising tensions and a demand for consistent water flows. Water scarcity is a severe problem for agriculture and conflicts with other countries over water control of the Euphrates River, which supplies the vast majority of water to Syria. The Euphrates river flows have reduced by forty percent and is continuing to dwindle. Without water, farmers have no way to water their crops and with the inability to produce crops many are forced off their farms. This has resulted in a migration to Syria’s city centers and has caused rapid urbanization in Syria’s populated cities.

 

My advice to Syria would first be to stop depleting its freshwater aquifers. Groundwater is a renewable resource, but takes time to recharge. Constantly relying on groundwater to overcome droughts and hard times will only make it more difficult in the future to manage water resources.

 

My next advice to Syria would be to create a system of recycling wastewater. Rather than relying on aquifers, the people of Syria should focus on recycling their wasted water to lessen the burden on their surrounding watershed and groundwater. Syria relies heavily on water coming from the Euphrates River and its tributaries; with increasing urbanization and high population growth the pressure has greatly increased the burden on water resources. This increasing pressure on groundwater has  resulted in over-pumping of groundwater that has led to pollution in many aquifers in the country. Syria has focused on more efficient irrigation systems and wastewater treatment plants, but has placed these as a higher priority than supply management. Focusing on effective ways to recycle water and limiting the use of water altogether is short-term thinking. Water levels in the surrounding watershed of the Euphrates River will still decrease, because the focus is more on limiting use rather than resupplying their source of freshwater.

 

One way to create more water is desalinization. Syria’s climate does not allow the country to rely on a wet season to help replenish its water sources, but purifying salt water gives Syrians a chance to combat the loss of freshwater. The U.S. has many states that have created committees dedicated to monitoring the water level of aquifers and constantly checking the quality of water to ensure over-pumping is limited. These committees monitor water levels in aquifers and measure the amount of water needed each year to supply their communities. They also monitor drought weather and the amount of water needed for fire season. A committee such as this would benefit greatly for Syria. This committee would allow Syria to focus on the amount of water needed for the year and could allow them to rebuild their freshwater supply.

 

Currently, Syria is in a civil war and some have attributed this war to the water scarcity through out the country. After reading through many articles it seems that these major uprisings are directly related to water instability through out the country. The people of Syria value their way of life, they take pride in what they do and a majority of these people depend on farming. Water shortages have forced farmers off of their land and created a large group of angry men and women who just want their livelihood back. The government should focus on creating unity with their people and push towards water stability, which may in turn bring peace to Syria. This advice would greatly benefit the country’s water supply and I believe the leaders of Syria would use these tips.

 

To better understand the problem facing Syria and creating a positive solution would require more information. I would focus on finding policies Syria implemented over the years in regards to water management. I would also look into Syria’s conflicts that are attributed to water scarcity and see what is sparking these uprisings. Another piece of crucial information would be analyzing the technologies that Syria has used to combat groundwater depletion and water scarcity. I believe I could find a majority of this information through Boise State’s Library’s online database, and if further searching were needed I would use U.S. government websites to find primary sources.

Pictorial Essay

by Leave a Comment

attached is my pictorial essay. I apologize for the late submission, i have been struggling with a wisdom teeth surgery and have had a whole lot of catching up to do. I figured i might as well submit it to at least try to get some credit pictorial essay
pictures should be in the attached version
Thanks,
Logan Tueller

Ancient American Irrigation Techniques and Their Influence on Modern American Agriculture

Water is the reason we have life on this planet. Water has several main properties which help sustain our planet and life including: cohesion, high heat capacity, universal solvent, polarity. As organisms evolved into more complex, land mobile creatures, access to water was a matter of survival or extinction. Homo sapiens developed the ability to control their access to water by recycling, redirecting and storing water in many innovating ways which allowed them to travel further and explore new places to call home. As Humans crossed over the ice bridge to North America, they settled next to coasts, rivers and lakes so they could have easy access to water. As thousands of years passed, Native Americans settled in what is now the Pacific Northwest and Southwest. I believe that I can prove that ancient human’s ability to develop technology to control water resources in America was so revolutionary that the systems used helped influence most of our modern day irrigation techniques.
Although it is probable that American Indians grew several native plants such as gourds, the first evidence of corn based agriculture in the Southwest dates as far back as 2100 BCE. Primitive corn cobs have been found all around New Mexico and Arizona from the Tucson basin in the Arizona desert. This suggests that the primitive corn they grew was adapted to being grown in hot, dry and short-season climates (Merrill). Corn reached the Southwest via an unknown route from Mexico. One theory is that the corn cultivation was carried northward from central Mexico by migrating farmers. The first cultivation of corn in the Southwest came during a climatic period when precipitation was relatively high. As corn cultivation became a more feasible means of food, communities became larger and moved away from nomadic hunter-gatherers. As these groups grew in size and moved towards a more agricultural based economy, the need to grow larger amounts of crops lead to some innovative ways to control water resources. The image to the left shows an ancient man-made water basin used to capture rainwater runoff and directed it to their small fields, thus enabling them to grow larger crops in areas of dry desert. From these rainwater collection techniques, modern Americans have derived self-sustaining houses with rain collecting systems that have the ability to supply a full house with water for showers, laundry, cooking and even enough water support a small garden. People have converted the community style water basin towards a more household friendly approach that helps make homes in more rural locations self-sufficient when it comes to water resources. As you can see, these ancient Americans had great skill in managing water resources in dry arid conditions. From rain water collection to massive canal systems spreading miles, Native Americans overcame the struggles of accessing water in the deserts in a way that is advanced even by today’s standards.
The Las Capas, near Tucson, is one of the oldest irrigation systems in North America, dating to 1200 BC. The network of canals and small fields, covers more than 100 acres which shows that a sizable community of people with advanced enough organization to complete community wide public works project (archaeology.org). The Las Capas people are considered the forerunners of the Hohokam people who were the most accomplished farmers of the Southwest. The Hohokam lived in the Gila and Salt river valleys of Arizona between the 100 AD and 1450 AD. Their society bloomed about 750 AD most likely stemming from their agricultural success. The Hohokam constructed a vast system of canals to irrigate thousands of acres of cropland from river valleys for as far as 30 km away (Doolittle). At the peak of their culture in the 14th century, the Hohokam may have numbered 40,000 people which shows how effective their irrigation systems were at passively delivering water to fields. In a very similar fashion, modern farmers rely on simple passive watering systems derived and built with similar techniques that the Las Capas people used hundreds of years ago. The arid South-West poses great issues with agriculture but with the use of the Las Capas’ techniques to build and maintain canals, the Arizona Canal system was started in May 1883, only 400 years after the Hohokam. The Arizona Canal is a massive canal system that gave water access to many communities and farmers. The Canals are 7 times larger (around 211 km) than those from the 15th century but covered similar areas and were built to support thousands of people.
From the map above, the prehistoric canals can be seen in the light blue and more modern canals are in white. The location of the canals then versus now seems to be transposed into very similar locations, some even built new canals over top of the old structures left behind from more primitive canals. The ingenuity behind both canal systems shows how the control of water resources was a mandatory need for populations to grow and survive in the drier desert conditions. As you can see, the resemblance between ancient Americans ability to control water and the more current take on how to control water stem from the same common ground dating back as far as 1200 BC. I believe that I have proved that ancient human’s ability to develop technology to control water resources in America was so revolutionary that the systems used helped influence most of our modern day irrigation techniques.

Works Cited
Doolittle, William E. “Agriculture in North America on the Eve of Contact: A Reassessment” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82(3), 1992, p. 389
Fish, Suzanne K. “Hohokam Impacts on Sonoran Desert Environment” in Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the PreColumbian Americas ed. by David L. Lentz, New York: Columbia U Press, 2000, p.264
Merrill, William L. et al, “The Diffusion of Maize to the Southwestern United States and its Impact.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 106, No. 50 (December 15, 2009), pp. 21019-21020
Showalter, Pamela Sands. 2013. “A Thematic Mapper Analysis of the Prehistoric Hohokam Canal System, Phoenix, Arizona”. Journal of Field Archaeology. 20 (1): 77-90
“Top 10 Discoveries of 2009 – Early Irrigators – Tucson, Arizona.” http://www.archaeology.org/1001/topten/arizona.html, accessed 1 April 2016

Beliefs

by 1 Comment

Daniel Burnham is one of the main characters in the story and his belief is ambition. Daniel Burnham is constantly haunted by the rejection from Yale and Harvard as a young man. Through out the book he constantly thinks about being snubbed from both universities. This drives him to sacrifice all else and bend everything and anything to gain power and show his worth as an architect. On page 105, Sullivan describes Burnham, “Daniel Burnham was obsessed by the feudal idea of power.” Burnham is highly motivated to complete this fair and is even willing to sacrifice seeing his family to pursue this ambition.

 

John Root- Creativity, This may seem very easy to pick for John Root, because his creativity and innovation is what allowed him to get a contract with Burnham on the World Fair. What stood out to me the most about John Root’s creativity was the admiration and respect he was given by Burnham and other architects. Root was known as the architectural genius between him and Daniel Burnham. The biggest insight to John Root’s innovation and creativity came from Burnham. At the end of part I (pg. 108), when Root dies you can see how much Root meant to Burnham and the genius he brought to their partnership.

 

Holmes is the other main character in this story and his main belief is power. He enjoys having this control over young women traveling to Chicago and he uses his charismatic demeanor to attract these women. I think he obsesses over this power and enjoys this rush when he kills. He benefits greatly from the World Fair and uses his hotel to further his quest for power.