A water engineer is someone who deals with the provision of clean water, disposal of waste water and sewage, and the prevention of flood damage. Their job involves repairing, maintaining and building structures that control water resources (for example, sea defence walls, pumping stations and reservoirs). Global warming, ageing infrastructure, population growth, and higher quality living standards are just some of the challenges a water engineer has to address.

Water technology began during antiquity long before the great works of investigators such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782). The history of water technology started even before Archimedes (287–212 B.C.). Moreover, great water projects were already built thousands of years before the development of the concepts of conservation of mass, energy and momentum, (which are used in present-day water project designs) even existed. I am attaching the ancient water technology book which presents an introduction to ancient water technology. It is different from other books related to ancient water technologies and concentrated on specific ancient civilizations, in that it presents a more universal picture of ancient water technology. It is written by authors from multidisciplinary fields ranging from engineering, water resources engineering, hydrology to archaeology, architecture and geology. Best Wishes

Dear Mannan Rouhani,

in addition to the excellent feedback and documents shared by Atef Nassar you might also be interested to know that the International Water Association is organising the 5th International Symposium on Water and Wastewater Technologies in Ancient Civilizations: Evolution of Technologies from Prehistory to Modern Times form the 11 – 13 September 2019, Dead Sea, Jordan. Check out their website for more details: http://conferences.ju.edu.jo/en/IWA5/Home.aspx

All the best, Rob.

Robert Thomas Bachmann thanks a lot for inform about this International Symposium

Mannan Rouhani Understanding ancient water technology will give you great ideas about how technologies developed through different nations and how to improve it in the future.

Please check this book:

Book تاريخ الري وتطوره عبر العصور

Sri Lanka (my country) is a good example for ancient hydraulic civilizations in the world. Our forefathers constructed amazing structures for storing and diverting storm water, mainly for irrigated agriculture and domestic uses. The first reservoir was considered have constructed in 300 BC under the reign of king Pandukabaya. We can see continuous development of irrigation works throughout our history. What is more interesting is many of those structures are still in working order and serving their original purposes (after rehabilitation several times). Those structures are comparable to the modern works with regards to their size and technology and superior in the sense of sustainability and environmental aspects. The secrets behind the sustainability of those works were, construction for common interests, maintained by the public and addressing the common problems of water scarcity and uneven distribution of rainfall over the time and space. For further information you may refer into the literature available on the subject ‘Ancient Irrigation Works of Sri Lanka’ which is abundance. This is a very good research field for the engineers who are engaged in water resources development works nowadays.