Water utilities management

What are the benefits of water?

If one asks a biologist to make a list of the things most important to life, water will certainly be top of the list. It is simply not possible for life to exist without it. Out of every 4.5 kilogrammes of human body weight, 3 kilogrammes (litres) is water. The same holds true for many other living creatures. The life of each cell in plants and in animals depends on this fluid.

In the course of a day an adult human consumes about two litres of water in the form of beverages and one litre as part of food. Deprived of water, man quickly dies.

Why is it so? Why is water indispensable to life? The main reason why each living being needs water to support its vital activities is that living cells, the building blocks of all life, incorporate molecules of water as their integral part.

Water in our life is used not only for drinking and household purposes, but also as a means of developing industries, agriculture. Therefore, the development of water-supply and wastewater-disposal systems is part and parcel of the growth of civilization. The quantity of water consumed by man determines the degree of social development in a society.

Who invented the water supply system and sewerage?

There are two sanitation systems vitally important to life: water supply and sewerage.

Water supply is a system of pipes and valves that are used to deliver water to homes from a water main that is laid under ground. Sewerage is also a system of pipes, but these are used to remove wastewater from homes and deliver it to sewers in the street.

The earliest systems of this kind recorded in history appeared approximately 4000 years ago. Archaeologists discovered a Crete palace of that age, which had water-supply and sewerage systems.

The water-supply system consisted of conduits with running water. It flowed into the conduits after rains and melting of snow. Water from the conduits accumulated in vertical wells, and from the wells it reached bathrooms and toilets. Archaeological excavations produce evidence of the existence of wells and irrigation canals in the ancient civilizations of Assyria, Babylon and Egypt.

Wastewater was first removed by pipes made of terracotta, a type of baked clay. The pipes were designed for easy installation: the tapered end of one pipe fitted into the trumpet of the next one, their joints sealed with cement.

The first to use metal pipes were Romans. Their pipes were made of lead. The workers who installed the pipes, the plumbers as we call them, were referred to by ancient Romans as «leadcraft masters».

In this day and age lead is sometimes used to make some special-purpose pipelines. Normally, however, pipes are made of steel, copper, brass, iron, concrete or plastic.

The history of water-supply systems in Russia spans many centuries. The findings of archaeological excavations and chronicles indicate that water-supply systems were used in Great Novgorod, dating back to 11th-12th century. Those were the wooden-pipe water-supply system in Yaroslav dvorishche [homestead] and the rain catchment and drainage canals. Gravity-flowing water-supply systems to provide water for salt-making and kvass-brewing businesses were engineered in the 12th-15th centuries in Novgorod and Old Russ.