Victoria Harman > Roman Baths > Aqueduct
The baths used thousands of gallons of water each day. It is estimated that in the City of Rome, an average citizen used between 150 and 200 gallons of water per day. This water all came from a site fifty miles outside of the city. It is understandable that such an intricate system was created with the mentality that the Romans wanted to "conquer nature with engineering". Thus, even today some fountains in Rome are still fed by the ancient aqueducts.
For aqueducts such as the Aqua Claudia, the origins were at the mountain springs. There, a deep basin collected the spring water. Then, the water moved through the mountains (all underground) at a gentle slope, since there were no pumps like we use now. Once the water did not need to pass through a mountain, it emerged in the arched and tiered arcades that towered above valleys. Eventually, these led to the coated (to prevent poisoning) lead pipes and stone channel aqueducts that supplied the homes and baths, respectively, with their needed water.
Roman baths used stone channel aqueducts to get their water supply. These channels were lined with clay or lime-based mortar between joints of slabs. This prevented leaks from occurring. Some aqueducts in Britain had the channel (specus) be "an arched structure tall enough for cleaning purposes" which was common in the rest of the Roman Empire. Sometimes they were covered with ashlar slabs but sometimes they were open.
The sewers underneath the baths were the last stop for the water from the aqueducts. The water that went into these sewers was water that had been taken from the baths and then used in the latrines, a place where the personal became public with little privacy and some open plumbing. Next, these sewers washed the waste into the river.
Fig. 1
Above, scholars walk through an aqueduct channel.
Photo courtesy of: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/roman/
Aqueducts continue to be used to bring water from distant sources to population centers where sufficient local water supply is not available.
For example, most of New York City's water supply comes from the Catskill Mountains, over 100 miles away. The water is stored in reservoirs. Most of them are in Westchester County. Next, the water is brought into the City through two large water tunnels.
Another example is the water supply system for the City of Fort Worth, Texas. My father and his company financed this project about 25 years ago. It brought water from a lake about 100 miles away, too. Local water is scarce because rainfall is very light and the summers are extremely hot.
My father told me a bit about water systems that he learned during this project:
"In densely populated coastal areas, it is often impossible to develop sufficient local water sources because there may not be lakes or rivers nearby. Pumping water from the ground can lead to salt water intrusion (sea water seeps in to replace the fresh water that has been pumped out). So the solution is to bring water in from an inland source."
This method is common in Florida, where most of the population is along the coasts, while there are lakes in the interior of the State.
California is also a prime example of this situation, where water has to be transported from interior areas to the major coastal Metropolitan Areas.
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Sources: Alfonso Burgers, Gerard Koeppel, Nova Online, Nova Video, and Daniel Harman
