U is for Urban Water

Without water we can only survive a matter of days, but it is remarkable how little we think about that in our modern urbanised world. We are accustomed to turning a tap and having a bountiful supply of water emerge into our homes in an almost miraculous fashion. This urban ‘running water’ has become so essential to our definition of ‘civilised’ living, yet we completely take it for granted. However, we are living in a reality where the forces of climate change are beginning to compromise the integrity of the centralised water infrastructure upon which we are so reliant. In 2018, citizens of Cape Town (South Africa) were days away from running out of water; this year flooding in Jackson (Mississippi) exposed critical failings in the water supply system, leaving thousands without safe drinking water for months. Even in the UK, we have seen historic lows in rainfall over numerous years resulting in an increasingly precarious situation for water supply. Despite these multiplying crises, public appetite for the required investment and reform of our water networks is completely absent. It is a way of thinking that speaks to the extent of how disconnected this urban water is, at least in our minds, from its source in nature. Without that connection there is no sense of cause and effect, meaning people are far less likely to change their habits in the face of what they deem ‘natural’ processes, like drought.

In the last 30 years, bottled water companies have made billions of pounds of profit by exploiting this state of mind. These companies all emphasise that their water is ‘natural’ and ‘pure’ and therefore imply other water is not. This is then reinforced by geographically locating their water source in a place of historic meaning and ‘natural beauty’ (Evian: The Alps, Buxton: the Peak District, Volvic: the Chaîne des Puys, Highland Spring: the Ochill Hills), which is in distinct contrast to our tap water with its largely unknown origins. In the last five years, these brands have also cast themselves as champions of sustainability, despite their massive carbon footprints and the fact that millions of plastic bootles are still sent to landfill. However, what has become clear is that this approach has revolutionised the accepted value of the water they are selling, with the general public willing to pay on average 300 times the price of their tap water supply1.

The irony of this situation is that our urban water supply has its own deep historical and geological story. Kent’s water, for instance, is almost entirely sourced from the chalk aquifer of a protected Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs. There are only 200 rivers known globally that emerge from such chalk aquifers, and over 80% of them are found in England. This water is a unique resource and was a prized aspect of the region historically, as it is mineral rich, has superior purity, and emerges from underground at a more stable temperature. This, in turn, creates a far greater potential for biodiversity in chalk rivers, with more plant life, leading to higher numbers of invertebrates, which results in more fish species, and provides more food for mammals and birds.

The science is clear, but people only really change behaviours if their environment matters to them personally. An understanding of local heritage and ‘sense of place’ can support this. The humanities, especially archaeology and history have a part to play in reminding people of the importance of local water sources over time. Kent’s water, for example, was the focus of considerable ritual activity in the past. In the Roman period, a huge religious complex with over ten separate temples was established at modern Springhead, at the source of the Ebbsfleet River along the main route into the capital of Londinium, where eight springs fed into a sacred pool. The site appears to have been a place of healing and could also have had important focus on fertility and childbirth, which was particularly important in the ancient world when child mortality was so high.

Similarly, the settlement at Canterbury was likely to have been originally established due to the importance of the River Stour and the springs of the surrounding landscape. The Roman town was focused on a temple precinct close to braiding river and the majority of the settlement was located within a highly flood-prone landscape. In the second century AD, a monumental Roman theatre, one of the largest urban structures in Roman Britain, was built at the centre of the town, directly on a springline, and could have hosted ritual ceremonies related to the sacred waterscape. The later developments in Canterbury’s history, that form part of its UNESCO World Heritage Site, may have had direct connections to water — Saint Augustine, for instance, established his abbey close to several springs on the high ground that now surrounds Canterbury Christ Church University. It is even possible that the famous Medieval pilgrimage route between Canterbury and London, immortalised in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, was an echo of the pre-Christian ritual importance of the Canterbury and Springhead sites along the road to London in North Kent.

Advanced Roman engineering played a prominent role in transforming the notion of what was possible in terms of the scale of urban water supply; some aqueducts in mainland Europe were close to 100km in length and the largest bathhouses in Rome covered over 100,000 square meters each. Such structures were great symbolic civic achievements and were overtly visible connections between urban centres and their surrounding landscape. Today our water networks are hidden, but communicating their history is something which can be a starting point in re-establishing their pivotal value to modern communities. If we are to meet the challenges of the 21st century, we must see these water networks has holistic parts of the local landscape and recognise that their maintenance and stewardship is deeply entangled with ‘natural’ processes such as flood, drought and biodiversity loss.

Dr Jay Ingate is a Senior Lecturer in Classical and Roman Archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University. His areas of interest include Roman urbanism, water use in the Roman world, hydropolitics, and the role of archaeology in shaping modern urban resilience to climate change.

References:

Ingate, J. (2020) Two parts hydrogen, oxygen one? Re-evaluating the role of Roman urban water infrastructure, in I. Selsvold and L. Webb (eds.) (2020) Beyond the Romans: posthuman perspectives in Roman archaeology, Oxbow.

Ingate, J. (2019) Water and Urbanism in Roman Britain: Hybridity and Identity, Routledge.

Ingate, J. (2018) Building rivers: how the aqueducts of Roman Britain furthered connections between towns and their riverine settings, in G. Adler and M. Guerci (eds.) (2018) Riverine: Architecture and Rivers, Routledge