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Since ancient times , in countries where rising water levels present major residential problems and threats to agriculture, governments have built levees and canals to keep settlements and fields from flooding and to control the directions in which water flows. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of levees in China, India, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. In addition to providing flood protection and controlling water flow, the levee is also used in agricultural production and in regulating water and ice flow.
Some experts believe that today’s levees are actually less efficient than those of the past and fault modern engineers for ignoring historical knowledge in constructing levees. From an engineering standpoint, the most important factors in constructing levees are the stability of the foundation on which they stand and the capacity of levees to withstand flooding. Most levees used in North America were originally erected around the turn of the 20th century on the Mississippi River in the United States and on the St. Lawrence River in Canada. Debates since then have focused on whether structural solutions (i.e., the construction of engineered control walls and river manipulations) should be favored over other options, including the restoration of wetlands, natural river paths, and the removal of human inhabitants from floodplains.
Bibliography:
- Battle of the Floods: Holland in February 1953 (Netherlands Booksellers and Publishers Association, 1953);
- Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (Morrow, 2006);
- Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (Perseus, 2006);
- Pavol Peter, Canal and River Levees (Elsevier Scientific, 1982).
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