AN OUTLOOK OF HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL

DIMENSIONS OF WATER TECHNOLOGY®

A. Hafied A. Gany©

ABSTRACT

S
ince earlier at the the beginning of Industrial Revolution in Europe,
at the time of the invention of technique for transformation of
energy into mechanical force, the advancement of technology has
been accelerating remarkably. The latter technology has even trigged the
era of new revolution in the field of technology toward the 20 th Century till
up today’s modern era. Approaching the 21st century, the exceptionally
rapid electronic revolution has even brought about amazing
transformations in the entire development segments, including
communication, computer, and not excepting the technology on
development and management of water resources.
Referring to a number of archeological studies, the human
civilization could presently be traced back as far as seven millenniums.
Nevertheless, in the field of applied technology, such as in the
development and management of water resources, a number of
archeological discoveries in the Middle East has unveiled that the human
civilization had been acquainted with water resources technology since
the Fift Millennium. Under such a long span of time, the human civilization
has been quite familiar with the basic application principles of water
resources technology for irrigation practices.
The remaining constraint that continuously hampers the water
resources development today, has been adhered to the capability of the
people to regulate the available water to meet the demands, including the
capacity to mitigate the water related disasters, which by nature are
associated with probabilistic events rather than deterministic, that could
be controlled by technological application. In other words, it is plausible
that the measures for mitigating the water resources related disasters in
the one hand, and provision of water security on the other has yet been
able to fully control by human technology, except in the limited scope of
spatial and volume of water.
In attempting to find resolutions on the demands for water
resources development technology – that has yet fully controllable in the
so called “modern-world” today – toward sustainable future, it is always

®
This paper is prepared by A. Hafied A. Gany, Ph.D, P.Eng. (Senior Expert on Water Resources,
Ministry of Public Works) for presentation at Thematic Week of the Water Expo ZARAGOZA, 2008.
©
Dr. (Eng) A. Hafied A. Gany, M.Sc., P.Eng., is a senior expert on Water Resources, Ministry of Public
Works, Republic of Indonesia, and currently the Vice President of International Commission on
Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) 2007-2010; and the member of Working Group on Irrigation and
Drainage History of the World, ICID.

1
very important prerequisite to pause a while, looking back to the past as
long as possible for obtaining remarkable empirical-lessons from ancient
culture and technology, and subsequently to take into consideration of the
positive lessons, as well as develop or avoid of the negative experiences.
This paper is intending to explore the hisorical and cultural dimensions of
human technology in water resources development and management,
scrutinize them from the modern empirical perspectives – taking into
consideration of the unearthed archeological evidences in some parts of
the globe, with some details on historical evidences of Ancient
Indonesian’s water culture and technology.

Key Words: History and Culture of Water; Historical

Dymensions; Water Technology.