Wastewater management through the ages: a history of mankind.

Although much has been written about the history of water supply systems, there is a lack of corresponding information on wastewater management. This is surprising since the lack of sanitation affects human development to the same or even greater extent as the lack of clean water. While there may be an added stigma to discussing waste treatment, sanitation is widely perceived as meriting a significant claim on financial and political resources as well on the evolution of mankind. A literature review is presented on the evolution of wastewater management through the ages and its concurrent impact on human health and environment. Hopefully this information will improve the awareness of the past with a view to impacting future policies and technical developments. The review highlights the connection of environmental contamination with the ability to measure it, as well as the ways pollution control has been changed by advances in scientific knowledge. Attention is also drawn to the effects of political and societal events on wastewater management. A sanitation timeline has been constructed pointing out significant developments in the treatment of wastewater and improvements in analytical environmental chemistry. This review has been written in the belief that historical research showing the collective experience and "philosophy of sanitation" can provide inspiration to face future challenges.

Agua, saneamiento y salud en Brasil: intersecciones y desacuerdos / Water, sanitation and health in Brasil: intersections and disagreements

El pasado y el presente del sector de saneamiento en Brasil son planteados en función de sus interfaces con la salud, dirigiéndose a la consolidación del poder público y de las acciones integradas de la salud y saneamiento, transcurriendo al cambio del paradigma que surgió en el contexto de una óptica desarrollista, que ha resultado en la bipolarización de dichas acciones, e identificando las actuales reacciones contrarias a la ruptura entre los sectores y las posibilidades originadas de nuevos marcos legales. Se analizan las convergencias e intersecciones, explicadas a partir de las necesidades intrínsecas de cada sector y por otros condicionantes sistémicos, y la importancia de consolidar una visión integrada entre la salud y el saneamiento para el avance del desarrollo social del País. Hay que aclarar que la expresión saneamiento corresponde, en Brasil, a un conjunto de acciones caracterizadas por el suministro de agua, el manejo de las aguas residuales y de los residuos sólidos, la limpieza urbana y el drenaje y la gestión de aguas pluviales urbanas. El término saneamiento, utilizado en los países hispano-hablantes, corresponde a lo que en Brasil se denomina esgotamento sanitário. (AU)

Urban wastewater and stormwater technologies in ancient Greece.

The status of urban sewerage and stormwater drainage systems in ancient Greece is reviewed, based on the results of archaeological studies of the 20th century. Emphasis is given to the construction, operation, and management of sewerage and stormwater drainage systems during the Minoan period (2nd millennium B.C.). The achievements of this period in dealing with the hygienic and the functional requirements of palaces and cities, were so advanced that they can only be compared to modern urban water systems, developed in Europe and North America in the second half of the 19th century A.D. The advanced Minoan technologies were exported to all parts of Greece in later periods of the Greek civilization, i.e. in Mycenaean, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods.

[The archives of the ministry for agriculture]. / Gli archivi del ministero dell'agricoltura quali fonti per la storia della malaria.

The documents concern the following topics: the studies performed by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce between 1870 and 1890 on the causes of unhealthiness of the lands around Rome and the methods to remove them, i.e. irrigation canals and agricultural transformations; the role played by the General Direction of the Land reclamation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests from 1929 in the realization of the interventions of hydraulic and antianopheles reclamation address to modify the environmental conditions, and in the realization of assistants services and antimalaria prophylaxis in the reclamation zones.

[Archives, photographies, maps for malary in Latina Province]. / Le fonti archivistiche per la storia della malaria in Provincia di Latina.

After an historical introduction about ancient institutional regime of present Littoria/Latina province (until 1870 organized in Naples kingdom and Papal States), this essay is going to a swift analysis of marshes who reigned all over the land from the periphery of Rome to Fondi, when transient sheperds and woodmen were the only human beings of marshy land. So teachers for that unlettered people came into these lands, and so physicians came to fight against malary, first symbiotic enemy of man. So drainages were tried from Roman's epoch to Medieval and Illuministic one. We'll see Popes, feudal ladies and at last drainage trusts, all working to improve human life before the birth of Latina province. New cities and towns were born just during these trials; after the experiences of Angelo Celli, Italian Red Cross and Istituto per il risanamento antimalarico della regione pontina, many laws looked to medical aid for workers in malaric zones (exactly specified in topographic maps). In 1934 the Comitato provinciale antimalarico was introduced all over italian territory with the R.D.n. 1265.

[Malary in Basilicata]. / Malaria in Basilicata.

In this paper the geological, idrographical, climatical, and, above all, social and cultural conditions, favouring the atavic presence of malary in Basilicata (Lucania) -in the late 19th century the death-rate was three times the national average - are shortly surveyed. From these remarks we tried to outline the main steps of the struggle against malary in the first half of the 20th century, when land reclaimers, doctors, hospital attendants, hydraulic engineers, workmen, and farmers joined their efforts to eradicate the plague.

[Diffusion/spreading of malaria in the Apuo-Lunensis region (northwest of Tuscany)]. / Sviluppo e diffusione della malaria nei territori Apuo-Lunensi.

Evidence of malaria fevers in the antiquity may be found in the writings of Herodotus (regarding the Nilo Valley) or in Latin authors (regarding the south land of Rome); successive reclaiming of lands by the Roman Empire diminished the incidence of malaria, but in the medieval time the absence of care regarding drainage of swampi plains caused the outbreak of the disease. In the XIX century lands were claimed, but very slowly for example in the Apuo-Lunensis region, so that experts of public health were often consulted by local governments. District physicians affirmed the origin of malaria from the local environment, and the local Governor De Volo drained the land about the Magliano river by filling of marshes, malaria was strongly reduced, coming at the end of the century for few years due to breaking of banks of the Frigido river.