| What are
aqueducts?
Aqueducts
are man-made tunnels that carry water from one place to another.
They are used so that dry areas can get water from areas that have
more.
We thought that aqueducts were only used in ancient
times, but that isn't true. Then they were nice looking water
bridges that were above ground. Ancient Romans built some of these
and they can still be seen. Aqueducts are still used today.
Aqueducts have been used for water supply or for transportation
from one place to another. Some of our team members visited
Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct. This was
originally designed for travel across the Delaware River when they found
that the Ferry wasn't able to take all the people who wanted to get
across. So all aqueducts weren't used for drinking water.
How does a drinking water aqueduct
work?
Aqueduct
openings can be in a stream, reservoir, or large area with
water. Water moves downhill by gravity so that some aqueducts
start higher up than where the water is going. When the land is flat
and the water can't move downhill, pumps are used to push the water
through the aqueduct. There are two kinds of aqueducts:
the above-ground and the underground kinds.
Above-ground aqueducts sometimes look like
bridges. The water in this kind of aqueduct might be out in the open
[surface water] or be inside a tunnel-like pipe. Surface water
aqueducts need water treatment since all of the things [twigs, animal
droppings, dirt] that fall into it need to be taken out.
What is
an underground aqueduct like?
Many aqueducts are actually miles and miles of pipes or canals that link
two places with each other. These tunnels can be made of
stone, brick, wood, or metal. Underground aqueducts don't need
as much water treatment because they are closed up and things like leaves,
and animal droppings can't get into it. We visited the Old Croton
aqueduct. This aqueduct is 38 miles long and took water from the Croton
River to New York City. A building called a weir has the aqueduct
control valve inside. This valve controls how much water goes
through the aqueduct. This aqueduct had brick walls and a stone
ceiling and looked like a tunnel.
Both above-ground and underground aqueducts have gates
and valves to control how much water goes through.
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Water on the Move |