Evaluation of irrigation ditches
Introduction
Water architecture – and the associated concept water engineering[1] – is the set of works and studies related to the various hydraulic infrastructures, their management and development.[2] Although the concept and its materialization were already evident in Ancient Age, the terminology and its dissemination as science and industry appear at the end of the century.[3] In addition to the historical or cultural aspects of the concept,[4] in its scientific aspect, the so-called water architecture can appear associated with the management of water resources and all types of hydrotechnologies.[5].
As a guide, the fields of water conduction (aqueducts, canals and water travel), hydraulic exploitation (hydraulic mills, water parks and reservoirs), consumption (fountains, pools, cisterns and chultuns), urban planning and landscaping (Islamic model gardens) and natural architecture (waterfalls, underground rivers, caves and grottoes, etc.), in addition to the plots related to the handling of river accidents, can be mentioned. lacustrine or marine (lagoons, marshes and deltas, salt flats and channeled estuaries) and the most recent growth in proposals derived from ecological tourism.[6].
Field work
The Spanish anthropologist Pedro Antón Cantero, in a study dedicated to the Architecture of water, proposes for the institutional study of this large plot of cultural assets of a region, country, etc., or field work on it, the following essential inventory:[7].
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- Locate on a plan the set considered in the field of water architecture, with the greatest precision.
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- Describe the space and its environment, paying attention to its capacity to generate sociability.
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- Organize and describe the elements of its architecture, be they fountains, arks, troughs, sinks, pools or buildings such as hermitages, sinks, etc.
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- Detailed description of the materials that make it up, as well as its water collection and/or conduction structure; description of other elements (clearances, pillars, vents, pediments, sacred or profane images, etc.).