#TodaysHappiness c175BC #IronAge communities along the Rhine estuary nor Rotterdam minimised the flow of salt water onto their coastal grazing in a system that was maintained for at least 350 years...
2. They built retaining banks with dams behind them to store fresh water flowing to the coast during high tides. At low tides, that water drained into the sea through timber pipes. As the sea water rose during high tides, it pushed against clappers on the pipes' seaward ends ....
3. closing the pipes to protect the grazing: salt water was prevented from coming in & water flowed only towards the sea.
Might this technology - found in the Roman, medieval & post-medieval periods - have been as universally employed to manage water as the plough was used to manage arable land? geschiedenisvanvlaardingen.nl/upload/publica…) END
PS Mid13thC pipe made of lengths of hollowed elm trunk, slotted together & pegged down, took fresh water thro' Sea Bank along the East Anglian coast into the Wash at low tide (More via archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/arch…)
PPS A late 16thC copy of a late #medieval #map shows 4 sluices (gotes), each at the end of a drain, controlling water flowing through the silt fens into the Wash W of Wisbech: each was a wooden pipe with a one-way clapper valve closed by high tides . Place still called Four Gotes
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