In 1914, a 29 yo engineer with the Ministry of Agriculture put an end to centuries of village feuding over water rights in rural Japan by inventing the Circular Water Diverter, "Entobunsui". A no-tech unmanned automatic cistern that fairly divided set amounts of irrigation water.
The construction works by collecting water in one circular cistern, and thus providing an even overflow that can be easily divided by the desired amount in separate channels. Either equal amounts or any combination necessary. The winning feature is that it was obviously fair.
Within a few years thousands of these were built by farmers and villages themselves, in an endless variety of sizes and locations. Some were huge, the first dividers, and could be linked in series to divide water to thousands of fields fairly, without energy or labor.
Before the Entobunsui water was divided automatically by splitting channels but this was unfair since water doesn't flow at the same rate at all split channels and even if channel width is adjusted, flow rates fluctuate. And it was easy to cheat. A recipe for endless conflicts.
A common solution before 1914 was to use a complicated system of water sharing where farmers would set up watches and manually open and close water gates to make sure the upstream villages didn't cheat on the downstream villages. Which they did: feuds could last for centuries.
The Mizonokuchi Water Disturbances was an 1821 peasant war in Kawasaki near Edo (modern Tokyo), involving 60 villages, 14,000 peasants on the downstream side. Their target was the 33 upstream villages and especially their headman, who illegally cut water supplies downstream.
When samurai forces finally imposed order again some leaders on both sides were fined (one of the instigators was even deported), but the heaviest punishment was laid on the government officials and samurai who had failed in their duties to oversee water management.
But all this, centuries of strife, came to an end in 1914 thanks to one clever young engineer, Kanchi Kanichi (1885-1956). Thousand of his diverters remain in use, and even when not needed anymore, they are often local landmarks, reminding us of our agricultural past.
"There is no such thing as winning a fight against water, but it is certainly possible to come to a somewhat peaceful truce." — Engineering proverb
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“Nantucket is a real town, not a suburb; it emanates urbanity as decisively as Boston, and this is crucial to the island's magic. Nantucket is at once town and country... a reminder that one need not always escape completely from the urban idea to find rest and ease.” — NYT, '87
“The first thing that has saved Nantucket island is a set of fairly rigid design controls. You cannot build as you want..The rules do not require that contemporary architecture precisely duplicate the old cottages...but they demand a sympathy for the island's older architecture.”
“On Nantucket, the rules make it difficult for architects—or builders or clients, for that matter—to ''express'' themselves. Decorum, not personal expression, is the mode.” — NYT, August 2nd, 1987, Paul Goldberger
Yeonggwang County has the highest fertility rate in all of South Korea, with a four year average TFR of 2.17 (2.6 times the national average), with a wide ranging support system for families. They also have a head start on the rest of the country.
The County also claims to have various programs to encourage young people to stay in the county (pop. 55k) rather than move to huge Gwangju City an hour away by bus, 1,500k). If you are 23 with a job, all your relatives, affordable starter homes and your childhood sweetheart...
...(who also has a job and relatives nearby), within walking or bicycle distance, getting married and having your first baby before 25 is not difficult. And in a County full of young people like that, achieving the bare replacement minimum of 2.1-2.2 is no biggie at all.
The oldest house in Missouri is the French Colonial style 1792 Louis Bolduc House in Sainte Genevieve. Essentially a timber frame with mud-straw-hair infill, Norman roof trusses and a shake roof. Photos from present day and from 1936 before a restitution.
Not a complicated build today and all construction plans are available at the Library of Congress.
There's a few contenders for the "oldest house in Missouri"-title, all in Ste. Genevieve, like the Green Tree Tavern, but it has been moved and the building date is a little unclear. It could be older.
In the mid-16th century Japanese feudal lord Takeda Shingen invented the Seigyuu, an ingenious method to control sedimentation of rivers, reduce rapid water flow and protect levees during flood events. Non-permanent installations easily handmade using local materials.
Permanent sediment controls almost always end up creating more damage to levees but the seigyu are designed to break apart before they can accumulate so much sediment that they allow flood waters to overwhelm levees. Expendable, they are easily rebuilt after the flood event.
They require no machinery no money no imported materials and being human scaled they can even be constructed by women and children if necessary, and by the locals who know the precise conditions of the rivers and levees themselves.
Since ancient times in Japan, flood control forests have been used to help protect against flooding by catching driftwood and sediment and slowing waters down before returning the water to the river through open levees. Working with the forces of nature not against them.
A good example is the Manriki forest in Yamanashi. In trials the it has been shown that the forest of large pine trees greatly reduces sedimentation and water force during large flood events. This part of the river is exceedingly steep so a normal levee wouldn't work.
When a Dutch flood control engineer was invited in the 19th century to visit the river and suggest improvements he famously said "This is not a river, it is a waterfall." (elevation graph, first red one, the greens for comparison are in order Seine, Rhine, Mekong, Amazon)
Takeda Shingen (1521-1573) was a Japanese feudal lord and probably one of the most accomplished leaders ever. An excellent military commander he was also a great administrator and inventor of flood control engineering methods that are still in use: the broken levee (Kasumitei).
A normal levee is closed and depends on forcing flood water to stay in a certain channel. A break is catastrophic. Kasumitei is staggered, with sloped openings. Normally, water flows past the openings, in floods it pushes backwards, inundates sacrificial fields before returning.
The kasumitei greatly reduces the force of the flood water, guaranteeing the safety of the more valuable towns downstream protected by regular levees. Reduced force means far less scouring, debris, sedimentation, making maintenance of levees and flood plains far easier.