Water and Civilization Management

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Hello Hivelanders. Sorry for my absence. Been out and about in the world. By the world I mean Alberta and by out I mean visiting family. I also took to the opportunity to go offline and mostly unplugged. Did you miss me?

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I had hoped to find upon my return that all the problems of the world solved: the so-called elites exposed, informed consent, democracy, and free speech returned. But no. Truth does move, but apparently very slowly. If you are still hanging onto your corporately constructed façades, it may be time to help truth out a little bit and relinquish your grip on manufactured consensus; stop calling obvious truthful phenomenon conspiracy and truth-tellers names, silencing and cancelling dissenters.

Ask yourself if you are gate-keeping for the powerful and distrustful, profit, and not science and medicine.

Listen, disagree if you do, and then get ready to debate, or we will assume you know you will lose the debate or simply refuse to expose yourself to the risk of being wrong. But also know, that means you are incapable of thinking scientifically or reasonably, for that matter,

(PSST ... Hotez is not an active, functioning scientist/doctor; he is a corporate employee. In other words ... a sell-out with an agenda that is NOT your health, or even his own.)

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Okay, enough politics/medicine/science.

Not only did I take two weeks off the internet, I also took two weeks off homeschooling. I missed homeschooling more and am itching to get back into the books with minime. Where did we leave off?

Oh yes ... the Mayans and their water management system.

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In the Crash Course World History video, Water and Classical Civilizations, John Green takes a look at how the Mayans used their water resources.

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From our studies ...

Most places don’t get enough rain to support agriculture and must have irrigation methods. In some places, they get too much water and experience floods and must build dams, reservoir, and levies. Most civilizations need some form of hydraulic engineering. Water is also important for culture. We use water not just for drinking and growing food, but also for bathing, leisure, and ritual.

Mayan culture was at its peak between 250-900 CE. It was centred in the Yucatan Peninsula, in what is now modern day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Water management was key to their success.

Most of the Yucatan Peninsula is a Karst Plain, made up of limestone bedrock. Most of its water is underground, in caves and caverns. Rainfall is heavy and seasonal. When the rain comes, it comes all at once and quickly disappears underground. There were very few streams, rivers, and lakes above ground. The Mayans built underground reservoirs and cisterns to capture rain water and canals to transport the water. They built aqueducts, dams, and bridges to deal with flooding.

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All this water management required a lot of labor. Mayan art had a lot of water motifs. It is possible the authority of the ruling class, and its priests, depended on their ability to manage water resources. Mexico is prone to drought because of El Niño, and this would have made the political and religious power of the elites precarious. Cities would have fallen in times of extended drought, and this may have been the cause of the Mayan Civilization’s downfall.