Historical development of rainwater harvesting and use in Hellas: a preliminary review S. Yannopoulos, G. Antoniou, M. Kaiafa-Saropoulou and A. N. Angelakis ABSTRACT The uneven temporal and partial distribution of water resources in Hellas, and especially southeastern regions, has resulted in the construction of various water systems for collection and storage of rainwater, since their very early habitation. Ever since, technologies for the construction and use of several types of cisterns and other relevant hydraulic strictures have been developed. The main diachronic achievements in rainwater harvesting and use in Hellas from the earliest times of humankind to the present is studied. Emphasis is given to the periods of great achievements such as the Hellenistic and the Roman. The major necessity of water justifies not only the innovations found throughout the historical time-line of these constructions but also the most advanced engineering of each era applied to these constructions. Also, the importance of this hydrotechnology and the concept of the value of water-saving to present and future times is considered. Aspects referring to hygienic precautions for the purity of the water collected and stored are another issue that is worth examining. S. Yannopoulos (corresponding author) Faculty of Engineering, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece E-mail: giann@vergina.eng.auth.gr G. Antoniou Department of Architecture Engineering, National Technical University Athens, Ioanou Soutsou 44, Athens GR 11474, Greece M. Kaiafa-Saropoulou School of Architecture, Aristotle University, 54124 Thessaloniki, Hellas, Cherianon 7, Kalamaria, Thessaloniki 55133, Greece A. N. Angelakis Institute of Iraklion, National Foundation for Agricultural Research (N.AG.RE.F.), Iraklion 71307, Greece Key words | Bronze Age, classical and Hellenistic periods, flood risks, modern and future times, rainwater harvesting, Roman and post-Roman times INTRODUCTION The English term ‘rainwater harvesting’ has been interna- tionally widely accepted (Koenig & Sperfeld ). Moreover, it is interesting that emphasis is not on the utiliz- ation of rainwater but on its harvesting. The noun ‘harvesting’ means crop or yield and it is a synonym for ‘gift of nature’. So, ‘it goes without saying that the harvested should be also utilized and every yield is preceded by its own activities’. However, there is no unified definition of the term ‘rainwater harvesting’ commonly accepted by the scientific community. Researchers employ a wide variety of terms and definitions to describe the various methods aimed at using, collecting and storing rain runoff in order to increase the availability of water mainly for domestic and agricultural uses in arid and semi-arid areas (Haut et al. ). Namely, they use terms depending on their own purposes and they do not attempt to give any strict definitions. Generally speaking, the term rainwater harvesting is used as an umbrella term for a range of methods of concentrating and storing rainwater runoff, including from roofs (rooftop har- vesting), the ground (runoff harvesting) and from channel flow (flood water harvesting), from various sources (rain or dew) and for various purposes (agricultural, livestock, domestic water supply, environmental management). In fact, rainwater harvesting is the collection, conveyance, and storage of rainwater for future use (domestic, agricul- tural, livestock, environmental management), while a water harvest system can be defined as a system of catching and storing rainfall until it can be beneficially used. For the purposes of the present paper, we adopt the definition of 1022 © IWA Publishing 2017 Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | 17.4 | 2017 doi: 10.2166/ws.2016.200 Downloaded from http://iwaponline.com/ws/article-pdf/17/4/1022/409207/ws017041022.pdf by guest on 24 June 2022