Back to the Future? History and Contemporary Application of Sustainable Drainage Techniques

This chapter considers the 'sustainable' part of drainage systems and explores whether the sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) is simply a case of history repeating itself, and whether techniques used in the past have any relevance today. The chapter focuses on ancient Rainwater harvesting (RwH) techniques, which play a decisive role in providing water resources for ancient civilisations across the world with its importance captured in manuscripts, hieroglyphs and religious texts through the millennia. The classic RwH system found in common in several ancient civilisations, such as the Minoans, Greeks and Romans, consisted of a combination of several techniques. According to Antoniou, the semi-arid climate of the eastern Mediterranean and ancient Greece led to the reuse of water to flush toilets. This was carried out simply using a bucket, with, for example, greywater from kitchens or baths, and this was the case for the Minoan toilets on Amorgos.