title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Abhinandan Varthaman was born on 21 June 1983 in Tamil Jain Family. Varthaman's family is from Thirupanamoor, a village about from Kanchipuram. His father is a retired Indian Air Force (IAF) Air Marshal (OF-8) and his mother is a doctor.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Varthaman was educated at Sainik School, Amaravathinagar. He graduated from the National Defence Academy and was commissioned into the combat (fighter) stream of the IAF as a flying officer on 19 June 2004. He was trained at the IAF centres in Bathinda and Halwara, promoted to flight lieutenant on 19 June 2006, and to squadron leader on 8 July 2010. Varthaman was a Su-30 MKI fighter pilot before being assigned to the MiG-21 Bison squadron. He was promoted to wing commander on 19 June 2017.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: On 27 February 2019, Varthaman was flying a MiG-21 as a part of a sortie that was scrambled to intercept an intrusion into Jammu & Kashmir by Pakistani aircraft. He lost communications with the IAF command and inadvertently crossed into Pakistani airspace during a dogfight that ensued, during which his aircraft was struck by a missile. Varthaman ejected and safely descended into the village of Horran in Pakistan administrated Kashmir approximately from the Line of Control.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Local villagers said Varthaman could be identified as an Indian pilot by the Indian flag on his parachute. Upon landing, Varthaman asked the villagers whether he was in India, to which a young boy lied by saying "Yes." Varthaman reportedly raised pro-India slogans, to which the locals responded with pro-Pakistan slogans. Varthaman began firing warning shots. The villagers captured and manhandled Varthaman before he was rescued by the Pakistan Army.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Later that day, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs confirmed an Indian pilot was missing in action after a MiG-21 Bison fighter aircraft was lost while engaging with Pakistani jets. A statement released by the IAF also said before the crash, Varthaman had shot down a PAF Lockheed Martin F-16. At a media briefing on 2 March 2019, nearly two days after the aerial engagement between PAF and IAF, the IAF displayed the parts of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, which could be used only by the PAF's F-16. The IAF also said they had identified the electronic signatures of the aircraft and confirmed that F-16 were used during the skirmish. As claimed by Indian media, according to an agreement between the U.S. and Pakistan, Pakistan is only allowed to use the F-16 against terrorists. However, Foreign Policy magazine quoting an anonymous U.S. official stated that the agreement did not involve any such terms "limiting the use of the F-16s." Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations Director General refuted the later claims and said F-16s had not been used in the incident. The US-based "Foreign Policy" magazine, quoting two anonymous U.S. Defense Department officials, reported in April 2019 that an audit didn't find any Pakistani F-16s missing, and that all jets were accounted for. This claim was refuted a day later owing to a statement by the U.S. Defence Department which stated it was “not aware” of any investigation that was conducted to ascertain if Pakistan had lost an F-16 in a dogfight with Indian fighter jets on February 27. While the U.S. Defence Department was unaware of the "F-16 count", the U.S. State Department distanced itself from the "F-16 count" news report, saying in response to a direct request to confirm or deny it, “As a matter of policy, the Department does not publicly comment on details of government-to-government agreements on end-use monitoring of US-origin defence articles.” and highlighted that “It is important to note that since January 2018, the United States government has suspended security assistance to Pakistan.”


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Videos and images released by Pakistani authorities showed Varthaman being rescued from a violent mob by Pakistani soldiers and being interrogated while tied and blindfolded with a bloody face. Other videos showed him receiving first aid and being further interrogated over tea. The media received a mixed reception; some commentators criticised the reports as a "vulgar display" while others praised the intervention of the Pakistani soldiers when Varthaman was in the hands of the mob and was being beaten. The release of the videos was suspected of being a violation of the Geneva Conventions and were deleted by Pakistani authorities after they went viral. Experts gave different opinions about the validity of the Geneva Convention to this case.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: A few videos surfaced from Pakistan where two parachutes could be seen in the sky with streaks of smoke nearby, these videos were used as a point to favour Indian claims of two pilots downed by many Indian defence experts and media houses.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: On 28 February 2019, Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan announced at a joint sitting of the Parliament of Pakistan, that the government had decided to release Varthaman the next day as a "gesture of peace". If some news sources are to be believed, "India and Pakistan came perilously close to firing missiles at each other on February 27, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi deciding to up the ante after the capture of MiG-21 Bison pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman by Pakistan, and Research and Analysis Wing secretary Anil Dhasmana communicating to his Pakistan counterpart Inter Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen (Later Gen) Asim Munir that there would be an escalation in the Indian offensive if the pilot was harmed." Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, said his government announced the release of the IAF Wing Commander out of a desire for peace and that there was no compulsion or pressure on Pakistan, as was implied by the Indian media. However, The New York Times reported that several outside countries including United States and China had been urging Pakistan to release the Indian pilot to de-escalate the crisis.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Later in October 2020, a senior opposition leader who was Speaker of the National Assembly during the PML-N government in Pakistan, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had claimed in the National Assembly that Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was released after Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told a meeting of Pakistan's top leaders that India would attack Pakistan if Varthaman weren't released. Ayaz Sadiq faced flak from the Pakistani government and the public for making such statements.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Varthaman crossed the India-Pakistan border at Wagah on 1 March 2019. At a rally, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed Varthaman's release, saying the nation was proud of him. A demeaning video of Abhinandan was released by the PAF to the Pakistani media hours before his release. IAF later said it had been filmed while Varthaman was under duress. A medical check-up upon his return located multiple bruises and a fractured rib but no 'significant injuries'. Varthaman said the Pakistani authorities did not physically torture him but subjected him to considerable "mental harassment". Pakistan said he was treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Akhil Bharatiya Digambar Jain Mahasamiti chairperson Manidra Jain announced Varthaman would be awarded the "Bhagwan Mahavir Ahimsa Puraskar" on 17 April 2019, the date of Mahavir Jayanti. In August that same year, he was presented with the Vir Chakra gallantry award.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: After the government's decision to release Varthaman was announced, a petition was filed before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeking an injunction to stop the process but the court dismissed it on the same day. The petition argued Varthaman must be released only after the cessation of active hostilities, as per the Geneva Conventions, since the Indian pilot “was arrested when he was on a mission against Pakistan.” The petition was rejected by the Islamabad High Court, citing the consensus of the parliamentarians and that "When all the parliamentarians agree at a point...[a] debate over it is unnecessary". In addition the IHC Chief Justice Minallah also stated that the courts do not have the power to intervene in foreign affairs, according to a Supreme Court verdict in 2014.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Varthaman's style of moustache has become popular in India and is widely called the "Abhinandan cut".


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: The style is similar to a combination of old gunslinger moustache and mutton chops worn by Franz Joseph I of Austria. It resembles the moustache worn by actor Suriya in the "Singam" film series and Rajinikanth's moustache in "Petta" (2019).


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Indian actor Ranveer Singh's barber, Darshan Yewalekar, has quoted saying that "the beard sported by the IAF pilot will soon be called India's very own Varthaman style." A number of companies used the moustache in their advertisements. Dairy company Amul produced a video showing a young girl wearing an Abhinandan-shaped milk moustache. The advertisement was posted on Twitter and received more than 170,000 views within 24 hours. Pizza Hut also posted a tweet showing the Abhinandan moustache on 3 March 2019.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: In 2019, after Abhinandhan was captured by Pakistani forces, a video of him taken by a soldier went viral in which he was seen being interrogated while drinking Pakistani tea. The interrogator asked him different questions about his health and how he was treated to which he acknowledged the humane treatment by the Pakistani Military. The interrogator then asks if he was enjoying his tea to which Abhinandhan replied "The tea is Fantastic". This statement of Varthaman went viral and turned into an internet meme in the Pakistani Online community.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: Nammalvar Lingusamy, (born 14 November 1967), is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and film producer in Tamil cinema based in Chennai. Lingusamy made his directorial debut with "Aanandham" in 2001 and followed by "Run" (2002), "Sandakozhi" (2005), "Paiyaa" (2010) and "Vettai" (2012). He and his brother N. Subash Chandrabose have also produced films through his production company, Thirupathi Brothers.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: Lingusamy born on 14 November 1967 and hails from a town Kumbakonam, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. He joined as an assistant director to director "A. Venkatesh" for his Tamil film "Mahaprabhu" (1996) and followed in his next film "Selva" (1996). He had also assisted Vikraman in "Vaanathaippola" (2000), a family drama on brothers.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: He made his directorial debut with the Tamil family drama "Aanandham", starring Mammootty. About the film, Linguswamy said: "The film actually is based on real life. Born in a large family I was impressed with the incidents my mother narrated to me. They were deeply etched in my memory and I thought I would use them when I got a chance to direct a film. Thus when Mr. Chowdhry gave me an opportunity I narrated the stories and he found them highly appealing". Linguswamy originally wanted to title the project, "Thirupathi Brothers", which he later went on to name his production house. "Aanandham" opened to positive reviews in May 2001, with a critic noting that "it is a promising work from the debutant director". The film won several awards including the


title: N. Lingusamy

text: Filmfare Award for Best Film – Tamil, Cinema Express Award for Best Film – Tamil, and two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, while, The Hindu listed the film amongst the best of 2001.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: His second film was "Run" with Madhavan. The film, too, was a commercially successful and also received good reviews. After the success of "Run", Linguswamy announced his plans of re-collaborating with Madhavan in "Sathyam", a film about student politics. Owing to Madhavan's unavailability, the role went to Ajith Kumar, with the film being newly re-titled "Ji". Upon release the film received positive reviews especially a critic from Indiaglitz praising the film citing that "Lingusamy should be appreciated for giving a movie with pulsating sequences. He has infused the script with all the right ingredients and keeps the tempo of the narration on an even keel." Critics from The Hindu claimed that the film "could have been better". Similarly the film received a negative review from Rediff.com's critics citing that "Ji is for Ajith fans only!". The film took a large opening all over Tamil Nadu, but later turned out to be a box office failure and sustained a considerable loss for the producer.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: His next project was "Sandakozhi" with Vishal in his second film. The film was a commercial success grossing $3.5 million at the box office. A critic from Sify in his review wrote: "Lingusamy lives up to his reputation as a director who makes racy action packed family entertainers with his new release Sandakozhi." In 2005, Vikram signed his next project "Bheemaa", which faced severe delays and only released in January 2008. Upon release, the film gained mixed reviews though reviewers praised Vikram's performance with a critic claiming to see the film "only for him". Similarly the review from "The Hindu" was critical of the excessive violence and mentioned that "as narration gives way after a point, Vikram can only appear helpless". Noted director Gautham Vasudev Menon criticized the film in a leading newspaper.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: In 2008, Lingusamy began filming his sixth project, "Paiyaa" featuring Karthi and Tamannaah in the lead roles. Upon release the film and its soundtrack by Yuvan Shankar Raja were successful and received generally positive reviews, with most critics calling the film "summer entertainer" and lauding its technical aspects. "Sify" described the film as a "road movie laced with mass elements and extraordinary songs", adding that it is a "jolly good ride" and naming it "technically [...] Linguswamy's his best". A reviewer from the "Times of India", Bhama Devi Ravi, gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, writing that "the story is not earth-shatteringly new, but what pulls you into the movie is the different spin that Lingusamy gives to the familiar story".


title: N. Lingusamy

text: Lingusamy's next made the action masala film "Vettai" with Arya and Madhavan in lead roles. "Vettai" released on the Pongal weekend on 14 January 2012, and received overall mixed to positive reviews as well.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: Although Lingusamy has worked in Tamil only, his films have been dubbed or been remade in other languages too. Dubbed Telugu versions of "Run", "Sandakozhi" and "Paiyaa", titled "Run", "Pandem Kodi" and "Awara", respectively, were released in Andhra Pradesh and also became commercially successful. "Aanandham" was remade in 2005 as "Sankranti" by Muppalaneni Shiva in Telugu, while Jeeva remade "Run" in Hindi under the "same title" in 2004. His "Paiyaa" was remade in Bengali in 2012 as "Jaaneman", while in 2013, a Telugu remake of his "Vettai" titled "Tadakha" was released.


title: N. Lingusamy

text: In 2014, "Anjaan" was released with cast of Suriya and Samantha. The film turned out to be a disaster.Critics lashed at the lack of content. Part of the reason for the film's box office result was due to the hype generated by the film crew pre release which it subsequently could not satisfy and also became the basis of memes generated on social media. The film was also released in Telugu in the name of Sikandar for the Telugu fans of Suriya and Samantha.


title: Arctic char

text: The Arctic char or Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) is a cold-water fish in the family Salmonidae, native to alpine lakes and arctic and subarctic coastal waters. Its distribution is Circumpolar North. It spawns in freshwater and populations can be lacustrine, riverine, or anadromous, where they return from the ocean to their fresh water birth rivers to spawn. No other freshwater fish is found as far north; it is, for instance, the only fish species in Lake Hazen which extend up to on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. It is one of the rarest fish species in Great Britain and Ireland, found mainly in deep, cold, glacial lakes, and is at risk there from acidification. In other parts of its range, such as the Nordic countries, it is much more common, and is fished extensively. In Siberia, it is known as "golets" () and it has been introduced in lakes where it sometimes threatens less hardy endemic species, such as the small-mouth char and the long-finned char in Elgygytgyn Lake.


title: Arctic char

text: The Arctic char is closely related to both salmon and lake trout, and has many characteristics of both. The fish is highly variable in colour, depending on the time of year and the environmental conditions of the lake where it lives. The appearance of Arctic char differs between populations. The dorsal side of the Arctic char is dark in its colour while the ventral varies from red, yellow, and white.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char has a distinct size dimorphism, dwarf and giant. Dwarf Arctic char weigh between and average a length of , while giant Arctic char weigh between and average in length. Individual fish can weigh or more with record-sized fish having been taken by anglers in Northern Canada, where it is known as ' or ' in Inuktitut. Generally, whole market-sized fish are between . Male and female Arctic char are the same size.


title: Arctic char

text: The Arctic char was initially scientifically described in the salmon genus "Salmo" as "Salmo alpinus" by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 edition of "Systema Naturae", which is the work that established the system of binomial nomenclature for animals. Meanwhile, he described "Salmo salvelinus" and "Salmo umbla", which were later considered as synonyms of "S. alpinus". John Richardson (1836) separated them into a subgenus "Salmo (Salvelinus)", which now is treated as a full genus. The genus name "Salvelinus" is from German "Saibling" – little salmon.


title: Arctic char

text: The English name is thought to derive from Old Irish "ceara"/"cera" meaning "[blood] red", referring to its pink-red underside. This would also connect with its Welsh name "torgoch", "red belly".


title: Arctic char

text: In North America, three subspecies of "Salvelinus alpinus" have been recognized. ""S. a. erythrinus"" is native to almost all of Canada's northern coast. This subspecies is nearly always anadromous. "S. a. oquassa", known as the blueback trout or Sunapee trout, is native to eastern Quebec and northern New England, although it has been extirpated from most of its eastern United States range. "S. a. oquassa" is never anadromous. Dwarf Arctic char has been classified as "S. a. taranetzi". These scientific names are not generally accepted, however, as the names "S. a. erythrinus" and "S. a. taranetzi" usually refer to subspecies that are endemic to Siberia only.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char is also found in Lake Pingualuit in the Ungava Peninsula, Quebec, a lake situated in an impact crater formed roughly 1.4 million years ago. Since the last glaciation, changing water levels are believed to have connected the lake with glacial runoff and surrounding streams and rivers, allowing char to swim upstream into the lake. Arctic char is the only fish found in the lake, and signs of fish cannibalism have been found.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char is notable for exhibiting numerous, seemingly distinct morphological variants or 'morphs' throughout the range of the species. Consequently, Arctic char have been referred to as the 'most variable vertebrate on Earth'. These morphs are often sympatric within lakes or rivers. Morphs often vary significantly in size, shape, and colour. Morphs often demonstrate differences in migratory behaviour, being resident or anadromous fish, and in feeding behaviour and niche placement. Morphs often interbreed, but they can also be reproductively isolated and represent genetically distinct populations, which have been cited as examples of incipient speciation.


title: Arctic char

text: In Iceland, Þingvallavatn is noted for the evolution of four morphs: small benthic, large benthic, small limnetic and large limnetic.


title: Arctic char

text: In Svalbard, Norway, Lake Linnévatn on Spitsbergen has dwarf, 'normal', and normal-sized anadromous fish, and Lake Ellasjøen on Bear Island has a dwarf, small littoral and large pelagic morph. In 2004, a previously unknown species closely related to Arctic char were discovered swimming near the bottom of Lake Tinn in Norway at a depth of 430m; The light-colored, translucent fish is up to 15 cm long and lacks a swim bladder.


title: Arctic char

text: In Sweden three morphs are usually recognised: "storröding", "större fjällröding" and "mindre fjällröding". Wherever these types occur together in the same lake "storröding" is the largest. Contrary to what the name may suggest when "större fjällröding" and "mindre fjällröding" are found together "mindre fjällröding" tend to be the largest morph. Even within "storröding" morphs can be found; for example the Sommen charr of Lake Sommen tend to grow faster and reach sexual maturity later than the char from Lake Vättern.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char is known to produce hybrids with its congeners, "Salvelinus namaycush" (lake trout) and "Salvelinus fontinalis" (brook trout).


title: Arctic char

text: The sparctic char is the intrageneric hybrid between Arctic char and brook trout. Sparctic char grows faster than either parent species, are stronger and healthier, and are thus popular for sports fisheries. Some of these hybrids are fertile while others are sterile. Sparctic char have been found locally in Sweden, for example in the Piteälven and Skellefteälven Rivers in the northern part of the country, though are believed to be relatively uncommon.


title: Arctic char

text: There has been no formal naming of the hybrid between Arctic char and lake trout as few studies have been done in regard to this hybridization.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic chars found north of 65°N latitude are generally anadromous. Anadromous Arctic chars spend their juvenile years in fresh water, and once mature, migrate annually to the marine environment. The first migration of Arctic char has been found to occur between four and 13 years of age. When in the marine environment, Arctic chars inhabit coastal and intertidal areas. They migrate back to frozen lakes at the end of summer.


title: Arctic char

text: Generally, Arctic char inhabits shallow waters, rarely swimming deeper than depth. An exception to this applies to landlocked Arctic chars, which often swim much deeper in the summer in order to occupy colder waters. Dwarf Arctic chars are more common in landlocked populations as a result of scarce resources (immense competition).


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char exhibits a Circumpolar North distribution. There is no other species of freshwater fish found at a higher latitude. Arctic char is native to Arctic and subarctic coasts and lakes of high elevations. In general, it has been observed in the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Siberia, and Alaska.


title: Arctic char

text: Anadromous Arctic chars migrate to the sea annually in mid-June to mid-July. After about two months, they return to fresh water to reproduce and overwinter.


title: Arctic char

text: The main predators of Arctic char include sea otters ("Enhyrda lutris"), polar bears ("Ursus maritimus"), humans ("Homo sapiens"), ferox trout (Salmo ferox), and other fish species. Dwarf Arctic chars are also often cannibalistically consumed by giant Arctic chars. As ferox trout are an apex predator, Arctic char is thus a key species throughout many lakes in its range.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char often demonstrates crypsis when defending from their predators. It will appear darker in its freshwater environments and lighter in its marine environments. Additionally, some juveniles have highly sensitive recognition of predator odours and respond to chemical cues from different fish predators.


title: Arctic char

text: The diet of Arctic char varies with season and location. Arctic chars are generally opportunists. There have been more 30 species found in the stomachs of Arctic chars.


title: Arctic char

text: During late spring and summer, Arctic char feeds on insects found on the water's surface, salmon eggs, snails and other smaller crustaceans found on the lake bottom, and smaller fish up to a third of its size. During the autumn and winter months, it feeds on zooplankton and freshwater shrimps that are suspended in the lake, and also occasionally on smaller fish.


title: Arctic char

text: The marine diet of Arctic char consists mostly of a copepod species ("Calanis finmarchicus") and krill ("Thysanoëssa"). Lake-dwelling Arctic chars feed mostly on insects and zoobenthos. Some giant Arctic chars have been recorded as cannibals of their young as well as dwarf Arctic chars.


title: Arctic char

text: Spawning occurs over rocky shoals in lakes with heavy wave action and in slower gravel-bottom pools in rivers. As with most salmonids, vast differences in colouration and body shape occur between sexually mature males and females. Males develop hooked jaws known as kypes and take on a brilliant red colour. Females remain fairly silver. Males are polygamous in sexual nature each season. They will circumambulate the females by rubbing up against them slightly. As the female lays her eggs, the male fertilizes her, which takes place during the daylight hours. Most males set up and guard territories and often spawn with several females. The female constructs the nest, or redd.


title: Arctic char

text: A female anadromous char usually deposits from 3000 to 5000 eggs. Arctic chars do not die after spawning like Pacific salmon, and often spawn several times throughout their lives, typically every second or third year. Young Arctic chars emerge from the gravel in spring and stay in the river from 5 to 7 months, or until they are about 15–20 cm (6–8 in) in length. Sexual maturity in Arctic char ranges from 4 to 10 years old and 50–60 cm (20–24 in) in length.


title: Arctic char

text: Time to hatching varies, but usually occurs between 2 and 3 months, with the longest have been observed at 5 months. Arctic char ranges between 40 and 70 mg (0.0014–0.0025 oz) upon hatching. Hatchlings are immediately independent of parents at hatching, and stay at the bottom of the gravel till they are 15–18 cm (6–7 in) in length. Growth rates of Arctic char vary greatly.


title: Arctic char

text: Numerous commercial fisheries take place in various river systems throughout the Canadian Arctic, with the majority in Nunavut, such as the areas of Cumberland Sound and Cambridge Bay. There are also exploratory fisheries to examine potential for future commercial char fishing areas.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char fisheries are important for the Inuit and in the subsistence economy of many circumpolar people. The fisheries are concentrated near communities and are predominately conducted using gill nets. In 2004, it was estimated that the subsistence harvest in the Cambridge Bay area was about 50% the size of the commercial harvest.


title: Arctic char

text: Research aimed at determining the suitability of Arctic char as a cultured species has been going on since the late 1970s. The Canadian government's Freshwater Institute of Fisheries and Oceans Canada at Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the Huntsman Marine Science Centre of New Brunswick, pioneered the early efforts in Canada. Arctic char is also farmed in Iceland, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, West Virginia, and Ireland.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char was first investigated because they expected it to have low optimum temperature requirements and would grow well at the cold water temperatures present in numerous areas of Canada. It could be an alternate species to rainbow trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss)", and could provide producers with a different niche in the marketplace. The initial research efforts concentrated on identifying the cultural needs and performance characteristics of the species. The Freshwater Institute was responsible for distributing small numbers of eggs to producers in Canada; these producers in return helped determine the suitability of Arctic char in a commercial setting. Commercial Arctic char breeding stocks have now been developed largely from these sources.


title: Arctic char

text: Arctic char eggs are hatched within specialized hatchery facilities. The young fish remain in the hatchery until they reach about 100 g (3.5 oz), and are then transferred to tanks each capable of holding 5000 fish. Arctic char first exhibits a rapid growth spurt during this phase, reaching its market weight of 1–2.5 kg (2.2–5.5 lb) within a year. They are fed dried pellets consisting mainly of fish meal and fish oil from forage fish that are too small and bony for human consumption. Carotenoids are also added, giving Arctic char its characteristic coral colouration.


title: Arctic char

text: The land-based Arctic char farming systems are among the most environmentally responsible fish farming designs. They remove particulate matter and effluent prior to releasing water from the fish tanks into the environment. Sludge removed from the water is used to fertilize terrestrial crops. Leftovers from fish processing may be incorporated into dog food or delivered to local compost facilities.


title: Arctic char

text: In 2006, Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program added farmed Arctic char as an environmentally sustainable Best Choice for consumers, stating: "Arctic char use only a moderate amount of marine resources for feed” and that they “are farmed in land-based, closed systems that minimize the risk of escape into the wild."


title: Arctic char

text: Commercial Arctic char typically weigh between 1–2.5 kg (2.2–5.5 lb). The flesh is fine-flaked and medium firm. The colour is between light pink and deep red, and the taste is like something between trout and salmon.


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) is a type of mast cell activation disorder (MCAD), and is an immunological condition in which mast cells inappropriately and excessively release chemical mediators, resulting in a range of chronic symptoms, sometimes including anaphylaxis or near-anaphylaxis attacks. Primary symptoms include cardiovascular, dermatological, gastrointestinal, neurological and respiratory problems.


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: Multiple diagnostic schemes for MCAS have been proposed, and the condition is increasingly over-diagnosed or misdiagnosed.


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: MCAS is a condition that affects multiple systems, generally in an inflammatory manner. Symptoms typically wax and wane over time, varying in severity and duration. Many signs and symptoms are the same as those for mastocytosis, because both conditions result in too many mediators released by mast cells. It has many overlapping characteristics with recurrent idiopathic anaphylaxis, although there are distinguishing symptoms, specifically hives and angioedema.


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: There are no known causes, but the condition appears to be inherited in some patients. Symptoms of MCAS are caused by excessive chemical mediators inappropriately released by mast cells. Mediators include leukotrienes, histamines, prostaglandin, and tryptase. The condition may be mild until exacerbated by stressful life events, or symptoms may develop and slowly trend worse with time.


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: Mast cell activation can be localized or systemic. MCAS can present with a wide range of symptoms in multiple body systems, these symptoms may range from digestive discomfort to chronic pain, mental issues as well as an anaphylactic reaction. Some examples of tissue specific consequences of mast cell activation include urticaria, allergic rhinitis, and wheezing. Systemic mast cell activation presents with symptoms involving two or more organ systems (skin: urticaria, angioedema, and flushing; gastrointestinal: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal cramping; cardiovascular: hypotensive syncope or near syncope and tachycardia; respiratory: wheezing; naso-ocular: conjunctival injection, pruritus, and nasal stuffiness). This can result from the release of mediators from a specific site, such as the skin or mucosal tissue, or activation of mast cells around the vasculature.


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: MCAS is often difficult to identify due to the heterogeneity of symptoms and the "lack of flagrant acute presentation". Many of the numerous symptoms are non-specific in nature. Mast cell activation was assigned an ICD-10 code (D89.40, along with subtype codes D89.41-43 and D89.49) in October 2016.


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: Although different diagnostic criteria are published, a commonly used strategy to diagnose patients is to use all three of the following:


title: Mast cell activation syndrome

text: The condition was hypothesized by the pharmacologists John Oates and Jack Roberts of Vanderbilt University in 1991, and following a build-up of evidence featured in papers by Sonneck et al. and Akin et al., named in 2007.


title: Landrace

text: A landrace is a domesticated, locally adapted, traditional variety of a species of animal or plant that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolation from other populations of the species. Landraces are generally distinguished from cultivars, and from breeds in the standardized sense, although the term landrace breed is sometimes used as distinguished from the term "standardized breed" when referring to cattle.


title: Landrace

text: Specimens of a landrace tend to be genetically very similar, though more diverse than members of a standardized or formal breed. Some standardized animal breeds originate from attempts to make landraces more consistent through selective breeding, and a landrace may become a more formal breed with the creation of a breed registry and/or publication of a breed standard. In such a case, one may think of the landrace as a "stage" in breed development. However, in other cases, formalizing a landrace may result in the genetic resource of a landrace being lost through crossbreeding. Landraces are distinct from ancestral wild species of modern stock, and from separate species or subspecies derived from the same ancestor as modern domestic stock. Not all landraces derive from ancient stock largely unmodified by human breeding interests. In a number of cases, most commonly dogs and horses, domestic animals have escaped in sufficient numbers in an area to breed feral populations that, through evolutionary pressure, can form new landraces in only a few centuries. In other cases, simple failure to maintain breeding regimens can do the same. For example, selectively bred cultivars can become new landraces when loosely selective reproduction is applied.


title: Landrace

text: Increasing adoption of and reliance upon modern, purposefully selected plant strains, considered "improved" – "scientifically bred to be uniform and stable"


title: Landrace

text: – has led to a reduction in biodiversity. The majority of the genetic diversity of domesticated species lies in landraces and other traditionally used varieties, a "reservoir of genetic resources".


title: Landrace

text: Not every source on the topic enumerates each of these criteria, and they may be weighted differently depending on a given source's focus (e.g., governmental regulation, biological sciences, agribusiness, anthropology and culture, environmental conservation, pet keeping and breeding, etc.). Additionally, not all cultivars agreed to be landraces exhibit all possible landrace characteristics. Plant landraces have been the subject of more intensive study, and the majority of the academic literature about landraces is focused on agricultural botany, not animal husbandry. Most plant landraces are associated with traditional agricultural systems.


title: Landrace

text: While many landrace animals are associated with farming, other domestic animals have been put to use as modes of transportation, as companion animals, for sporting purposes, and for other non-farming uses, so their geographic distribution may differ. For example, horse landraces are less common because human use of them for transport has meant that they have moved with people more commonly and constantly than most other domestic animals, reducing the incidence of populations locally genetically isolated for extensive periods of time.


title: Landrace

text: The word "landrace" literally means 'country-breed' (German: "Landrasse") and close cognates of it are found in various Germanic languages. The term was first defined (in German) by Kurt von Rümker in 1908, and more clearly described (in Dutch) in 1909 by U. J. Mansholt, who wrote that landraces have better "stability of their characteristics" and "resistance capacity to tolerate adverse influences" but lower production capacity than cultivars, and are apt to change genetically when moved to another environment. H. Kiessling added in 1912 that a landrace is a mixture of phenotypic forms despite relative outward uniformity, and a great adaptability to its natural and human environment. The word entered non-academic English in the early 1930s, by way of the Danish Landrace pig, a particular breed of lop-eared swine.


title: Landrace

text: Aside from some standardized breeds having "Landrace" in their names, actual landraces and standardized breeds are sometimes further confused when the word "breed" is used very broadly. As one example, a glossary in a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) guideline defines "landrace" or "landrace breed" (treated synonymously) as "a breed that has largely developed through adaptation to the natural environment and traditional production system in which it has been raised". It also defines "breed" expansively and in multiple ways, with a focus on treating differing senses, landrace breed and standardized breed, as equivalent for "genetic management" purposes, the focus of the FAO guideline. It does clearly distinguish between the two concepts, however, both with a distinct definition of "standardized breed" and in the main body of the guideline, referring to the "interaction between landraces and standardized breeds"), and that FAO document uses "breed" to mean "the unit of conservation, i.e. the specific population of animals that is to be conserved". Similarly, the "Oxford English Dictionary" defines "landrace" as a "local cultivar or animal breed that has been improved by traditional agricultural methods", without specifying which definition of "breed" is cross-referenced. (The definition is also at odds with some peer-reviewed material, in which lack of formal, scientific breeding for genetic improvement (e.g. uniformity and stability) is characteristic of landraces; such sources clearly distinguish landraces from cultivars.)


title: Landrace

text: A landrace native to, or produced for a long time (e.g. 100 years or longer) within the agricultural system in which it is found is referred to as an "autochthonous landrace", while an introduced one is termed an allochthonous landrace. "Within academic agronomy, the term "autochthonous landrace" is sometimes used with a more specific, productivity-related definition, synthesized by A. C. Zeven from previous definitions beginning with Mansholt's; it is not often encountered outside that field. These terms are most often applied to plants, with animals more often being referred to as indigenous or native.


title: Landrace

text: Many languages do not use separate terms, like "landrace" and "breed" in English, but instead rely on extended description to convey such distinctions. The FAO notes: "The distinction between breeds and ecotypes within breeds is not very objective, and generally involves cultural rather than genetic factors."


title: Landrace

text: The term landrace breed is sometimes encountered. In various domestic species (including pigs, goats, sheep and geese) some standardized breeds include "Landrace" in their names, and "Landrace breeds" (with capital "L") is sometimes used to refer to them collectively. but may be used more ambiguously to include actual landraces.


title: Landrace

text: Similar ambiguity may be encountered in the use of terms such as ancient breed, native breed (not to be confused with native species), old breed, and indigenous breed. Farmers' variety, usually applied to local cultivars, or seen as intermediate between a landrace and a cultivar, may also include landraces when referring to plant varieties not subjected to formal breeding programs.


title: Landrace

text: The term "breed" itself has multiple definitions and uses, some of which may encompass the concept of landraces. For example, the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) guideline provides a definition of "breed", for "genetic management" purposes, that overlaps with many definitions of "landrace", and defines "landrace (or landrace breed)" as a type of "breed".


title: Landrace

text: Due to their adaptation to the local environment, some farmers using scientifically improved domesticates also continue to raise landraces, because the latter often exhibit benefits, ranging from lower cost, and cultural (e.g. culinary) preference, to superior hardiness in a less-than-ideal climate, and better disease resistance. There may be more variety-specific pluses; a plant landrace may have, e.g., lower fertilizer requirements, or something about a plant or animal product's texture, color or ease of use might be a major factor.


title: Landrace

text: Landraces are often free from many intellectual property and other regulatory encumbrances. However, in some jurisdictions, a focus on their production may result in missing out on some benefits afforded to producers of genetically selected and homogenous organisms, including breeders' rights legislation, easier availability of loans and other business services, even the right to share seed or stock with others, depending on how favorable the laws in the area are to high-yield agribusiness interests. As Regine Andersen of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (Norway) and the Farmers' Rights Project puts it, "Agricultural biodiversity is being eroded. This trend is putting at risk the ability of future generations to feed themselves. In order to reverse the trend, new policies must be implemented worldwide. The irony of the matter is that the poorest farmers are the stewards of genetic diversity." Protecting farmer interests and protecting biodiversity is at the heart of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (the "Plant Treaty" for short), under the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), though its concerns are not exclusively limited to landraces.


title: Landrace

text: In 2005, a "working definition" of plant landraces was proposed: "a dynamic population(s) of a cultivated plant that has historical origin, distinct identity and lacks formal crop improvement, as well as often being genetically diverse, locally adapted and associated with traditional farming systems". Another definition, dating to 1975, of the term "landrace" as used in botany (and by extension in agriculture, horticulture, anthropology, etc.) was provided by J. R. Harlan:


title: Landrace

text: Landrace plants are grown from seeds which have not been systematically selected and marketed by seed companies, nor developed by plant breeders. The label "landraces" includes all those regional cultigens that are highly heterogeneous, but with enough characteristics in common to permit their recognition as a group.


title: Landrace

text: This includes all cultigens cultivated without any specific nomenclature and value. A landrace identified with a unique feature, and selected for uniformity over a period of time for maintenance of the characteristic features of the population, can evolve into a "farmers' variety", or even a modern cultivar as in many crops (for example, "Cajanus cajan" 'Maruti' in the case of pigeon peas).


title: Landrace

text: Conversely, a modern cultivar grown over time can "evolve" into a landrace, especially when self-seeded and some human selection is applied.


title: Landrace

text: A "significant proportion" of farmers around the world continue to grow landrace crops. However, as industrialized agriculture spreads, cultivars, which are selectively bred for high yield, rapid growth, disease and drought resistance, and other commercial production values, are supplanting many landraces, putting more and more of them at risk of extinction.


title: Landrace

text: Using Europe as an example, data collected for an agricultural study published in 2008, showed that landrace cereal crops began to decline in Europe in the 19th century with selective seed improvements, and continued with varietal improvement in the 20th century, such that cereal landraces "have largely fallen out of use" in Europe. Landrace cultivation in central and northwest Europe was almost eradicated by the early 20th century, due to economic pressure to grow improved, modern cultivars. While many in the region are already extinct, some have survived in commercial European farming by being passed from generation to generation of farmers, and have also been revived by enthusiasts outside Europe to preserve European "agricultural and food heritage" elsewhere. These survivals are usually for specific uses, such as thatch, and traditional European cuisine and craft beer brewing. Systematic preservation efforts for these cereal strains are ongoing, "in situ" and in online-searchable germplasm collections (seed banks), coordinated by Biodiversity International and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (UK). However, more may need to be done, because plant genetic variety, the source of crop health and seed quality, depends on a diversity of landraces and other traditionally used varieties. Efforts () were mostly focused on Iberia, the Balkans, and European Russia, and dominated by species from mountainous areas. Despite their incompleteness, these efforts have been described as "crucial in preventing the extinction of many of these local ecotypes".


title: Landrace

text: One definition of a landrace applied to both plants and animals is "which has developed over a long period of time and as a result has adapted to the local natural environment in which it lives." Geneticist D. Phillip Sponenberg described animal breeds as "consistent and predictable genetic entities" falling into several "classes": the landrace, the standardized breed, modern "type" breeds, industrial strains and feral populations. He describes landraces as an early stage of breed development, created by a combination of founder effect, isolation and environmental pressures. Isolation prevents the further introduction of genetic material. Human selection for production goals is typical of most landraces.


title: Landrace

text: One definition of a "landrace", as applied to animals, is a biological race of [domestic] animal adapted to thrive in a specific land or locality. Another, applied to both plants and animals, is a variety "which has developed over a long period of time and as a result has adapted to the local natural environment in which it lives."


title: Landrace

text: There are various distinctive landraces of domestic cat around the world, including the Aegean, Cyprus, domestic long-haired, domestic short-haired, Kellas and Sokoke, among others. The Van cat of modern-day Turkey is a landrace of symbolic and (disputed) cultural value to Turks, Armenians and Kurds.


title: Landrace

text: Many standardized breeds have rather recently (within a century or less) been derived from landraces. Examples, often called "natural breeds", include Arabian Mau, Egyptian Mau, Korat, Kurilian Bobtail, Maine Coon, Manx, Norwegian Forest Cat, Siberian, and Thai (which is the landrace ancestor of modern Siamese cats), among many others.


title: Landrace

text: In some cases, such as the Turkish Angora and Turkish Van breeds and their possible derivation from the Van cat landrace, the relationships are not entirely clear.


title: Landrace

text: Other examples of landrace bovines include Pineywoods, Florida Cracker, Ankole-Watusi and Randall cattle.


title: Landrace

text: Dog landraces and the selectively bred dog breeds that follow breed standards vary widely depending on their origins and purpose. Landraces in dogs are defined as "dog or any livestock animal has been bred without a formal registry, although their breeders may have kept written or informal pedigrees of their animals." These are distinguished from dog breeds which have breed standards, breed clubs and registries.


title: Landrace

text: Landrace dogs have more variety in their appearance than do standardized dog breeds. An example of a dog landrace with a related standardized breed with a similar name is the collie. The Scotch Collie is a landrace, while the Rough Collie and the Border Collie are standardized breeds. They can be very different in appearance, though the Rough Collie in particular was developed from the Scotch Collie by inbreeding to fix certain highly desired traits. In contrast to the landrace, in the various standardized Collie breeds, purebred individuals closely match a breed-standard appearance but might have lost other useful characteristics and have developed undesirable traits linked to inbreeding. Similarly, the ancient landrace dogs of the Fertile Crescent that led to the Saluki breed excels in running down game across open tracts of hot desert, but conformation-bred individuals of the breed might not be able to chase and catch desert hares.


title: Landrace

text: The now extinct St. John's water dog, a landrace that was developed in Newfoundland, Canada, was the foundational stock for a number of purpose-bred dogs, such as the Labrador Retriever, Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Cape Shore Water Dog, and Newfoundland. Another example of a North American landrace, the Carolina Dog or yellow dog, was developed from dogs originally from Asia; it has also been established now as a standardized breed.


title: Landrace

text: Some standardized, selective breeds that are derived from landraces include the Dutch Landrace, Swedish Landrace and Finnish Landrace goats. The confusingly named Danish Landrace is a modern mix of three different breeds, one of which was a "Landrace"-named breed.


title: Landrace

text: It is rare for landraces among domestic horses to remain isolated, due to human use of horses for transportation, thus causing horses to move from one local population to another. Examples of horse landraces include isolated island populations such as the Newfoundland Pony, Shetland Pony and Icelandic Horse, insular landraces in Greece and Indonesia, and, on a broader scale, New World populations derived from the founder stock of Colonial Spanish horse. The Yakutian and Mongolian Horses of Asia have "unimproved" characteristics. The heavy 'draft' type of domestic horse, developed in Europe, has itself differentiated into many separate landraces or breeds.


title: Landrace

text: The wild progenitor of the domestic horse is now extinct. The Przewalski's horse, "Equus ferus przewalskii", is a wholly separate subspecies with a different number of chromosomes than domesticated horses ("E. f. caballus"), and has never been successfully domesticated.


title: Landrace

text: The Mulefoot pig breed originated as a landrace, but has been a standardized breed since the early 1900s. The standardized swine breeds named "Landrace" are not actually landraces, and often not even derived from one, but from other breeds with "Landrace" in their names. The Danish Landrace pig breed, pedigreed in 1896 from the actual local landrace, is the principal ancestor of the American Landrace (1930s). The Swedish Landrace is derived from the Danish and from other Scandinavian breeds, as was the British Landrace breed, which was established as late as 1950. The Baudin pig was once a feral landrace on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.


title: Landrace

text: Note: Many standardized breeds named "Landrace", e.g. the Twente Landrace goose, are not actually true landrace breeds, but may be derived from them.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The Romans constructed aqueducts throughout their Republic and later Empire, to bring water from outside sources into cities and towns. Aqueduct water supplied public baths, latrines, fountains, and private households; it also supported mining operations, milling, farms, and gardens.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Aqueducts moved water through gravity alone, along a slight overall downward gradient within conduits of stone, brick, concrete or lead; the steeper the gradient, the faster the flow. Most conduits were buried beneath the ground and followed the contours of the terrain; obstructing peaks were circumvented or, less often, tunneled through. Where valleys or lowlands intervened, the conduit was carried on bridgework, or its contents fed into high-pressure lead, ceramic, or stone pipes and siphoned across. Most aqueduct systems included sedimentation tanks, which helped to reduce any water-borne debris. Sluices, "castella aquae" (distribution tanks) and stopcocks regulated the supply to individual destinations, and fresh overflow water could be temporarily stored in cisterns.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Aqueducts and their contents were protected by law and custom. The supply to public fountains took priority over the supply to public baths, and both took priority over supplies to wealthier, fee-paying private users. Some of the wealthiest citizens were given the right to a free supply, as a state honour. In cities and towns, clean run-off water from aqueducts supported high consumption industries such as fulling and dying, and industries that employed water but consumed almost none, such as milling. Used water and water surpluses fed ornamental and market gardens, and scoured the drains and public sewers. Unlicensed rural diversion of aqueduct water for agriculture was common during the growing season, but was seldom prosecuted as it helped keep food prices low; agriculture was the core of Rome's economy and wealth.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Rome's first aqueduct was built in 312 BC, and supplied a water fountain at the city's cattle market. By the 3rd century AD, the city had eleven aqueducts, sustaining a population of over a million in a water-extravagant economy; most of the water supplied the city's many public baths. Cities and towns throughout the Roman Empire emulated this model, and funded aqueducts as objects of public interest and civic pride, "an expensive yet necessary luxury to which all could, and did, aspire". Most Roman aqueducts proved reliable and durable; some were maintained into the early modern era, and a few are still partly in use. Methods of aqueduct surveying and construction are noted by Vitruvius in his work "De architectura" (1st century BC). The general Frontinus gives more detail in his official report on the problems, uses and abuses of Imperial Rome's public water supply. Notable examples of aqueduct architecture include the supporting piers of the Aqueduct of Segovia, and the aqueduct-fed cisterns of Constantinople.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Before the development of aqueduct technology, Romans, like most of their contemporaries in the ancient world, relied on local water sources such as springs and streams, supplemented by groundwater from privately or publicly owned wells, and by seasonal rain-water drained from rooftops into storage jars and cisterns. Such localised sources for fresh water – especially wells – were intensively exploited by the Romans throughout their history, but reliance on the water resources of a small catchment area restricted the city's potential for growth and security. The water of the River Tiber was close at hand, but would have been polluted by water-borne disease. Rome's aqueducts were not strictly Roman inventions – their engineers would have been familiar with the water-management technologies of Rome's Etruscan and Greek allies – but they proved conspicuously successful. By the early Imperial era, the city's aqueducts helped support a population of over a million, and an extravagant water supply for public amenities had become a fundamental part of Roman life.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The city's demand for water had probably long exceeded its local supplies by 312 BC, when the city's first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, was commissioned by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus. The Aqua Appia was one of two major public projects of the time; the other was a military road between Rome and Capua, the first leg of the so-called Appian Way. Both projects had significant strategic value, as the Third Samnite War had been under way for some thirty years by that point. The road allowed rapid troop movements; and by design or fortunate coincidence, most of the Aqua Appia ran within a buried conduit, relatively secure from attack. It was fed by a spring 16.4 km from Rome, and dropped 10 m over its length to discharge approximately 75,500 m of water each day into a fountain at Rome's cattle market, the Forum Boarium, one of the city's lowest-lying public spaces.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: A second aqueduct, the Aqua Anio Vetus, was commissioned some forty years later, funded by treasures seized from Pyrrhus of Epirus. Its flow was more than twice that of the Aqua Appia, and supplied water to higher elevations of the city.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: By 145 BC, the city had again outgrown its combined supplies. An official commission found the aqueduct conduits decayed, their water depleted by leakage and illegal tapping. The praetor Quintus Marcius Rex restored them, and introduced a third, "more wholesome" supply, the Aqua Marcia, Rome's longest aqueduct and high enough to supply the Capitoline Hill. As demand grew still further, more aqueducts were built, including the Aqua Tepula in 127 BC and the Aqua Julia in 33 BC.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Aqueduct-building programmes in the city reached a peak in the Imperial Era; political credit and responsibility for provision of public water supplies passed from mutually competitive Republican political magnates to the emperors. Augustus' reign saw the building of the Aqua Virgo, and the short Aqua Alsietina. The latter supplied Trastevere with large quantities of non-potable water for its gardens and was used to create an artificial lake for staged sea-fights to entertain the populace. Another short Augustan aqueduct supplemented the Aqua Marcia with water of "excellent quality". The emperor Caligula added or began two aqueducts completed by his successor Claudius; the 69 km (42.8 mile) Aqua Claudia, which gave good quality water but failed on several occasions; and the Anio Novus, highest of all Rome's aqueducts and one of the most reliable but prone to muddy, discoloured waters, particularly after rain, despite its use of settling tanks.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Most of Rome's aqueducts drew on various springs in the valley and highlands of the Anio, the modern river Aniene, east of the Tiber. A complex system of aqueduct junctions, tributary feeds and distribution tanks supplied every part of the city. Trastevere, the city region west of the Tiber, was primarily served by extensions of several of the city's eastern aqueducts, carried across the river by lead pipes buried in the roadbed of the river bridges, thus forming an inverted siphon. Whenever this cross-river supply had to be shut down for routine repair and maintenance works, the "positively unwholesome" waters of the Aqua Alsietina were used to supply Trastevere's public fountains. The situation was finally ameliorated when the emperor Trajan built the Aqua Traiana in 109 AD, bringing clean water directly to Trastavere from aquifers around Lake Bracciano.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: By the late 3rd century AD, the city was supplied with water by eleven state-funded aqueducts. Their combined conduit length is estimated between 780 and a little over 800 km, of which approximately were carried above ground level, on masonry supports. Most of Rome's water was carried by four of these: the Aqua Anio Vetus, the Aqua Marcia, the Aqua Claudia and the Aqua Anio Novus. Modern estimates of the city's supply, based on Frontinus' own calculations in the late 1st century, range from a high of 1,000,000 m per day to a more conservative 520,000–635,000 m per day, supplying an estimated population of 1,000,000.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Hundreds of aqueducts were built throughout the Roman Empire. Many of them have since collapsed or been destroyed, but a number of intact portions remain. The Zaghouan Aqueduct, in length, was built in the 2nd century AD to supply Carthage (in modern Tunisia). Surviving provincial aqueduct bridges include the Pont du Gard in France and the Aqueduct of Segovia in Spain. The longest single conduit, at over 240 km, is associated with the Valens Aqueduct of Constantinople. "The known system is at least two and half times the length of the longest recorded Roman aqueducts at Carthage and Cologne, but perhaps more significantly it represents one of the most outstanding surveying achievements of any pre-industrial society". Rivalling this in terms of length and possibly equaling or exceeding it in cost and complexity, is provincial Italy's Aqua Augusta. It supplied a great number of luxury coastal holiday-villas belonging to Rome's rich and powerful, several commercial fresh-water fisheries, market-gardens, vineyards and at least eight cities, including the major ports at Naples and Misenum; sea voyages by traders and Rome's Republican and Imperial navies required copious on-board supplies of fresh water.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The plans for any public or private aqueduct had to be submitted to scrutiny by civil authorities. Permission was granted only if the proposal respected the water rights of other citizens. Inevitably, there would have been rancorous and interminable court cases between neighbours or local governments over competing claims to limited water supplies but on the whole, Roman communities took care to allocate shared water resources according to need. Planners preferred to build public aqueducts on public land "(ager publicus)", and to follow the shortest, unopposed, most economical route from source to destination. State purchase of privately owned land, or re-routing of planned courses to circumvent resistant or tenanted occupation, could significantly increase the aqueduct's length, and thus its cost.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: On rural land, a protective "clear corridor" was marked out with boundary slabs ("cippi") usually 15 feet each side of the channel, reducing to 5 feet each side for lead pipes and in built-up areas. The conduits, their foundations and superstructures, were property of the State or emperor. The corridors were public land, with public rights of way and clear access to the conduits for maintenance. Within the corridors, potential sources of damage to the conduits were forbidden, including new roadways that crossed over the conduit, new buildings, ploughing or planting, and living trees, unless entirely contained by a building. The harvesting of hay and grass for fodder was permitted. Regulations and restrictions necessary to the aqueduct's long-term integrity and maintenance were not always readily accepted or easily enforced at a local level, particularly when "ager publicus" was understood to be common property, to be used for whatever purpose seemed fit to its user.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: After "ager publicus", minor, local roads and boundaries between adjacent private properties offered the least costly routes, though not always the most straightforward. Sometimes the State would purchase the whole of a property, mark out the intended course of the aqueduct, and resell the unused land to help mitigate the cost. Graves and cemeteries, temples, shrines and other sacred places had to be respected; they were protected by law, and villa and farm cemeteries were often deliberately sited very close to public roadways and boundaries. Despite careful enquiries by planners, problems regarding shared ownership or uncertain legal status might emerge only during the physical construction. While surveyors could claim ancient right to use land once public, now private, for the good of the State, the land's current possessors could take out a legal counterclaim for compensation based on their long usage, productivity and improvements. They could also join forces with their neighbours to present a united legal front in seeking higher rates of compensation. Aqueduct planning "traversed a legal landscape at least as daunting as the physical one".


title: Roman aqueduct

text: In the aftermath of the Second Punic War, the censors exploited a legal process known as "vindicatio", a repossession of private or tenanted land by the state, "restoring" it to a presumed ancient status as "public and sacred, and open to the people". Livy describes this as a public-spirited act of piety, and makes no reference to the likely legal conflicts arising. In 179 BC the censors used the same legal device to help justify public contracts for several important building projects, including Rome's first stone-built bridge over the Tiber and a new aqueduct to supplement the city's existing, but by now inadequate supply. A wealthy landowner along the aqueduct's planned route, M. Licinius Crassus, refused it passage across his fields, and seems to have forced its abandonment.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The construction of Rome's third aqueduct, the Aqua Marcia, was at first legally blocked on religious grounds, under advice from the "decemviri" (an advisory "board of ten"). The new aqueduct was meant to supply water to the highest elevations of the city, including the Capitoline Hill, but the "decemviri" had consulted Rome's main written oracle, the "Sibylline Books", and found there a warning against supplying water to the Capitoline. This brought the project to a standstill. Eventually, having raised the same objections in 143 and in 140, the "decemviri" and Senate consented, and 180,000,000 sesterces were allocated for restoration of the two existing aqueducts and completion of the third, in 144-140. The Marcia was named for the praetor Quintus Marcius Rex, who had championed its construction.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Springs were by far the most common sources for aqueduct water; most of Rome's supply came from various springs in the Anio valley and its uplands. Spring-water was fed into a stone or concrete springhouse, then entered the aqueduct conduit. Scattered springs would require several branch conduits feeding into a main channel. Some systems drew water from open, purpose-built, dammed reservoirs, such as the two (still in use) that supplied the aqueduct at the provincial city of Emerita Augusta.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The territory over which the aqueduct ran had to be carefully surveyed to ensure the water would flow at a consistent and acceptable rate for the entire distance. Roman engineers used various surveying tools to plot the course of aqueducts across the landscape. They checked horizontal levels with a "chorobates", a flatbedded wooden frame some 20 feet long, fitted with both a water level and plumblines. Horizontal courses and angles could be plotted using a "groma", a relatively simple apparatus that was eventually displaced by the more sophisticated dioptra, a precursor of the modern theodolite. In Book 8 of his "De architectura", Vitruvius describes the need to ensure a constant supply, methods of prospecting, and tests for potable water.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Greek and Roman physicians were well aware of the association between stagnant or tainted waters and water-borne diseases, and held rainwater to be water's purest and healthiest form, followed by springs. Rome's public baths, ostensibly one of Rome's greatest contributions to the health of its inhabitants, were also instrumental in the spread of waterborne diseases. In his "De Medicina", the encyclopaedist Celsus warned that public bathing could induce gangrene in unhealed wounds. Frontinus preferred a high rate of overflow in the aqueduct system because it led to greater cleanliness in the water supply, the sewers, and those who used them.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The adverse health effects of lead on those who mined and processed it were also well known. Ceramic pipes, unlike lead, left no taint in the water they carried, and were therefore preferred over lead for drinking water. In some parts of the Roman world, particularly in relatively isolated communities with localised water systems and limited availability of other, more costly materials, wooden pipes were commonly used; Pliny recommends water-pipes of pine and alder as particularly durable, when kept wet and buried. Examples include pipes of alder, clamped at their joints with oak, at Vindolanda fort and alder in Germany. Where lead pipes were used, a continuous water-flow and the inevitable deposition of water-borne minerals within the pipes somewhat reduced the water's contamination by soluble lead. Lead content in Rome's aqueduct water was "clearly measurable, but unlikely to have been truly harmful". Nevertheless, the level of lead was 100 times higher than in local spring waters.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Most Roman aqueducts were flat-bottomed, arch-section conduits, approximately 0.7 m (2.3 ft) wide and 1.5 m (5 ft) high internally, running 0.5 to 1 m beneath the ground surface, with inspection-and-access covers at regular intervals. Conduits above ground level were usually slab-topped. Early conduits were ashlar-built but from around the late Republican era, brick-faced concrete was often used instead. The concrete used for conduit linings was usually waterproof, with a very smooth finish. The flow of water depended on gravity alone. The volume of water transported within the conduit depended on the catchment hydrology – rainfall, absorption, and runoff – the cross section of the conduit, and its gradient; most conduits ran about two-thirds full. The conduit's cross section was also determined by maintenance requirements; workmen must be able to enter and access the whole, with minimal disruption to its fabric.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Vitruvius recommends a low gradient of not less than 1 in 4800 for the channel, presumably to prevent damage to the structure through erosion and water pressure. This value agrees well with the measured gradients of surviving masonry aqueducts. The gradient of the Pont du Gard is only 34 cm per km, descending only 17 m vertically in its entire length of : it could transport up to 20,000 cubic metres a day. The gradients of temporary aqueducts used for hydraulic mining could be considerably greater, as at Dolaucothi in Wales (with a maximum gradient of about 1:700) and Las Medulas in northern Spain. Where sharp gradients were unavoidable in permanent conduits, the channel could be stepped downwards, widened or discharged into a receiving tank to disperse the flow of water and reduce its abrasive force. The use of stepped cascades and drops also helped re-oxygenate and thus "freshen" the water.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Some aqueduct conduits were supported across valleys or hollows on multiple piered arches of masonry, brick or concrete, also known as arcades. The Pont du Gard, one of the most impressive surviving examples of a massive masonry multiple-piered conduit, spanned the Gardon river-valley some 48.8 m (160 ft) above the Gardon itself. Where particularly deep or lengthy depressions had to be crossed, inverted siphons could be used, instead of arcades; the conduit fed water into a header tank, which fed it into pipes. The pipes crossed the valley at lower level, supported by a low "venter" bridge, then rose to a receiving tank at a slightly lower elevation. This discharged into another conduit; the overall gradient was maintained. Siphon pipes were usually made of soldered lead, sometimes reinforced by concrete encasements or stone sleeves. Less often, the pipes were stone or ceramic, jointed as male-female and sealed with lead.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Vitruvius describes the construction of siphons and the problems of blockage, blow-outs and venting at their lowest levels, where the pressures were greatest. Nonetheless, siphons were versatile and effective if well-built and well-maintained. A horizontal section of high-pressure siphon tubing in the Aqueduct of the Gier was ramped up on bridgework to clear a navigable river, using nine lead pipes in parallel, cased in concrete. Modern hydraulic engineers use similar techniques to enable sewers and water pipes to cross depressions. At Romano-Gallic Arles, a minor branch of the main aqueduct supplied a local suburb via a lead siphon whose "belly" was laid across a riverbed, eliminating any need for supporting bridgework.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Some aqueducts running through hilly regions employed a combination of arcades, plain conduits buried at ground level, and tunnels large enough to contain the conduit, its builders and maintenance workers. The builders of Campana's "Aqua Augusta" changed the water's orientation from an existing northerly watershed to a southerly watershed, establishing the new gradient using a 6 km tunnel, several shorter tunnels, and arcades, one of which was supported more or less at sea level by foundations on the sea bed at Misenum. "En route", it supplied several cities and many villas, using branch lines.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Roman aqueducts required a comprehensive system of regular maintenance. On the standard, buried conduits, inspection and access points were provided at regular intervals, so that suspected blockages or leaks could be investigated with minimal disruption of the supply. Water lost through multiple, slight leaks in buried conduit walls could be hard to detect except by its fresh taste, unlike that of the natural groundwater. The clear corridors created to protect the fabric of underground and overground conduits were regularly patrolled for unlawful ploughing, planting, roadways and buildings. In "De aquaeductu", Frontinus describes the penetration of conduits by tree-roots as particularly damaging.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Working patrols would have cleared algal fouling, repaired accidental breaches or accessible shoddy workmanship, cleared the conduits of gravel and other loose debris, and removed accretions of calcium carbonate (also known as travertine) in systems fed by hard water sources; modern research has found that quite apart from the narrowing of apertures, even slight roughening of the aqueduct's ideally smooth-mortared interior surface by travertine deposits could significantly reduce the water's velocity, and thus its rate of flow, by up to 1/4. Accretions within siphons could drastically reduce flow rates through their already narrow diameters, though some had sealed openings that might have been used as rodding eyes, possibly using a pull-through device. In Rome, where a hard-water supply was the norm, mains pipework was shallowly buried beneath road kerbs, for ease of access; the accumulation of calcium carbonate in these pipes would have necessitated their frequent replacement.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Full closure of any aqueduct for servicing would have been a rare event, kept as brief as possible, with repair shut-downs preferably made when water demand was lowest, during the winter months. The piped water supply could be selectively reduced or shut off at the "castella" when small or local repairs were needed, but substantial maintenance and repairs to the aqueduct conduit itself required the complete diversion of water at any point upstream, including the spring-head itself. Frontinus describes the use of temporary leaden conduits to carry the water past damaged stretches while repairs were made, with minimal loss of supply.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The Aqua Claudia, most ambitious of the City of Rome's aqueducts, suffered at least two serious partial collapses over two centuries, one of them very soon after construction, and both probably due to a combination of shoddy workmanship, underinvestment, Imperial negligence, collateral damage through illicit outlets, natural ground tremors and damage by overwhelming seasonal floods originating upstream. Inscriptions claim that it was largely out of commission, and awaiting repair, for nine years prior to a restoration by Vespasian and another, later, by his son Titus. To many modern scholars, the delay seems implausibly long. It might well have been thought politic to stress the personal generosity of the new Flavian dynasty, father and son, and exaggerate the negligence of their disgraced imperial predecessor, Nero, whose rebuilding priorities after Rome's Great Fire were thought models of self-indulgent ambition.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Aqueduct mains could be directly tapped, but they more usually fed into public distribution terminals, known as "castellum aquae" ("water castles"), which acted as settling tanks and cisterns and supplied various branches and spurs, via lead or ceramic pipes. These pipes were made in 25 different standardised diameters and were fitted with bronze stopcocks. The flow from each pipe ("calix") could be fully or partly opened, or shut down, and its supply diverted if necessary to any other part of the system in which water-demand was, for the time being, outstripping supply. The free supply of water to public basins and drinking fountains was officially prioritised over the supply to the public baths, where a very small fee was charged to every bather, on behalf of the Roman people. The supply to basins and baths was in turn prioritised over the requirements of fee-paying private users. The last were registered, along with the bore of pipe that led from the public water supply to their property – the wider the pipe, the greater the flow and the higher the fee. Some properties could be bought and sold with a legal right to draw water attached. Aqueduct officials could assign the right to draw overflow water ("aqua caduca", literally "fallen water") to certain persons and groups; fullers, for example, used a great deal of fresh water in their trade, in return for a commensurate water-fee. Some individuals were gifted a right to draw overflow water "gratis", as a State honour or grant; pipe stamps show that around half Rome's water grants were given to elite, extremely wealthy citizens of the senatorial class. Water grants were issued by the emperor or State to named individuals, and could not be lawfully sold along with a property, or inherited: new owners and heirs must therefore negotiate a new grant, in their own name. In the event, these untransferable, personal water grants were more often transferred than not.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Frontinus thought dishonest private users and corrupt state employees were responsible for most of the losses and outright thefts of water in Rome, and the worst damage to the aqueducts. His "De aquaeductu" can be read as a useful technical manual, a display of persuasive literary skills, and a warning to users and his own staff that if they stole water, they would be found out, because he had all the relevant, expert calculations to hand. He claimed to know not only how much was stolen, but how it was done. Tampering and fraud were indeed commonplace; methods included the fitting of unlicensed or additional outlets, some of them many miles outside the city, and the illegal widening of lead pipes. Any of this might involve the bribery or connivance of unscrupulous aqueduct officials or workers. Archaeological evidence confirms that some users drew an illegal supply but not the likely quantity involved, nor the likely combined effect on supply to the city as a whole. The measurement of allowances was basically flawed; officially approved lead pipes carried inscriptions with information on the pipe's manufacturer, its fitter, and probably on its subscriber and their entitlement; but water allowance was measured in quinaria (cross-sectional area of the pipe) at the point of supply and no formula or physical device was employed to account for variations in velocity, rate of flow or actual usage. Brun, 1991, used lead pipe stamps to calculate a plausible water distribution as a percentage of the whole; 17% went to the emperor (including his gifts, grants and awards); 38% went to private individuals; and 45% went to the public at large, including public baths and fountains.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: In the Republican era, aqueducts were planned, built and managed under authority of the censors, or if no censor was in office, the aediles. In the Imperial era, lifetime responsibility for water supplies passed to the emperors. Rome had no permanent central body to manage the aqueducts until Augustus created the office of water commissioner ("curator aquarum"); this was a high status, high-profile Imperial appointment. In 97 Frontinus, who had already had a distinguished career as consul, general and provincial governor, served both as consul and as "curator aquarum", under the emperor Nerva.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Particular sections of Campania's very long, complex, costly and politically sensitive "Aqua Augusta", constructed in the early days of the Augustan principate were supervised by wealthy, influential, local "curatores". They were drawn from local elites by the local electorate, or by Augustus himself. The entire network relied on just two mountain springs, shared with a river that supported freshwater fish, a free food source for all classes. The "Augusta" supplied 8 or 9 municipalities or cities and an unknown number of farms and villas, including bathhouses, via branch lines and sub-branch lines; its extremities were the naval port of Misenum and the merchant port of Puteoli. Its delivery is unlikely to have been wholly reliable, adequate or free from dispute. Competition would have been inevitable.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Under the emperor Claudius, the City of Rome's contingent of imperial "aquarii" (aqueduct workers) comprised a "familia aquarum" of 460, both slave and free, funded through a combination of Imperial largesse and the water fees paid by private subscribers. The "familia aquarum" comprised "overseers, reservoir‐keepers, line‐walkers, pavers, plasterers, and other workmen" supervised by an Imperial freedman, who held office as "procurator aquarium". The "curator aquarum" had magisterial powers in relation to the water supply, assisted by a team of architects, public servants, notaries and scribes, and heralds; when working outside the city, he was further entitled to two "lictors" to enforce his authority. Substantial fines could be imposed for even single offences against the laws relating to aqueducts: for example, 10,000 sesterces for allowing a tree to damage the conduit, and 100,000 sesterces for polluting the water within the conduit, or allowing one's slave to do the same.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Rome's first aqueduct (312 BC) discharged at very low pressure and at a more-or-less constant rate in the city's main trading centre and cattle-market, probably into a low-level, cascaded series of troughs or basins; the upper for household use, the lower for watering the livestock traded there. Most Romans would have filled buckets and storage jars at the basins and carried the water to their apartments; the better-off would have sent slaves to perform the same task. The outlet's elevation was too low to offer any city household or building a direct supply; the overflow drained into Rome's main sewer, and from there into the Tiber. Most inhabitants still relied on well-water and rainwater. At this time, Rome had no public baths. The first was probably built in the next century, based on precursors in neighbouring Campania; a limited number of private baths and small, street-corner public baths would have had a private water supply, but once aqueduct water was brought to the city's higher elevations, large and well-appointed public baths and fountains were built throughout the city. Public baths and fountains became distinctive features of Roman civilization, and the baths, in particular, became important social centres.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: The majority of urban Romans lived in multi-storeyed blocks of flats ("insulae"). Some blocks offered water services, but only to tenants on the more expensive, lower floors; the rest would have drawn their water "gratis" from public fountains. During the Imperial era, lead production (mostly for pipes) became an Imperial monopoly, and the granting of rights to draw water for private use from state-funded aqueducts was made an imperial privilege. The provision of free, potable water to the general public became one among many gifts to the people of Rome from their emperor, paid for by him or by the state. In 33BC, Marcus Agrippa built or subsidised 170 public bath-houses during his aedileship. In Frontinus's time (c. 40 – 103 AD), around 10% of Rome's aqueduct water was used to supply 591 public fountains, among which were 39 lavishly decorative fountains which Frontinus calls "munera". According to one of several much later regionaries, by the end of the 4th century AD Rome's aqueducts within the City - 19 of them, according to the regionary - fed 11 large public baths, 965 smaller public bathhouses and 1,352 public fountains.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Between 65 and 90% of the Roman Empire's population was involved in some form of agricultural work. Water was possibly the most important variable in the agricultural economy of the Mediterranean world. Roman Italy's natural fresh-water sources – springs, streams, rivers and lakes – were naturally abundant in some places, entirely absent in others. Rainfall was unpredictable. Water tended to be scarce when most needed during the warm, dry summer growing season. Farmers whose villas or estates were near a public aqueduct could draw, under license, a specified quantity of aqueduct water for irrigation at a predetermined time, using a bucket let into the conduit via the inspection hatches; this was intended to limit the depletion of water supply to users further down the gradient, and help ensure a fair distribution among competitors at the time when water was most needed and scarce. Columella recommends that any farm should contain a "never failing" spring, stream or river; but acknowledges that not every farm did.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Farmland without a reliable summer water-source was virtually worthless. During the growing season, the water demand of a "modest local" irrigation system might consume as much water as the city of Rome; and the livestock whose manure fertilised the fields must be fed and watered all year round. At least some Roman landowners and farmers relied in part or whole on aqueduct water to raise crops as their primary or sole source of income but the fraction of aqueduct water involved can only be guessed at. More certainly, the creation of municipal and city aqueducts brought a growth in the intensive and efficient suburban market-farming of fragile, perishable commodities such as flowers (for perfumes, and for festival garlands), grapes, vegetables and orchard fruits; and of small livestock such as pigs and chickens, close to the municipal and urban markets.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: A licensed right to use aqueduct water on farmland could lead to increased productivity, a cash income through the sale of surplus foodstuffs, and an increase in the value of the land itself. In the countryside, permissions to draw aqueduct water for irrigation were particularly hard to get; the exercise and abuse of such rights were subject to various known legal disputes and judgements, and at least one political campaign; in 184 BC Cato tried to block all unlawful rural outlets, especially those owned by the landed elite. This may be connected to Cato's diatribe as censor against the ex-consul Lucius Furius Purpureo: "Look how much he bought the land for, where he is channeling the water!" Cato's attempted reform proved impermanent at best. Though illegal tapping could be punished by seizure of assets, including the illegally watered land and its produce, this law seems never to have been used, and was probably impracticable; while water thefts profited farmers, they could also create food surpluses and keep food prices low. Grain shortages in particular could lead to famine and social unrest. Any practical solution must strike a balance between the water-needs of urban populations and grain producers, tax the latter's profits, and secure sufficient grain at reasonable cost for the Roman poor (the so-called "corn dole") and the army. Rather than seek to impose unproductive and probably unenforcable bans, the authorities issued individual water grants and licenses, and regulated water outlets though with variable success. In the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder, like Cato, could fulminate against grain producers who continued to wax fat on profits from public water and public land.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Some landholders avoided such restrictions and entanglements by buying water access rights to distant springs, not necessarily on their own land. A few, of high wealth and status, built their own aqueducts to transport such water from source to field or villa; Mumius Niger Valerius Vegetus bought the rights to a spring and its water from his neighbour, and access rights to a corridor of intervening land, then built an aqueduct of just under 10 kilometres, connecting the springhead to his own villa.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Some aqueducts supplied water to industrial sites, usually via an open channel cut into the ground, clay lined or wood-shuttered to reduce water loss. Most such leats were designed to operate at the steep gradients that could deliver the high water volumes needed in mining operations. Water was used in hydraulic mining to strip the overburden and expose the ore by hushing, to fracture and wash away metal-bearing rock already heated and weakened by fire-setting, and to power water-wheel driven stamps and trip-hammers that crushed ore for processing. Evidence of such leats and machines has been found at Dolaucothi in south-west Wales.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: Mining sites such as Dolaucothi and Las Medulas in northwest Spain show multiple aqueducts that fed water from local rivers to the mine head. The channels may have deteriorated rapidly, or become redundant as the nearby ore was exhausted. Las Medulas shows at least seven such leats, and Dolaucothi at least five. At Dolaucothi, the miners used holding reservoirs as well as hushing tanks, and sluice gates to control flow, as well as drop chutes for diversion of water supplies. The remaining traces (see palimpsest) of such channels allows the mining sequence to be inferred.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: A number of other sites fed by several aqueducts have not yet been thoroughly explored or excavated, such as those at Longovicium near Lanchester south of Hadrian's wall, in which the water supplies may have been used to power trip-hammers for forging iron.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: At Barbegal in Roman Gaul, a reservoir fed an aqueduct that drove a cascaded series of 15 or 16 overshot water mills, grinding flour for the Arles region. Similar arrangements, though on a lesser scale, have been found in Caesarea, Venafrum and Roman-era Athens. Rome's Aqua Traiana drove a flour-mill at the Janiculum, west of the Tiber. A mill in the basement of the Baths of Caracalla was driven by aqueduct overspill; this was but one of many city mills driven by aqueduct water, with or without official permission. A law of the 5th century forbade the illicit use of aqueduct water for milling.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: During the fall of the Western Roman Empire, some aqueducts were deliberately cut by enemies. In 537, the Ostrogoths laid siege to Rome, and cut the aqueduct supply to the city, including the aqueduct-driven grist-mills of the Janiculum. Belisarius, defender of the city, had mills stationed on the Tiber instead, and blocked the conduits to prevent their use by the Ostrogoths as ways through the city defences. In time, some of the city's damaged aqueducts were partly restored, but the city's population was much reduced and impoverished. Most of the aqueducts gradually decayed for want of maintenance, creating swamps and marshes at their broken junctions. By the late medieval period, only the Aqua Virgo still gave a reliable supply to supplement Rome's general dependence on wells and rainwater cisterns.


title: Roman aqueduct

text: In the provinces, most aqueducts fell into disuse because of deteriorating Roman infrastructure and lack of maintenance, such as the Eifel aqueduct ("pictured right"). Observations made by the Spaniard Pedro Tafur, who visited Rome in 1436, reveal misunderstandings of the very nature of the Roman aqueducts:


title: Roman aqueduct

text: During the Renaissance, the standing remains of the city's massive masonry aqueducts inspired architects, engineers and their patrons; Pope Nicholas V renovated the main channels of the Roman "Aqua Virgo" in 1453. Many aqueducts in Rome's former empire were kept in good repair. The 15th-century rebuilding of an aqueduct at Segovia in Spain shows advances on the Pont du Gard by using fewer arches of greater height, and so greater economy in its use of the raw materials. The skill in building aqueducts was not lost, especially of the smaller, more modest channels used to supply water wheels. Most such mills in Britain were developed in the medieval period for bread production, and used similar methods as that developed by the Romans with leats tapping local rivers and streams.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: The 2007–08 Premier League (known as the Barclays Premier League for sponsorship reasons) season was the 16th since its establishment. The first matches of the season were played on 11 August 2007, and the season ended on 11 May 2008. Manchester United went into the 2007–08 season as the Premier League's defending champions, having won their ninth Premier League title and sixteenth league championship overall the previous season. This season was also the third consecutive season to see the "Big Four" continue their stranglehold on the top four spots (which mean UEFA Champions League qualification).


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: The first goal of the season was scored by Michael Chopra, who scored a 94th-minute winner for Sunderland against Tottenham in the early kick-off. The first red card of the season was given to Reading's Dave Kitson after a challenge on Patrice Evra in their opening game against Manchester United. The first hat-trick was scored by Emmanuel Adebayor in the match between Arsenal and Derby County.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: On 29 September 2007, Portsmouth beat Reading 7–4 in the highest-scoring match in Premier League history. On 15 December 2007, both Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn Rovers) and Marcus Bent (Wigan Athletic) scored hat-tricks during Wigan's 5–3 home win over Blackburn. This was the first occasion in Premier League history that two players on opposing teams had scored hat-tricks during the same match.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: On 29 March 2008, Derby County drew 2–2 with Fulham while Birmingham City, who were 17th in the table at the time, beat Manchester City 3–1, to make Derby County the first team in Premier League history to be relegated in March, ending the season with an all-time top flight record low points tally of just 11.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: On 11 May 2008, the final day of the season, Manchester United beat Wigan Athletic 2–0 while Chelsea drew 1–1 with Bolton Wanderers, thus crowning Manchester United with their tenth Premier League title, and 17th championship overall, just one behind Liverpool's total of 18. Meanwhile, despite Birmingham beating Blackburn Rovers 4–1 and Reading beating Derby 4–0, both Birmingham and Reading were relegated due to Fulham's 1–0 win over Portsmouth. This meant that Fulham avoided relegation by a goal difference of −22, compared to Reading's −25. On the same day, Middlesbrough beat Manchester City 8–1 to claim the biggest win of the season.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: The season was notable for the return of the English league to the top of UEFA's official ranking list, overtaking La Liga for the period from 1 May 2008 to 30 April 2009. This followed the success of English clubs in the UEFA Champions League, with both champions Manchester United and runners-up Chelsea reaching the European Cup final. This was the first time that the English league had topped the UEFA rankings since the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: Twenty teams competed in the league – the top seventeen teams from the previous season and the three teams promoted from the Championship. The promoted teams were Sunderland, Birmingham City (both teams returning after a season's absence) and Derby County (returning after a five-year absence). They replaced Sheffield United, Charlton Athletic and Watford. The previous season had seen Sheffield United and Watford both suffer an immediate return to the Championship, while Charlton Athletic were relegated after a seven-year top flight spell.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: In addition, Premier League officials were supplied with new kit made by Umbro, replacing American makers Official Sports, and are sponsored by Air Asia, replacing Emirates. The 2007–08 season saw a new font used for the names on the back of players' shirts.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: Cristiano Ronaldo won the Premier League Player of the Season accolade for the second season in succession.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: The PFA Players' Player of the Year award for 2008 was won by Cristiano Ronaldo for the second year in a row.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: Defence: Bacary Sagna, Gaël Clichy (both Arsenal), Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidić (both Manchester United)


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: Midfield: Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United), Cesc Fàbregas (Arsenal), Ashley Young (Aston Villa)