
One of the oldest known human settlements is about to be flooded by a dam - pseudolus
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-03/ancient-city-hasankeyf-underwater
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iamsb
It is not just that we flood regions, but that we cause large scale 2nd order
events due to population migrations. Ataturk Dam in Turkey is at least partly
responsible for the mess in Syria due to severe multi year droughts.

~~~
thecosas
From the end of the article:

    
    
      The Turkish authorities began filling the reservoir last year but stopped after drought-plagued Iraq requested it keep the Tigris flowing. In this arid part of the world, locals fear the dam will spark “water wars” with Turkey’s neighbors who depend on the Tigris.
    
      Hasankeyf tourist guide Mazlum Yildirimer said he feared the dam will become a source of “endless problems.”
    
      “For the last 100 years, there have been problems with our neighbors because of a lack of water,” he said. “Changing the course of rivers changes the world.”

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joveian
The same thing was done in the US in the 50s with the oldest continuously
inhabited settlement in North America (possibly older than this one it seems):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celilo_Falls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celilo_Falls)

The falls still exist and could be restored if the dam was removed.

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OldArrow
Well it's sometimes better to give people drinking water than to have old
settlments.

[https://insamer.com/en/the-middle-eastern-water-crisis-
and-t...](https://insamer.com/en/the-middle-eastern-water-crisis-and-
turkey_1510.html)

~~~
beerandt
Kudos to that article for apparently writing with the general public as the
target audience, but still using proper technical terminology (including
thalwag, one of my favorites).

But an emerging principle in infrastructure design is that demand grows to
saturate supply, and that's not usually sustainable.

This is true for traffic on the interstate (people avoiding rush hour traffic,
until a lane is added) or for water availability (the existence of Las Vegas).

Engineers are uncomfortable with the concept, as it tends to veer into public
policy. In the case of flood risk management, us policy is catching up with
engineering, and FEMA has been offering block grants for relocation of flood
prone communities for some time now.

Sometimes the right answer is to help people move to an area that can sustain
them.

~~~
herdrick
There's nothing unsustainable about Las Vegas or Phoenix. The desert is a good
place to put a lot of people.

~~~
beerandt
I mostly agree, as it is today. But Vegas would not exist without the Hoover
Dam.

And I'm all for improving civic development and people's standard of living,
fully knowing that it's at some expense to nature. That still meets my
definition of practical sustainability.

That said...

The Hoover Dam does have a design life and an expiration date. From an
engineering perspective, that's sustainable as long as we have a replacement
or mitigation plan figured out and in place by that date.

As for right now, there are real present day environmental costs, up and down
river, and throughout the desert. The low flowrate of the lower Colorado
certainly is not sustainable, although it's also certainly not 100% due to the
Hoover dam. And Lake Mead is filling up much quicker than expected. Some
people see that the status quo can't last forever, and say that's not
sustainable.

It's not much different than New Orleans relationship with levees, although I
suspect few people have thought of it that way.

Either way, to think that Vegas could survive without the Hoover Dam is flat
out wrong. I'm not saying tear it down and move. I think it was the right
decision to build the dam when they did. But if it weren't built yet, would it
be the right decision to build it today? I doubt it, at least designed as is.

~~~
DollarGuru
How does a dam like Hoover effect the flow rate of water down stream after
filling the dam?

My assumption was that after the dam is filled the flow rate can be regulated
very close to pre dam levels of at least 95% flow rate factoring in any losses
due to evaporation.

~~~
beerandt
Because that's literally what it was designed to do. Absorb the floodwaters
and release them slowly.

All the water being siphoned out to supply Vegas and irrigation comes from
somewhere. And doesn't make it downstream. Plus all the water retained by
Urban build out (ponds, vegetation, pools) that normally would flow straight
into a river and head downstream.

Over burden pressure from the lake forces water into the ground. The
temperature of the water in the lake rises, causing chemical changes and
making evaporation downstream more likely. Sediment drops out of the water
column, allowing light to penetrate deeper than it normally would.

All of that is before you even get into the flow rate variance. Because winter
floods don't "flush out" the canyon, there are problems with sedimentation
downstream, which causes water to slow and evaporate more...

And this is just hydrology/hydraulics, before you touch _any_ of the
biological / ecological aspects.

It gets complicated, quickly.

Even if you assume it's only 5% evaporation reduction and exclude what's
pumped out, there are at least what? 15-20 major dams that feed the Colorado?
Even if you assume 3% times 15 dams, that's almost half the flow of the river,
before you even pump anything out.

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Accujack
Regrettably, humanity is not as advanced or kind a species as we think we are.
Politics and war mean that it's not possible to stop this dam.

On the bright side for the archaeology, the water will protect some parts of
the city, and in a century when the existing Turkish government is ashes and
dust, some of that will remain to be discovered.

That doesn't help the present residents, but given the situation in their
country (which we and other countries have contributed to) nothing will.

We're all to blame, because we share the world.

~~~
beerandt
I mean technically war (or just a few dropped bombs) _could_ stop this dam.
But I know that's not what you meant.

~~~
klingonopera
The RAF bombed dams in the Ruhr valley during WW2.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise)

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numtel
If/when the optimism for metal-organic frameworks is realized, we can finally
stop doing this.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPSYzLZ7xKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPSYzLZ7xKU)

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/crystalline-nets-
har...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/crystalline-nets-harvest-
water-desert-air-turn-carbon-dioxide-liquid-fuel)

~~~
briga
Deserts are already pretty fragile environments, seems like removing what
little moisture there is in the desert air could have some unintended
consequences. Large swaths of the USA are a few ecological disasters away from
becoming uninhabitable deserts.

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Grue3
>Despite local and international objections, the city and its archeological
sites are soon to be flooded due to the completion of the Ilisu Dam.

People who object to nuclear power often claim that in the worst case
scenario, the plant might blow up and render large area uninhabitable. And yet
we routinely flood settlements and fields with water for "clean reusable
energy" even before any energy is generated! And in the worst case scenario
the dam will burst and flood even more cities! Not sure how seismically active
this area is, but a nuclear plant near this town might've been more preferable
in all possible ways, including the amount of energy produced.

~~~
cmroanirgo
Nuclear power requires that we have safe nuclear storage facilities for the
next 10,000 years or so. That's a huge investment. Considering most Western
governments change hands every 4 years or so, then the vote to keep the
nuclear storage facilities maintained _must_ succeed at least 2500 times in a
row.

Also, do not forget that Fukashima is still an ongoing disaster that's only
just recently begun to stabilize.

~~~
bb88
Chernobyl was just restabilized after 30 years, and will have to be
restabilized again in another 100.

~~~
beerandt
No, the design lifespan of the new containment is 100 years, but
decommissioning will be finished before then.

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bitL
Can't they build a wall around? It can't be that big. If it's a site that
satisfies the largest number of UNESCO World Heritage criteria, maybe it could
be financed internationally?

~~~
coldacid
Turkey wouldn't allow it even if the money showed up. This dam is all about
control of the Tigris, and flooding the city is a bonus strike against the
Kurds as far as Ankara is concerned.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/ShW5z](http://archive.is/ShW5z)

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coldacid
>Over the millenniums

That's MILLENNIA!

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mirthflat83
dam, this sucks

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imvetri
Instead of commenting please use your network to let this be voiced to the
right person.

We already sinned Chernobyl.

