TRAVEL by Jing Zhang (1st. year 2012-2013)
A water well beside the canal in Venice
The invisible water system in Venice
Upon my arrival I saw many wells like this in Venice. And I am curious where does this non-stop water supply coming from and how is it served. Is it related with the canal beside it? So after getting back home I found information related to this.
Venice is built among the water but they cannot directly drink the water around. There is a big problem. Maybe they also have water pipes that conveys water from mountains or nearby lakes for use, as Roma, but I am not sure about it. What I will talk about is the rainwater collecting
system. Fortunately the region is not poor of rainfall, so Venetians have the tradition of saving rainwater for daily use.
Upon my arrival I saw many wells like this in Venice. And I am curious where does this non-stop water supply coming from and how is it served. So after getting back home I found information related to this.
Venice is built among the water but they cannot directly drink the water around. There is a big problem. Maybe they also have water pipes that conveys water from mountains or nearby lakes for use, as Roma, but I am not sure about it. What I will talk about is the rainwater collecting system. Fortunately the region is not poor of rainfall, so Venetians have the tradition of saving rainwater for daily use.
Here is the well in the Dodge Palace for collecting rainwater. The white tiles are the routes that rain is conducted into the bottom of the well. An example of how an independent rain water collection works.
There is of course a much bigger water system that connects the whole Venice together. As you see in the picture. This map shows a typical model of a city rainwater collecting tank. Rainwater will be conducted here, and stored. The pipe at the bottom supplies water for public buildings like water spring, shower room etc, while the pipes on the upper part supplies water for private homes. Thus, when there’s a shortage of water supply the private usages will be cut off first. And then, the water will be sent to every corner of the city within the pipes built inder the pavement showing in the picture below. Upper part is the clean water pipe, and down part is the sewer.
So when we look at the spring, the clean water will arrive via the clean water pipe, and they will flow into the sewer again.
