Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. It was referred to as the Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover in bills passed by Congress during its construction; it was named the Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. The Hoover Dam name was restored by Congress in 1947.
Irrigation is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been developed by many cultures around the world. Irrigation helps to grow crops, maintain landscapes, and revegetate disturbed soils in dry areas and during times of below-average rainfall. In addition to these uses, irrigation is also employed to protect crops from frost, suppress weed growth in grain fields, and prevent soil consolidation. It is also used to cool livestock, reduce dust, dispose of sewage, and support mining operations. Drainage, which involves the removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given location, is often studied in conjunction with irrigation.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to agriculture:
The Reclamation Act of 1902 is a United States federal law that funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of 20 states in the American West.
Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in soil desalination, which is an issue for agriculture. Saltwater is desalinated to produce water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. The by-product of the desalination process is brine. Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on cost-effective provision of fresh water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, it is one of the few rainfall-independent water resources.
The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operation of the diversion, delivery, and storage projects that it has built throughout the western United States for irrigation, water supply, and attendant hydroelectric power generation. It is currently the U.S.'s largest wholesaler of water, bringing water to more than 31 million people, and providing one in five Western farmers with irrigation water for 10 million acres of farmland, which produce 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts. The Bureau is also the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the western U.S.
Colorado State University is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". It was founded in 1870 as Colorado Agricultural College, and in 1935 was renamed the Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. In 1957, the Colorado General Assembly approved its current name, Colorado State University.
In engineering, macro-engineering is the implementation of large-scale design projects. It can be seen as a branch of civil engineering or structural engineering applied on a large landmass. In particular, macro-engineering is the process of marshaling and managing of resources and technology on a large scale to carry out complex tasks that last over a long period. In contrast to conventional engineering projects, macro-engineering projects are multidisciplinary, involving collaboration from all fields of study. Because of the size of macro-projects they are usually international.
Elwood Mead was an American professor, government official, and engineer known for heading the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1924 until his death in 1936. During his tenure, he oversaw some of the most complex projects the Bureau of Reclamation has undertaken. These included the Hoover, Grand Coulee and Owyhee dams.
Sanitary engineering, also known as public health engineering or wastewater engineering, is the application of engineering methods to improve sanitation of human communities, primarily by providing the removal and disposal of human waste, and in addition to the supply of safe potable water. Traditionally a branch of civil engineering and now a subset of environmental engineering, in the mid-19th century, the discipline concentrated on the reduction of disease, then thought to be caused by miasma. This was accomplished mainly by the collection and segregation of sewerage flow in London specifically, and Great Britain generally. These and later regulatory improvements were reported in the United States as early as 1865.
The Gunnison Tunnel is an irrigation tunnel constructed between 1905 and 1909 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Montrose County, Colorado. The 5.8-mile-long (9.3 km) tunnel diverts water from the Gunnison River to the arid Uncompahgre Valley around Montrose, Colorado.
A seawater greenhouse is a greenhouse structure that enables the growth of crops and the production of fresh water in arid regions which constitute about one third of the earth's land area. This in response to the global water scarcity and peak water and the salt-infecting soil. The system uses seawater and solar energy. It uses a similar structure to the pad-and-fan greenhouse, but with additional evaporators and condensers. The seawater is pumped into the greenhouse to create a cool and humid environment, the optimal conditions for the cultivation of temperate crops. The freshwater is produced in a condensed state created by the solar desalination principle, which removes salt and impurities. Finally, the remaining humidified air is expelled from the greenhouse and used to improve growing conditions for outdoor plants.
California's interconnected water system serves over 30 million people and irrigates over 5,680,000 acres (2,300,000 ha) of farmland. As the world's largest, most productive, and potentially most controversial water system, it manages over 40 million acre-feet (49 km3) of water per year.
Frederick C. Finkle was an American consulting engineer and geologist. He was Chief Engineer or Consulting Engineer on eighteen major dams to impound water for domestic use, power and irrigation in California and other Western States.
Desert greening is the process of afforestation or revegetation of deserts for ecological restoration (biodiversity), sustainable farming and forestry, but also for reclamation of natural water systems and other ecological systems that support life. The term "desert greening" is intended to apply to both cold and hot arid and semi-arid deserts. It does not apply to ice capped or permafrost regions. Desert greening has the potential to help solve global water, energy, and food crises. It pertains to roughly 32 million square kilometres of land.
John Lucian Savage was an American civil engineer. Among the 60 major dams he supervised the designs for, he is best known for the Hoover Dam, Shasta Dam, Parker Dam and Grand Coulee Dam in the United States along with surveying for the future Three Gorges Dam in China. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the recipient of numerous awards including the John Fritz Medal.
The Yuma Project is a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation project built to irrigate over 68,000 acres (280 km2) of land in Yuma County, Arizona and parts of Imperial County, California. The project is designed to exploit year-round farming conditions and water from the Colorado River. It consists of the Laguna Diversion Dam, pumping plants, a power plant, a 53-mile (85 km) system of canals, 218 miles (351 km) of lateral canals, levees and drains. The project began in 1903 and the majority of the work was completed by 1915. It was the first dam and reclamation project on the Colorado River and workers had to overcome many natural and logistical obstacles to build and maintain it. The Laguna Diversion Dam was replaced by the Imperial Dam as the Project's water source between 1941 and 1948. Today, it serves 275 farms and over 94,000 people.
Louis Rea "Doug" Douglass was an American civil engineer. He spent more than 20 years with the United States Bureau of Reclamation and was in charge of Hoover Dam and the surrounding park land for four years.
Louis George Carpenter, was a college Professor and later the Dean of Engineering & Physics at Colorado State University formerly known as the Colorado Agricultural College. He was also a mathematician and an irrigation and consulting engineer.
The IBTS greenhouse is a biotectural, urban development project suited for hot arid deserts. It was part of the Egyptian strategy for the afforestation of desert lands from 2011 until spring of 2015, when geopolitical changes like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Sinai Province in Egypt forced the project to a halt. The project begun in spring 2007 as an academic study in urban development and desert greening. It was further developed by N. Berdellé and D. Voelker as a private project until 2011. Afterwards LivingDesert Group including Prof. Abdel Ghany El Gindy and Dr. Mosaad Kotb from the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate in Egypt, Forestry Scientist Hany El-Kateb, Agroecologist Wil van Eijsden and permaculturist Sepp Holzer was created to introduce the finished project in Egypt.
