For a century and a half, people have held that Angkor’s water-management networks were an import... more For a century and a half, people have held that Angkor’s water-management networks were an important basis for its six centuries as a major power in Southeast Asia. Bernard-Philippe Groslier coined the term “cité hydraulique” (hydraulic city) to refer to the large urban areas, whose populations relied on these networks, and hypothesised that their failures contributed to Angkor’s decline. This conjecture has been both criticised and supported widely. In this chapter, we apply simple hydraulics to the available archaeological evidence to argue that, while there is some evidence for irrigation, the water is most unlikely to have been discharged from the reservoirs. We suggest instead that these large reservoirs were to serve as monuments to the power and prestige of the rulers, particularly when it was important to establish their legitimacy after gaining the throne.
A survey has found that it would be desirable to preserve representative catchments in Eastern N.... more A survey has found that it would be desirable to preserve representative catchments in Eastern N.S.W., so that they can be available as references for scientific studies of water and land resources. Scientists and water engineers in N.S.W. and interstate were asked if they considered it useful to preserve representative catchments, and if so, what sizes of undisturbed area they would prefer. At the same time as the above investigation, it was required that catchments which were representative, should be selected. However, it was first necessary to decide which areas were sufficiently similar to each other, to be considered as belonging to the same group. This was finally resolved using a cluster analysis in terms of four sets of parameters, which described respectively soil moisture, soil type, temperature and vegetation structure.
Methods are presented for estimating the average annual damage for situations where coastal (or e... more Methods are presented for estimating the average annual damage for situations where coastal (or estuarine) property is subject to damage from storms or tsunamis. The cases considered are: (1) constant hazard, repairable damage; (2) variable hazard, repairable damage (e.g., deteriorating protection), (3) constant hazard, irreparable damage; (4) variable hazard, irreparable damage (e.g., coastal retreat or rising sea level modifies the damage potential). Estimates of damage are presented as average annual damage or present worth of damage, both forms being capable of being used in the economic evaluation of proposals to mitigate coastal inundation.
The aeolian-induced cyclic meandering of the North Arm of the Gascoyne River, an ephemeral deltai... more The aeolian-induced cyclic meandering of the North Arm of the Gascoyne River, an ephemeral deltaic river mouth to provide Babbage Island with permanent access which would allow development is discussed. The cycle period on the Gascoyne River appears to be between 800 and 1500 years; and it is estimated that once the Gascoyne has prograded another 3 to 5kms, a new channel could form elsewhere, probably in the north.
Pre-construction design assumptions of maintenance dredging rates in the Inner Harbour and Approa... more Pre-construction design assumptions of maintenance dredging rates in the Inner Harbour and Approach Channel at Port Hedland are compared with measurements taken since construction dredging ceased in 1970. Soundings, probings, current metering, sampling of suspended and bottom sediments, float tracking and aerial photographs, have all provided a better understanding of the distribution, movement, and sources of sediment in dredged portions of the Harbour. This should help planning for future development and maintenance. Tentative relationships have been established for predicting the sediment deposition rate and particle size at locations in the Inner Harbour, using tidal currents measured on a rigid bed tidal model. It has been concluded that cyclones do not significantly affect the spoil bank or Approach Channel stability, and overall maintenance dredging at Port Hedland is not excessive.
It is suggested that thermodynamics can provide a single measure to evaluate the effects on the e... more It is suggested that thermodynamics can provide a single measure to evaluate the effects on the environment of a change in human activity. A function D called the 'local development' is derived from the thermodynamic local of Glansdorff and Prigogine. The change in D following a change in human activity is suggested as a measure of environmental impact. It is shown that a wide range of environmental changes give consistent values of this measure and related sub-measures which are based on entropy, energy and time. It is that these criteria be used to evaluate projects instead of money, so that resource and environmental assets could be taken more into account. Such criteria and associated subcriteria are discussed, indicating their applications to project evaluation. The procedures could not differ much from evaluations with money as the basic criterion. However, the components would have different relative values depending on the proportions and money costs of negative entr...
Some form of multiple objective planning has now become the stated procedure for making design an... more Some form of multiple objective planning has now become the stated procedure for making design and operating decisions by a number of water authorities. There remain considerable disagreement and confusion about the detailed procedures to be followed, both in Australia and other countries. Included in the disagreement and confusion is the question as to just what objectives are to be taken into account. Two opposing views on this question are presented in this paper in an attempt to bring the issue into sharper focus. The difference between the views centres on whether a "level of performance" objective should be included or not. The "level of performance" could be measured as, for instance, reliability of supply, recurrence interval of flooding, or, in some situations, some appropriate index of potentially catastrophic but rare situations. One view, put forward by the first author, has it that such an objective with its measure o f performance must be explicitly addressed. The opposing view, by the second author, has the value of this measure of performance emerge as a characteristic of the final design. This discussion, illuminating some of the salient features of multiple objective planning is presented in an effort to reduce some of the confusion surrounding the topic.
It is not generally realised how much geographic influences affect floodplain management in New S... more It is not generally realised how much geographic influences affect floodplain management in New South Wales and New Zealand. In NSW, there can be three or four tiers of government concerned with a particular floodplain problem. In NZ, there can be two or three. NZ, being mountainous, has much less flood-free land suitable for residences than NSW. The consequent concentrations of populations in NZ's floodplains have made stopbanks (or levees) a very attractive strategy for flood mitigation. This wide use of stopbanks has led to NZ floodplain managers accepting levels of flood protection other than the 1% level more readily than their NSW counterparts. On the other hand, NSW has been more willing to use non-structural or avoidance strategies than NZ. NSW floodplain managers tend to require there to be long warning times before considering it worthwhile putting in a warning system, but NZ managers make do with very short times. The unavailability of flood insurance in NSW has resul...
Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (A... more Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (April 2015).
Groslier Bernard-Philippe, Lustig Terry, Pottier Christophe. The Angkorian Hydraulic City: Exploi... more Groslier Bernard-Philippe, Lustig Terry, Pottier Christophe. The Angkorian Hydraulic City: Exploitation or Over-Exploitation of the Soil ?. In: Aséanie 20, 2007. pp. 141-185
Ground penetrating radar, probing, and excavation were used to create a contour map of the topogr... more Ground penetrating radar, probing, and excavation were used to create a contour map of the topography of a buried laterite pavement forming the spillway of a large abandoned reservoir at the Angkorian-period city of Koh Ker in Cambodia. Calculations of the flow velocity of water through the spillway, based on the topography of the laterite surface, demonstrate that this outlet was even less adequate for passing the flow of water from the Stung Rongea catchment than had been estimated previously by Lustig, Klassen, Evans, French, & Moffat (2018). We argue that this design flaw contributed substantially to the failure of the reservoir's dike, possibly during the first rainy season after construction, which may have contributed to Koh Ker's remarkably short-lived tenure as the political center of the Khmer Empire.
We argue in this article that the social and economic conditions in the Angkorian society of the ... more We argue in this article that the social and economic conditions in the Angkorian society of the tenth century or earlier contributed to the decline in status of some middle-level officials, as is evident from the mid-eleventh century. Many Angkorian inscriptions written between the late ninth and late twelfth centuries record purchases and donations of lands acquired for religious foundations. The texts often contain details of transactions and disputes seeking to validate title to these holdings. The buyers include middle-rankingloñandvāp, and increasingly, higher-ranking officials. An analysis of the roles and activities of the officials reveals something of their relative status and helps explain the disappearance ofvāpfrom the inscriptions in the eleventh century, and the relegation ofloñto temple roles by the twelfth century. The transfer of communal lands and lands owned by these officials to elites is attributed to hierarchical restrictions on land purchases, a reduction in ...
Few Angkorian temple inscriptions contain data on revenues and scheduling of resources in a manne... more Few Angkorian temple inscriptions contain data on revenues and scheduling of resources in a manner that is both comprehensive and coherent. As a result, the operations of Angkor’s temples and āśrama are not well understood. Yet it must have been important for foundations to keep records to ensure their sustainability, particularly of offerings to deities and maintenance of personnel, in some cases numbering into the thousands. This paper uses an accounting approach to shed some light on the modes of support for workers of religious establishments. Prime uncertainties addressed in the process are varying scales of weights and measures for rice, and volumetric relationships between different forms of rice. Working back from stated quantities of rice and paddy, at times unrealistically precise, we deduce that the auditors adopted a ratio of 2 when calculating the conversion of paddy to rice, rather than the 2.5 commonly used in contemporary Indian texts. We also reevaluate the frequenc...
Meticulous survey of the banks, channels and reservoirs at Angkor shows them to have been part of... more Meticulous survey of the banks, channels and reservoirs at Angkor shows them to have been part of a large scale water management network instigated in the ninth century AD. Water collected from the hills was stored and could have been distributed for a wide variety of purposes including flood control, agriculture and ritual while a system of overflows and bypasses carried surplus water away to the lake, the Tonle Sap, to the south. The network had a history of numerous additions and modifications. Earlier channels both distributed and disposed of water. From the twelfth century onwards the large new channels primarily disposed of water to the lake. The authors here present and document the latest definitive map of the water network of Angkor.
This paper examines the construction and design of a 7-km long embankment, probably built for Kin... more This paper examines the construction and design of a 7-km long embankment, probably built for King Jayavarman IV between 928 and 941 CE, as part of a new capital. We calculate that the capacities of the outlets were too small, and conclude that the embankment failed, probably within a decade of construction, so that the benefits of the reservoir stored by the embankment and the access road on top of it were lessened substantially. We explain how the design was sub-optimal for construction, and that while the layout had a high aesthetic impact, the processes for ensuring structural integrity were poor. Simple and inexpensive steps to secure the weir were not undertaken. We speculate that this early failure may have contributed to the decision to return the royal court and the capital of the Khmer Empire to the Angkor region, marking a critically important juncture in regional history.
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1986: River Basin Management; Preprints of Papers, 1986
A method for estimating intangible flood damages for any urban site in Australia is presented. Th... more A method for estimating intangible flood damages for any urban site in Australia is presented. The method suits sites with recent flooding as well as those without flood experience. Damages are assessed in terms of lost time which should avoid many of the arguments associated with placing monetary values on intangibles. It is still possible for monetary values to be used, provided an agreed value of time can be arrived at. Although the results do not cover all aspects of intangible flood damages they have proven quite ...
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1988: Preprints of Papers, 1988
Following the August 1986 flood, detailed surveys of flood-prone properties in the Georges River,... more Following the August 1986 flood, detailed surveys of flood-prone properties in the Georges River, Prospect and Toongabbie Creek catchments of western Sydney were undertaken to: estimate tangible and intangible flood damage; estimate the damages averted by the actions of those flooded; and examine the flood warning system. The damage data and analysis of the flood warning system will be presented together with the implications and recommendations for urban floodplain management policy.
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1986: River Basin Management; Preprints of Papers, 1986
Although the differences between the actual and potential flood damages are often small, the rati... more Although the differences between the actual and potential flood damages are often small, the ratio of actual to potential damages (A/P) can be quite low, where the warning time and/or the preparedness of the community are high. A simple set of curves for estimating A/P of residential and commercial establishments, as a function of warning time and preparedness, is presented together with a procedure for estimating the preparedness of a community, as a function of transience of the population and the recurrence interval of ...
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1986: River Basin Management; Preprints of Papers, 1986
Procedures are outlined for the assessment of direct and indirect flood damage to urban communiti... more Procedures are outlined for the assessment of direct and indirect flood damage to urban communities. These consider damage to residential, commercial and industrial property together with losses to infrastructure and to the disruption of traffic flows. The usefulness of the technique as a basis for the provision of flood insurance is discussed. The methodology provided a quick and consistent means of assessing urban flood damage throughout Australia.
For a century and a half, people have held that Angkor’s water-management networks were an import... more For a century and a half, people have held that Angkor’s water-management networks were an important basis for its six centuries as a major power in Southeast Asia. Bernard-Philippe Groslier coined the term “cité hydraulique” (hydraulic city) to refer to the large urban areas, whose populations relied on these networks, and hypothesised that their failures contributed to Angkor’s decline. This conjecture has been both criticised and supported widely. In this chapter, we apply simple hydraulics to the available archaeological evidence to argue that, while there is some evidence for irrigation, the water is most unlikely to have been discharged from the reservoirs. We suggest instead that these large reservoirs were to serve as monuments to the power and prestige of the rulers, particularly when it was important to establish their legitimacy after gaining the throne.
A survey has found that it would be desirable to preserve representative catchments in Eastern N.... more A survey has found that it would be desirable to preserve representative catchments in Eastern N.S.W., so that they can be available as references for scientific studies of water and land resources. Scientists and water engineers in N.S.W. and interstate were asked if they considered it useful to preserve representative catchments, and if so, what sizes of undisturbed area they would prefer. At the same time as the above investigation, it was required that catchments which were representative, should be selected. However, it was first necessary to decide which areas were sufficiently similar to each other, to be considered as belonging to the same group. This was finally resolved using a cluster analysis in terms of four sets of parameters, which described respectively soil moisture, soil type, temperature and vegetation structure.
Methods are presented for estimating the average annual damage for situations where coastal (or e... more Methods are presented for estimating the average annual damage for situations where coastal (or estuarine) property is subject to damage from storms or tsunamis. The cases considered are: (1) constant hazard, repairable damage; (2) variable hazard, repairable damage (e.g., deteriorating protection), (3) constant hazard, irreparable damage; (4) variable hazard, irreparable damage (e.g., coastal retreat or rising sea level modifies the damage potential). Estimates of damage are presented as average annual damage or present worth of damage, both forms being capable of being used in the economic evaluation of proposals to mitigate coastal inundation.
The aeolian-induced cyclic meandering of the North Arm of the Gascoyne River, an ephemeral deltai... more The aeolian-induced cyclic meandering of the North Arm of the Gascoyne River, an ephemeral deltaic river mouth to provide Babbage Island with permanent access which would allow development is discussed. The cycle period on the Gascoyne River appears to be between 800 and 1500 years; and it is estimated that once the Gascoyne has prograded another 3 to 5kms, a new channel could form elsewhere, probably in the north.
Pre-construction design assumptions of maintenance dredging rates in the Inner Harbour and Approa... more Pre-construction design assumptions of maintenance dredging rates in the Inner Harbour and Approach Channel at Port Hedland are compared with measurements taken since construction dredging ceased in 1970. Soundings, probings, current metering, sampling of suspended and bottom sediments, float tracking and aerial photographs, have all provided a better understanding of the distribution, movement, and sources of sediment in dredged portions of the Harbour. This should help planning for future development and maintenance. Tentative relationships have been established for predicting the sediment deposition rate and particle size at locations in the Inner Harbour, using tidal currents measured on a rigid bed tidal model. It has been concluded that cyclones do not significantly affect the spoil bank or Approach Channel stability, and overall maintenance dredging at Port Hedland is not excessive.
It is suggested that thermodynamics can provide a single measure to evaluate the effects on the e... more It is suggested that thermodynamics can provide a single measure to evaluate the effects on the environment of a change in human activity. A function D called the 'local development' is derived from the thermodynamic local of Glansdorff and Prigogine. The change in D following a change in human activity is suggested as a measure of environmental impact. It is shown that a wide range of environmental changes give consistent values of this measure and related sub-measures which are based on entropy, energy and time. It is that these criteria be used to evaluate projects instead of money, so that resource and environmental assets could be taken more into account. Such criteria and associated subcriteria are discussed, indicating their applications to project evaluation. The procedures could not differ much from evaluations with money as the basic criterion. However, the components would have different relative values depending on the proportions and money costs of negative entr...
Some form of multiple objective planning has now become the stated procedure for making design an... more Some form of multiple objective planning has now become the stated procedure for making design and operating decisions by a number of water authorities. There remain considerable disagreement and confusion about the detailed procedures to be followed, both in Australia and other countries. Included in the disagreement and confusion is the question as to just what objectives are to be taken into account. Two opposing views on this question are presented in this paper in an attempt to bring the issue into sharper focus. The difference between the views centres on whether a "level of performance" objective should be included or not. The "level of performance" could be measured as, for instance, reliability of supply, recurrence interval of flooding, or, in some situations, some appropriate index of potentially catastrophic but rare situations. One view, put forward by the first author, has it that such an objective with its measure o f performance must be explicitly addressed. The opposing view, by the second author, has the value of this measure of performance emerge as a characteristic of the final design. This discussion, illuminating some of the salient features of multiple objective planning is presented in an effort to reduce some of the confusion surrounding the topic.
It is not generally realised how much geographic influences affect floodplain management in New S... more It is not generally realised how much geographic influences affect floodplain management in New South Wales and New Zealand. In NSW, there can be three or four tiers of government concerned with a particular floodplain problem. In NZ, there can be two or three. NZ, being mountainous, has much less flood-free land suitable for residences than NSW. The consequent concentrations of populations in NZ's floodplains have made stopbanks (or levees) a very attractive strategy for flood mitigation. This wide use of stopbanks has led to NZ floodplain managers accepting levels of flood protection other than the 1% level more readily than their NSW counterparts. On the other hand, NSW has been more willing to use non-structural or avoidance strategies than NZ. NSW floodplain managers tend to require there to be long warning times before considering it worthwhile putting in a warning system, but NZ managers make do with very short times. The unavailability of flood insurance in NSW has resul...
Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (A... more Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (April 2015).
Groslier Bernard-Philippe, Lustig Terry, Pottier Christophe. The Angkorian Hydraulic City: Exploi... more Groslier Bernard-Philippe, Lustig Terry, Pottier Christophe. The Angkorian Hydraulic City: Exploitation or Over-Exploitation of the Soil ?. In: Aséanie 20, 2007. pp. 141-185
Ground penetrating radar, probing, and excavation were used to create a contour map of the topogr... more Ground penetrating radar, probing, and excavation were used to create a contour map of the topography of a buried laterite pavement forming the spillway of a large abandoned reservoir at the Angkorian-period city of Koh Ker in Cambodia. Calculations of the flow velocity of water through the spillway, based on the topography of the laterite surface, demonstrate that this outlet was even less adequate for passing the flow of water from the Stung Rongea catchment than had been estimated previously by Lustig, Klassen, Evans, French, & Moffat (2018). We argue that this design flaw contributed substantially to the failure of the reservoir's dike, possibly during the first rainy season after construction, which may have contributed to Koh Ker's remarkably short-lived tenure as the political center of the Khmer Empire.
We argue in this article that the social and economic conditions in the Angkorian society of the ... more We argue in this article that the social and economic conditions in the Angkorian society of the tenth century or earlier contributed to the decline in status of some middle-level officials, as is evident from the mid-eleventh century. Many Angkorian inscriptions written between the late ninth and late twelfth centuries record purchases and donations of lands acquired for religious foundations. The texts often contain details of transactions and disputes seeking to validate title to these holdings. The buyers include middle-rankingloñandvāp, and increasingly, higher-ranking officials. An analysis of the roles and activities of the officials reveals something of their relative status and helps explain the disappearance ofvāpfrom the inscriptions in the eleventh century, and the relegation ofloñto temple roles by the twelfth century. The transfer of communal lands and lands owned by these officials to elites is attributed to hierarchical restrictions on land purchases, a reduction in ...
Few Angkorian temple inscriptions contain data on revenues and scheduling of resources in a manne... more Few Angkorian temple inscriptions contain data on revenues and scheduling of resources in a manner that is both comprehensive and coherent. As a result, the operations of Angkor’s temples and āśrama are not well understood. Yet it must have been important for foundations to keep records to ensure their sustainability, particularly of offerings to deities and maintenance of personnel, in some cases numbering into the thousands. This paper uses an accounting approach to shed some light on the modes of support for workers of religious establishments. Prime uncertainties addressed in the process are varying scales of weights and measures for rice, and volumetric relationships between different forms of rice. Working back from stated quantities of rice and paddy, at times unrealistically precise, we deduce that the auditors adopted a ratio of 2 when calculating the conversion of paddy to rice, rather than the 2.5 commonly used in contemporary Indian texts. We also reevaluate the frequenc...
Meticulous survey of the banks, channels and reservoirs at Angkor shows them to have been part of... more Meticulous survey of the banks, channels and reservoirs at Angkor shows them to have been part of a large scale water management network instigated in the ninth century AD. Water collected from the hills was stored and could have been distributed for a wide variety of purposes including flood control, agriculture and ritual while a system of overflows and bypasses carried surplus water away to the lake, the Tonle Sap, to the south. The network had a history of numerous additions and modifications. Earlier channels both distributed and disposed of water. From the twelfth century onwards the large new channels primarily disposed of water to the lake. The authors here present and document the latest definitive map of the water network of Angkor.
This paper examines the construction and design of a 7-km long embankment, probably built for Kin... more This paper examines the construction and design of a 7-km long embankment, probably built for King Jayavarman IV between 928 and 941 CE, as part of a new capital. We calculate that the capacities of the outlets were too small, and conclude that the embankment failed, probably within a decade of construction, so that the benefits of the reservoir stored by the embankment and the access road on top of it were lessened substantially. We explain how the design was sub-optimal for construction, and that while the layout had a high aesthetic impact, the processes for ensuring structural integrity were poor. Simple and inexpensive steps to secure the weir were not undertaken. We speculate that this early failure may have contributed to the decision to return the royal court and the capital of the Khmer Empire to the Angkor region, marking a critically important juncture in regional history.
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1986: River Basin Management; Preprints of Papers, 1986
A method for estimating intangible flood damages for any urban site in Australia is presented. Th... more A method for estimating intangible flood damages for any urban site in Australia is presented. The method suits sites with recent flooding as well as those without flood experience. Damages are assessed in terms of lost time which should avoid many of the arguments associated with placing monetary values on intangibles. It is still possible for monetary values to be used, provided an agreed value of time can be arrived at. Although the results do not cover all aspects of intangible flood damages they have proven quite ...
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1988: Preprints of Papers, 1988
Following the August 1986 flood, detailed surveys of flood-prone properties in the Georges River,... more Following the August 1986 flood, detailed surveys of flood-prone properties in the Georges River, Prospect and Toongabbie Creek catchments of western Sydney were undertaken to: estimate tangible and intangible flood damage; estimate the damages averted by the actions of those flooded; and examine the flood warning system. The damage data and analysis of the flood warning system will be presented together with the implications and recommendations for urban floodplain management policy.
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1986: River Basin Management; Preprints of Papers, 1986
Although the differences between the actual and potential flood damages are often small, the rati... more Although the differences between the actual and potential flood damages are often small, the ratio of actual to potential damages (A/P) can be quite low, where the warning time and/or the preparedness of the community are high. A simple set of curves for estimating A/P of residential and commercial establishments, as a function of warning time and preparedness, is presented together with a procedure for estimating the preparedness of a community, as a function of transience of the population and the recurrence interval of ...
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 1986: River Basin Management; Preprints of Papers, 1986
Procedures are outlined for the assessment of direct and indirect flood damage to urban communiti... more Procedures are outlined for the assessment of direct and indirect flood damage to urban communities. These consider damage to residential, commercial and industrial property together with losses to infrastructure and to the disruption of traffic flows. The usefulness of the technique as a basis for the provision of flood insurance is discussed. The methodology provided a quick and consistent means of assessing urban flood damage throughout Australia.
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Papers by Terry Lustig