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Dujiangyan's Numbers: Two Thousand Years of Irrigation Data
Flow Ratios, Channel Dimensions, and the Arithmetic of Survival

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Dujiangyan's Numbers: Two Thousand Years of Irrigation Data Two thousand years before concrete dams, Chinese engineers built a water system that still runs on gravity, geometry, and a 60/40 flow split—no moving parts, no modern sensors, just hydraulic arithmetic refined across twenty-three centuries. *Dujiangyan's Numbers* strips away the myths to reveal the quantified skeleton of the world's oldest functioning irrigation network: the exact cross-sections that force a violent mountain river to sort its own silt, the bedrock sills that throttle flood peaks, the annual dredging depths recorded dynasty after dynasty, and the submerged benchmarks that turned a river into a self-regulating machine.

From Qin dynasty acreage surveys to Song hydraulic registers, from Ming tributary gauges to twentieth-century stream measurements that stunned modern hydrologists, this book assembles the complete quantitative biography of the Min River's mastery. You'll trace how channel width ratios at Yulei Pass govern discharge capacity, how the Feisha Yan spillway dissipates kinetic energy through geometry alone, and how generations of magistrates translated labor inputs and material volumes into a maintenance calculus that outlasted every empire. The data is rigorous, the engineering is elegant, and the lesson is urgent: sustainability is not a philosophy—it is a set of numbers that balance.

Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: The Topographic Gradient: Min River Hydrology and the Chengdu Plain
  • Chapter 2: The 60/40 Split: Volumetric Flow Ratios at Yuzui Bypass
  • Chapter 3: Channel Geometries: Cross-Sectional Area and Hydraulic Radius
  • Chapter 4: The Bedrock Sill: Elevation Metrics of the Baiping Sluice and Outer Channel
  • Chapter 5: Cutting the Mountain: Dimensional Analysis of the Feisha Yan Spillway
  • Chapter 6: The Bottle-Neck Gage: Flow Capacity and Width Ratios of Yulei Pass
  • Chapter 7: Sediment Dynamics: Coarse Bedload Volume and Annually Displaced Silt
  • Chapter 8: The Annual Dredging Depth: The Quantitative Rule of "Deep Bed, Low Weir"
  • Chapter 9: Iron Pillars and Datum Marks: Calibration History of the Submerged Benchmarks
  • Chapter 10: Seasonal Fluxes: Flood Peak Volumes versus Spring Irrigation Baselines
  • Chapter 11: Expansion Metrics: Qin Dynasty Acreage to Tang Dynasty Canal Networks
  • Chapter 12: Song and Ming Surveys: Registering Land Area and Tributary Flow Rates
  • Chapter 13: The Qing Dynasty Cadastral Record: Mapping Cubic Meters per Mou
  • Chapter 14: Twentieth-Century Stream Gauging: Modern Measurement Meets Ancient Hydraulics
  • Chapter 15: Hydraulic Force: Velocity Profiles and Kinetic Energy Dissipation
  • Chapter 16: The Inner River System: Sub-Channel Flow Ratios and Canal Branching
  • Chapter 17: The Outer River System: Flood Discharge Capacities and Overflow Channels
  • Chapter 18: Silt Transport Ratios: Suspended Load Mechanics at the Fish Mouth
  • Chapter 19: Maintenance Calculus: Labor Inputs and Material Quantities Across Centuries
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Author:

Laura K. Butler

Published By:

MixCache.com Extended Catalog

Type:

Nonfiction

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