And, since we may not get a chance to visit this topic again for a while...
The word levee [is] from the French word levée (from the feminine past participle of the French verb lever, "to raise").
(re "dike"): In Anglo-Saxon, the word dic already existed and was pronounced with a hard c in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or the bank.
This seems like a much more logical solution for agricultural areas than huge levees walling in the river: not only does it protect the house, but with proper river-levee management, allows the silt-rich water to gently cover the farmland. Down-stream flood-control and seasonal fertilizer all in one!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds good, jsb, but I've remember seeing photos of flood deposits that were mostly sand, ruining farmland. Perhaps an engineer would have a more definitive answer or relevant link.
ReplyDeleteThat's really a thing of beauty, isn't it? An environmental sculpture.
ReplyDeleteAs to silt vs. sand, that surely depends on a number of different factors. I don't know anything about this area or this flood, but the annual Nile inundations used to fertilize the surrounding area with rich silt, so sand deposits aren't the only possibility.
--Swift Loris
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ReplyDeletethank you for this picture
ReplyDelete