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Aboiteau
Aboiteau farming on reclaimed marshland is a labor-intensive method in which earthen dikes are constructed to stop high tides from inundating marshland. A wooden sluice or aboiteau (plural aboiteaux) is built into the dike, with a hinged door (clapper valve) that swings open at low tide to allow fresh water to drain from the farmland but swings shut at high tide to prevent salt water from inundating the fields. After several years, the rainwater drained from the marsh eliminates the soil's salinity, making it suitable for farming. Aboiteau farming is intimately linked with the story of French Acadian colonization of the shores of Canada's Bay of Fundy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Acadians constructed earthen dikes to isolate areas of salt marsh from repeated inundation by the tides. Noted Acadian dikes include the diking of the tidal marshes at Grand-Pré (in contemporary Nova Scotia) in the early 1680s. Around 1755, 13,000 acres of salt marsh were reclaimed using this d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Levee
A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines. The purpose of a levee is to keep the course of rivers from changing and to protect against flooding of the area adjoining the river or coast. Levees can be naturally occurring ridge structures that form next to the bank of a river, or be an artificially constructed fill or wall that regulates water levels. Ancient civilizations in the Indus Valley, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China all built levees. Today, levees can be found around the world, and failures of levees due to erosion or other causes can be major disasters. Etymology Speakers of American English (notably in the Midwest and Deep South) use the word ''levee'', from the French word (from the feminine past participle of the French verb , 'to raise'). It originat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
