Drainage districts occur in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, varying in size from a few hundred acres to over , all in low-lying areas of the country where

flood risk management Flood risk management (FRM) aims to reduce the human and socio-economic losses caused by flooding and is part of the larger field of risk management. Flood risk management analyzes the relationships between physical systems and socio-economic envir ...

and land drainage are sensitive issues. Most drainage districts are administered by an

internal drainage board An internal drainage board (IDB) is a type of operating authority which is established in areas of special drainage need in England and Wales with permissive powers to undertake work to secure clean water drainage and water level management with ...

(IDB), which are single purpose local drainage authorities, dealing with the

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic condition ...

and

water level management Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

of clean water only. Each drainage district has a defined area, and the IDB only has powers to deal with matters affecting that area.

British Isles

Special drainage districts

Special drainage districts could be created for the built-up parts of rural area in England, under the provisions of the

Sewage Utilization Act 1865 Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged from residen ...

Sewage Utilization Act 1867 Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged from residen ...

Sanitary Act 1866 {{Infobox UK legislation , short_title=Sanitary Act 1866 , parliament=Parliament of the United Kingdom , long_title=An Act to amend the Law relating to the Public Health. , year=1866 , statute_book_chapter=29 & 30 Vict c 90 , introduced_by= , terr ...

and

Public Health Act 1872 In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

. The Public Health Act 1875 consolidated this legislation. The purpose of the special drainage district was to create a tax raising body to provide works in areas where there was no sanitary authority. They were renamed "special purpose areas" when rural district councils were created in 1894. The

Local Government Act 1929 The Local Government Act 1929 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made changes to the Poor Law and local government in England and Wales. The Act abolished the system of poor law unions in England and Wales and their board ...

permitted rural district councils to absorb the district and pay for works out of the general rate. This was enforced for all such areas by the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act 1944 and those remaining were abolished.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

has long been divided into approximately 35 ''waterschappen'', local authorities responsible for water quality and management, including

dikes Dyke (UK) or dike (US) may refer to: General uses * Dyke (slang), a slang word meaning "lesbian" * Dike (geology), a subvertical sheet-like intrusion of magma or sediment * Dike (mythology), ''Dikē'', the Greek goddess of moral justice * Dikes ...

and drainage. Of these, the ''

Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland The Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland is the oldest water authority in the Netherlands, having received commission to coordinate protection of the land from flooding in 1248 from Count William II of Holland and Zeeland. The council conducts surface ...

'', headquartered in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...

is the largest, and recent mergers have further enlarged it. The Dutch water boards have been democratically elected for most of the past millennium, making them some of the oldest democratic institutions in the world.

United States

Illinois

The state of

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

established a system of drainage districts in 1871. Drainage districts, run by drainage commissions, are able to levy property taxes to pay for the construction and maintenance drainage systems for the district. The

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

regional

Tunnel and Reservoir Plan The Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (abbreviated TARP and more commonly known as the Deep Tunnel Project or the Chicago Deep Tunnel) is a large civil engineering project that aims to reduce flooding in the metropolitan Chicago area, and to reduce the harm ...

has created an underground

reservoirs A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

to hold stormwater; this plan combined a number of local drainage districts.

Louisiana

Article VI, Part III of the

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

constitution authorizes the legislature to create ''levee districts''. Such districts have taxation power, they may borrow money, had they have extraordinary powers of

eminent domain Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

allowing expropriation of property before paying for it.

Texas

The state of Texas authorized the formation of drainage districts in 1905. Once formed by a 2/3 vote of the resident property-tax payers, the district may raise property taxes to construct and maintain ditches, canals and levees.Dick Smith
Drainage Districts
The Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association, 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drainage District Land management in the United Kingdom Land management in the United States