The Historical Importance
Roman aqueducts serve not only a large amount of importance to modern day society, but they also served a tremendous amount of importance to the ancient Roman society for which they worked. The aqueducts that the ancient Romans used were especially important because they allowed the cities within the Roman empire to work. "The Romans could not have built cities as big as they did without aqueducts" (Aicher Peter). Rome at its largest point had one million people living within its city limits. What people often do not think of when there are so many people in one specific area is that very rarely can one specific zone supply water for so many people on a daily basis.The aqueducts helped solve this issue allowing the people of Rome to live happily and with sufficient water. What many do not also address is that the aqueduct system that Rome created was not solely for the purpose of bringing water into the city. For all the clean water that was brought into Rome there was an equal amount of dirty water that also left the city. During this era, "visitors to Rome at the time were amazed at the cleanliness" (Aicher Peter) that the city held. For the standards of the time Rome was one of the cleanest cities in the work at the time as no other civilization that we know of was using aqueduct systems to remove waste water from the city. Bellow is a video describing the significance that the aqueducts had with the Romans.
Modern Importance
The aqueducts that the Romans created would seem unimportant in our modern day and age due to the fact that we have modern technology where we can pump water rather than rely on gravity. We as humans I find do not like to rely on other forces out of our ability to control. Aqueducts though are used very commonly in the United States of America to carry water from state to state. Due to some parts of the country being very dry we looked back in history to find a solution to bring water to these areas. We found that aqueducts worked well for the Romans and to this date the aqueducts that we have created through the countries history have become invaluable, as they supply water to so many parts of the country. Though this country has made so many strides in using aqueducts we are not using them to the fullest extent we possibly can. I believe that we have mastered the ability to use the aqueducts integrated with our modern technological systems, but I believe that we need more work on using this technology in less continental areas and in more local areas. We already use aqueducts to bring water across the country, but I believe that we can use this technology to bring water shorter distances. I believe that the best way to tackle this issue of using aqueducts more often in our modern society is to integrate the new technology that we have developed with the aqueduct system that the Romans created to create the most efficient water system possible for our developing modern world.