ABSTRACT
Two hundred years ago, European city-dwellers obtained their water from public fountains, public or private wells or water vendors. There were no public water supply systems. In Paris the first concession contract for a piped water system connecting private houses, granted in 1777 to the Perier brothers,1 went bankrupt in 1788. In the nineteenth century, however, the skill of British ‘mechanics’ made it possible to offer in-house pressured water to urban areas, and later to rural areas. Other European countries soon followed the example, while engineers and hygienists also invented various sewer systems to handle both waste and rainwater away from the city. In the first half of the twentieth century, chemical engineering invented technologies for treating drinking water, as well as wastewater, which increased the autonomy of cities vis-à-vis their environment. Today, Europe is the only continent where the great majority of the population is connected to public water supply (PWS). Most of the population is also connected to centralized public sewage collection and treatment (PSCT), and those who are not live in low density areas, and can now rely on efficient decentralized on-site sanitation systems. In several countries, innovation in sewerage has enabled the development of environment-friendly stormwater control.
