I've been scrapbooking my trip to a world wonder: Angkor Wat. It's the largest man-made religious monument in the world. If you're a structural civil engineer, this would be the highlight of your trip!

But... I'm not a structural engineer, I do water resources! So the highlight of my trip was Angkor Thom (which literally means Great City and is considerably larger than NYC's five boroughs). It's a hydraulic city! There was an expansive canal system used for both irrigation and transportation.

Andi near the sculptures at the South Gate entrance & moat at Angkor Thom

Right in the center of Angkor Thom is a temple called Bayon. When I was there I searched high and low for a water well! Now THAT was the highlight of my trip! I made a little youtube video about it from the inside of Bayon.

Bayon Water Well at Angkor Thom

Hooray for Barays

A baray is a reservoir from the Khmer Empire. Some historians think they were spiritual in purpose. Knowing the climate of the area (heavily monsoon-driven with heavy rains some of the year and hot other times of the year) they probably were also used for irrigation and flood control.

How big?

The West Baray is the largest handcut water reservoir on Earth. This isn't surprising if you take into consideration that Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument on Earth. The Khmer knew how to build like rockstars. This reservoir can hold 13 billion gallons of water or the equivalent of 15 Superdomes worth of water.

For groundwater folks, this is 38,900 ac-ft of water. Just a hair smaller than my massive, engineering feat of a project in south Texas.

In fact, it's so big there is a Hindu temple called West Mebon on an artificial island built in the middle of the reservoir.

How old?

From the 11th century.

What type?

The West Baray gets 65% of its water from the Siem Reap River which makes this… an off-channel reservoir! If you haven't seen my off-channel reservoir video yet, check it out here.

Off Channel Reservoir Construction with Andromeda (IGTV video repost)

Ethics dilemma?

It appears that the design for the baray encapsulated existing human-made sites. No one knows how this would have played out politically in Angkorian times, but one thing is for sure that today this would present an ethical dilemma.

Ethically you can't prioritize the entire community at the expense of a few individuals. We'd have to take care as to buy out each person's real estate in order to use the land for the commons. A big cost in the construction of reservoirs is buying all the land at a fair price.

We still have problems with this. A quick google search pulls up Texas results of folks' properties being bought out for undervalued amounts to build flood control measures to protect the Dallas area. It's this reason exactly that the professional engineering exam has an ethics portion. There are 6 fundamental canons:

Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:

Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
Perform services only in areas of their competence.
Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
Avoid deceptive acts.
Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession.

On the southern bank is an irrigation lock. I found it. I ate a pineapple on it. See the 3 little slide gates below?

A professor from Arizona State University, Larry W. Mays, has a blog to detail ancient water systems at

www.ancientwatertechnologies.com/about/

One of his blog posts discusses the Khmer civilization's water so definitely go and take a look! He's got some fun pictures.

https://ancientwatertechnologies.com/2015/05/21/water-technologies-of-the-khmer-civilization-angkor/

Working: Zebra Mussel study - I did a Day in the Life chat about it on my balcony when we were setting up the project. Check it out on my youtube :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMmzlsQS_Y

Listening: Bad With Money Podcast - Discusses finance from 0-60 mph. She's funny and quirky so I really enjoy this one!Reading: One Minute Manager - A short book to try to get better at management! From the authors of Who Moved My Cheese? that everyone always references!