Eugène Belgrand

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Belgrand

Marie François Eugène Belgrand (born April 23, 1810 in Ervy-le-Châtel , † April 8, 1878 in Paris ) was a French civil engineer, known for his renewal of the Paris sewage system and the water supply of Paris.

Life

Belgrand studied from 1829 at the École polytechnique and at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées . Immediately after graduating in 1832, on the occasion of a flood near a bridge he was building, he realized the importance of geology for civil engineering and his hydrological knowledge, which he later applied to such great advantage in the construction of the water supply for Avallon (from 1845), that it won the attention of Georges-Eugène Haussmann . He fetched the water from a distance of 4 km, during which he had to overcome a difference in altitude of 88 m (a record at the time) and, like the Romans, used lime mortar in the water supply pipes. He later summarized his extensive hydrological studies in the Seine basin in books. In France, Belgrand is considered the founder of hydrology in the modern sense. He also studied the geology of the Paris Basin and made paleontological studies.

In 1852 Belgrand became chief engineer for the Seine from Paris to Rouen. In 1855 he was by Haussmann, who owned the city of Paris between 1852 and 1870 on behalf of Napoleon III. modernized, used to renew the water supply and sewage systems of Paris, of which he was appointed director in 1867. His new building and modernization of the Paris sewage system still exists today and here, too, he followed the Roman model in the spacious system (Cloaca Maxima in Rome). By 1878 600 km had been built.

To provide fresh water, Belgrand built a system of aqueducts, which he had studied based on Roman models (he published a book about it). He directed the construction of the Aqueduc de la Dhuis , which directs the water 130 km from Pargny-la-Dhuys to the Ménilmontant reservoir in Paris with a total gradient of only 20 m. It was completed in 1865 after three years of construction. Belgrand then built the Aqueduc de la Vanne with a length of 156 km from the Vanne rivers to the Montsouris reservoir, which he also built. Construction began in 1866 and was completed in 1874. With his measures, he doubled the fresh water available per capita in Paris and quadrupled the number of houses with running water.

Finally, Belgrand was responsible for the construction of a second fresh water network in Paris, which only contains roughly purified water (eau brute) from the Seine and Ourcq and that in Paris to this day for the irrigation of public green spaces, the supply of lakes and watercourses in the Parks and street cleaning is used.

Belgrand's name is one of the 72 names on the Eiffel Tower . A street in Paris is named after him.

Part of the Dhuys Aqueduct
Vanne Aqueduct

In 1871 Belgrand became a member of the Académie des Sciences .

Fonts

  • Les travaux souterrains de Paris, 5 volumes, Paris, Dunod 1872–1887
  • Les aqueducs romains, 1875
  • Mémoire sur les études hydrologiques de la partie supérieure du bassin de la Seine, 1846
  • La Seine, études hydrologiques, 1872
  • La Seine. Le Bassin parisien aux âges antéhistoriques, 1869
  • Étude préliminaire sur le régime des eaux dans le bassin de la Seine, 1873

Web links

Commons : Eugène Belgrand  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eau potable / Eau non potable. Retrieved October 29, 2019 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Belgrand, Eugène
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belgrand, Marie François Eugène (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Ervy-le-Châtel
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1878
Place of death Paris