SURELL

FRANCE (see also List of Individuals)

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19.4.1813 Bitsche/F - 11.1.1887 Versailles/F

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Alexandre Surell entered Ecole Polytechnique in 1831 and graduated as a civil engineer from Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées in 1836. He first spent six years as an ordinary engineer in the High-Alps to be engaged from 1842 to 1853 in the Navigation Service of Rhone River. He joined then the French railroad company, where he finally was a director.

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Surell was an outstanding river engineer. At the age of 25, he was posted at Embrun in the French Alps, a region different from his homeland Moselle. He presented a novel approach towards torrents, during the early industrial era with torrents endangering the upcoming industry and the infrastructure. Surell realized that nothing was done to keep the torrents in their beds, and that deforestation continued for human needs. Surell thus vividly proposed that forests needed a protection to develop an equilibrium between the steep slopes and the protection offered by the appropriate vegetation. In contrast to his predecessors, he claimed that the government had to care for this task. In 1840, Surell addressed an official letter to the Ministry of Public Works, together with a book summarizing the then present state of torrents, and recommendations for future torrent rehabilitation. The book successfully went through the French ministries and finally was published in 1841, with a re-edition thirty years later. It reviews past phenomena with torrents and exposes the weaknesses of the then applied forest management. Surell's cry for an improved forest management was heard, because countries including France and Switzerland introduced forest laws, and a national forest service caring for mountainous regions. His book may be considered the starting point of a novel attitude toward the environment in mountains, along with torrent rehabilitation, therefore.

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_{Demontzey, F. (1887). Alexandre Surrell. Revue des Eaux et Forets 26: 85-87.}

_{Divers (2002). Surell et la restauration des terrains de montagne. Annales des Ponts et Chaussées 103.}

_{Fargue, L. (1997). Surell. Ecole Polytechnique 3: 376-379. Gauthier-Villars: Paris.}

_{Masteau, C. (2004). Alexandre-Charles Surell. Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées: Paris. Surell, A. (1841). Etude sur les torrents des Hautes-Alpes. Carilian-Goeury: Paris.}

_{Surell, A. (1853). Projet de conduite d'eau à Nîmes. Baldy: Nîmes.}

_{Surell, A. (1864). Note sur le rachat des canaux du Midi. Pathi-Belin et Petot: Paris.}

_{Surell, A. (1872). Etudes relatives aux inondations et à l'endiguement des rivières. Mémoires}

_{présentées par divers savants à l'Institut de France 20: 287-507. Paris.}

_{Surell, A., Cézanne, E. (1872). Etudes sur les torrents des Hautes-Alpes. Dunod: Paris.}