DUMONT

FRANCE (see also List of Individuals)

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2.6.1819 Crest/F - 25.7.1902 Repara/F

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Aristide Dumont was the author and promoter of the irrigation canal supplying the waters of Rhone River for large reaches of the Lower Rhone and the Languedoc departments. In addition, he was the engineer supplying cities such as Lyon and Nimes with drinking water. Dumont went through the standard French engineering education at Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1840 he was transferred to Tournon first, then stationed at the Rhone navigation section where he started working for the river which determined all his life. His first book published in 1842 related the Rhone River to both protection against inundations and industrial needs. In the same year, Dumont was asked to visit Lombardy in Northern Italy to study the methods used there for river management.

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An irrigation canal system for Southern France was proposed by Dumont as early as in 1847. Instead of all the discharge being diverted to the Mediterranean, he would divert a portion for improvement of the agriculture. A final design was reconsidered in 1872 but not accepted by the French government because of financial problems. Dumont's design involved a bypass canal of Rhone River, starting South of Lyon on the left river side up to the city of Orange, and then turning West with a large aqueduct over Rhone River into the Gard department up to the city of Montpellier. Dumont made a final call to the authorities in 1901, yet the project was initiated only in 1947, just a hundred years after the original project had been published. The Compagnie Nationale d'Aménagement de la Région du Bas-Rhône et du Languedoc includes currently a region of 2,100 km2 irrigated with canals of 443 km total length.

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_{Anonymous (1967). Aristide Dumont et l'irrigation du Bas-Rhône-Languedoc. La Jaune et la Rouge 213: 17-21. P}

_{Dumont, A. (1842). Essai sur l'endiguement et la canalisation du Rhône, considérées sous le double rapport de la défense des propriétés riveraines et des besoins de l'industrie. Carilian-Goeury: Paris.}

_{Dumont, A. (1883). Sur le prix de revient des grandes dérivations d'eau en Italie et en France. Annales des Ponts et Chaussées 53(2): 533-535.}

_{Hamon, P. (1970). Dumont, François-Marcellin-Aristide. Dictionnaire de biographie française}

_{12: 202-203, R. d'Amat, ed. Letouzey: Paris.}

_{Lamour, P. (1960). Aristide Dumont - Promoteur des Canaux du Rhône. Genin: Levallois-Perret. P, also in Annales des Ponts et Chaussées 131: 79-102.}