What did Leonardo da Vinci design to lift water using rotating paddles?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a water wheel to lift water using rotating paddles.

Leonardo studied water movement extensively and drew machines that used wheels, buckets, paddles, and channels to raise or transport water. A water wheel converts the energy of moving water into rotation, and that rotation can drive machinery or operate a lifting mechanism. His hydraulic studies appear in several notebooks, including the Codex Leicester.

Leonardo did not invent the water wheel: water-powered wheels had been used since antiquity. His contribution was the detailed analysis and refinement of hydraulic machines, including ideas for irrigation, drainage, and industrial power. This distinction matters because many devices associated with Leonardo were improvements or theoretical designs rather than wholly new inventions.

The water wheel is also different from Archimedes’ screw, which raises water through a rotating spiral surface. Both can move water, but the wheel relies on paddles or buckets and water-driven rotation.