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Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the historic narrative of a breach in the Vistula Spit caused by a storm surge in 1497, touching upon the perception, relevance, and consequences of this change in the coastline and connecting this history to present questions related to access to the sea.

Paper long abstract:

Water in motion has the power to literally transform shores and coasts. The changes in the environment caused by flood events on the coastline in the Southern Baltic Sea area have in numerous occasions commanded an adaption to the new conditions by societies and reshuffled the cards regarding resources, access and connections.

Taking a narratological perspective, the paper will investigate one case in which a storm surge had a permanent impact on the Baltic Sea coast, to which adjacent communities had to adapt and which was conclusively turned into a narrative: During a flood in September 1497, a breach through the Vistula Spit, known today as the Strait of Baltiysk, opened. Multiple sources within the historiography took notice of this and report on the event.

Focusing on how and where this incident was narrated allows insight into the perception of change in the environment and proves that this was an event of supraregional importance, in whose context the role of water and causes of the coast transformation were also described. Another topic will be the consequences of change: Soon the navigable strait became a point of conflict among trading cities, including those of the Hanseatic League, foreshadowing a conflict about the same waterway in the present: Russian domination about the Strait of Baltyisk has led to the building of a new channel through the Vistula Spit by Poland in hopes of gaining an independent access, opening a geopolitical perspective with a connection to the past.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the late-fifteenth-century configuration of the Amazon River estuary as a site of contemplation, exuberance, and potential location of the Earthly Paradise eventually shaped the narratives of resource exploitation built around this river up to the seventeenth century.

Paper long abstract:

My proposal argues that the narratives built around the Amazon River as the location of Paradise from the late fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries shaped processes of resource extraction in the river. Early modern Iberian explorers and natural historians argued that the estuarine landscapes of the New World, particularly those of Amazonia, constituted the actual location of the Garden of Eden. This notion, that started with Christopher Columbus’s diary from the late fifteenth century and was later debated and reinforced by notable seventeenth-century Iberian scholars, emphasized the richness and sacred nature of the South American fluvial tropics. My research argues that these narratives of profusion and religious inviolability paradoxically informed the formulation of plans designed to exploit the alleged multifarious and never-ending resources of the river.

My focus on the correspondence between narratives of sacredness and profusion and the concomitant project of extraction aims to become a required tool to rethink our understanding of Amazonia and the conflicted configuration of the politics of conservationism around this river. Patterns of ecological protection and sustainability are conventionally presented as detached from practices of exploitation. In the case of early modern Amazonia, however, my proposal seeks to demonstrate that those quasi-religious narratives paved the way for the implementation of plans to promote the extraction of its resources. Thus, the prevailing image of the Amazon as the 'last lung' of humanity should be rethought considering the long history of appropriation and exploitation that has surrounded this river since the end of the fifteenth century.

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Paper short abstract:

Focusing on cases of Sicily and the Canary Islands, both under the Crown of Spanish kings in the Early Modern Period, this paper highlights the role water played in shaping those societies, but also the extraordinary techniques and methods developed to face water stress for plant growth.

Paper long abstract:

My proposal will address topics generally forgotten of academia's main fora. But there are few regions where water is as precious as on the islands, due to their difficulty in retaining water. Thus, focusing on cases of Sicily and the Canary Islands, both under the Crown of Spanish kings in the Early Modern Period, this paper highlights the role water played in shaping those societies, but also the extraordinary techniques and methods developed to face water stress for plant growth.

Islands are environments in which it is difficult to retain water. Moreover, their volcanic nature resorts in increased difficulty to find productive land. Water stress affects land property and rights over the distribution of water as well as constraints plant growth and everyday life religious and symbolic practices.

The unique system of building semi-circular low walls around each vine to protect them from the wind and create humidity turn famous the vineyards in La Geria, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and in Pico, Azores. On Pantelleria, a Sicilian Island, circular stone walls protect trees from winds and capture the night fog and dew, to create sufficient humidity for the growth of this botanical species.

The property of land, the hydraulic systems and their regulation, the distribution of water, and the horticultural methods developed demonstrate the effort and expertise put to face a water stress environment. These are just some of the cases that demonstrate that in adverse environments, ingenious solutions have come up throughout history, which can enlighten the relationship between the garden produce, the water availability, the environment and the solutions found to circumvent problems regarding water scarcity, being able to transform an adverse environment into a productive one. This research builds on the AQUA project, that I coordinated between 2018 and 2022.

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Paper short abstract:

During the American Civil War, slavery was eroded by the power of those with knowledge of water. This paper explores the archival tension inherent in studying the officially invisible wartime role played by formerly enslaved Black pilots engaged in “following the water for myself,” as one put it.

Paper long abstract:

During the American Civil War, slavery was eroded by direct action enabled by those who had an intimate knowledge of coastal landscapes and navigation. But that knowledge system is subterranean in the archive, and those who possessed and nurtured it rendered to near-total invisibility. This paper explores the archival tension inherent in studying the wartime role played by formerly enslaved Black pilots and other workers on the waves collectively engaged in “following the water for myself,” in the words of one. It attempts to reconcile the space between the silence of the "official" archive produced from above about the riverine and coastal operations of the Union military, and the world-making archive produced, in part, from below through the testimony of subaltern actors. Their voices reveal an understanding of power and how water might be used; how the natural environment might fundamentally alter the social environment of slavery. Water, a fundamental resource for the productive economy during the time of slavery, was the same resource that undid it in a time of war, but only those who knew the water intimately could accomplish such a significant, yet hidden, feat. Diving into this tension through the stories of two Black pilots and their social networks from the Santee River delta in South Carolina, the paper highlights the deep and difficult duality of story presentation versus story production.

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Paper short abstract:

Trains moving through a spectrum of ecosystems across the country forced American railroads in the late 19th century to adopt and create various scientific and technological practices to customize various water softening techniques to meet the geologic and meteorological nature of each locale

Paper long abstract:

The hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, and deserts of the United States created a seemingly never ending series of civil engineering challenges for railroads as the country embraced industrialization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As steam propulsion technology evolved, steam powered locomotives presented railroads with mechanical engineering and infrastructure problems that were increasingly complex. Over time, American railroads adopted a more scientific and economic approach to water use. Moving trains through a spectrum of ecosystems across the country forced railroads to customize various water softening techniques to meet the geologic and meteorological nature of each specific locale. The scientific and engineering response to these environmental challenges offers an interesting window into industrial water usage practice in the United States. Technological and scientific response to the problem accelerated in the early 20th century as railroads began employing chemists to analyze water composition while simultaneously approving large-scale modifications to numerous online water tanks and pumping stations, while also financing the construction of new water softening and treatment facilities. By 1931, the water consumption of the nation’s railroads was approximately 500 billion gallons per year, of which 350 billion gallons were used for steam propulsion through the use of more than 18,000 water stations and 25,000 storage tanks. Through annual meetings of railroad engineering societies, and the publication of articles in industry journals like Railway Age, railroad water chemists and engineers exchanged information and explored and debated the best approaches to solve the problem of water purity and infrastructure maintenance.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper investigates the seashore transformations, starting with a regional case (Liguria-Italy), to demonstrate the importance of history, in relation to other technical disciplines, in reconstructing the social, economic, institutional and cultural value of water in reshaping the coastal profile

Paper long abstract:

Among the best-known actions that water performs and has performed is certainly that concerning the constant reshaping of the coastline, due to the joint action of sea motion and river deposits, which are perceptible in both the very short and very long period, and are well known and discussed, even in public discourse, globally (think of the debate on the issue of the sea level rise). The historical analysis of these dynamics, however, while involving many different disciplines and expertise, does not always solicit those of historians in the narrow sense. The subject is thus potentially transdisciplinary, but how historical analysis can enter the debate today is yet to be defined. Instead, as recent international studies have shown, historians could help decipher not only how the material and physical transformations that have affected coastlines in the past have had consequences for human societies, but more importantly how they have resulted from specific social, political and cultural (human) dynamics - which cannot be explained simply by the categories of technicians, and by a purely "natural" explanation of such phenomena. These implications in the past will be shown, and the potential of applying history in the present will be discussed, starting with a regional case study, that of the seashores of Liguria (Italy) in the last centuries, which has had and has a very important role in the regional economy (tourism, industrial infrastructure), and which is constantly being re-discussed from the transformations that human activity and the action of water constantly produce.

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Paper short abstract:

This study seeks to explore the evolution of urban water crises in colonial Zimbabwe (then called Southern Rhodesia).

Paper long abstract:

This study seeks to explore the evolution of urban water crises in colonial Zimbabwe (then called Southern

Rhodesia). In Southern Rhodesia, water crises manifested in water rationing, water budgeting and water

disputes in different towns, with various pieces of legislation such as the Towns Management Ordinance of

1894, the Order in Council of 1898, Water Ordinance of 1914, Water Act of 1927 governing its access and

utilisation by different sectors like agriculture, mining, industry and household. Within this framework, this

research seeks to examine the origins, evolution and impact of urban water scarcity in Southern Rhodesia

between 1890 and 1945. Current scholarship on urban water crises focuses on the city of Bulawayo alone

because of its location in a drought-prone region and its marginalisation by the post-independence

government. This study presents a national case of the subject, making it a unique contribution to the history

of water governance in Zimbabwe.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the agential powers of geothermal waters across fluctuating political landscapes. By assembling a spatiotemporal map of urban transformation in Velingrad, I trace the restructuring of hydrosocial relations as water becomes both an agent and object of change.

Paper long abstract:

How is the agency of hydrothermal resources manifested in the urban environment and what kind of socioecological relations can be traced by mapping its transformative powers? These questions guide the inquiry into the hydrosocial entanglements that are simultaneously defined by the boundaries of the built environment and act as its co-creators. Taking as a case study the resort town of Velingrad with its thermal springs, this research brings together the temporal and spatial dimensions of urban transformation and a two-scalar perspective exploring the microhistories of individual infrastructures and the mezzo- and macro-level networks they form across the political, socio-cultural, and natural landscapes of region and country.

In the late 1940s, Bulgaria’s socialist government embarked on an ambitious plan for the development of an extensive network of balneoresorts providing healthcare and holiday facilities for the growing working-class population in a rapidly industrializing country. Three villages in Southwest Bulgaria were at the forefront of this campaign and formed the neighborhoods of the new town of Velingrad – a resort of “national importance”. The access to thermal waters was no longer confined to individual buildings but was transformed into an infrastructural endeavor that required the remaking of civic life. Drawing on environmental history, political ecology, and geography of health grounded in fieldwork and archival research of urban planning records, this paper illustrates how changing socio-cultural and scientific concepts of hydrothermal resources transformed the built environment of Velingrad, while realigning the hydrosocial landscape along the contours of its emergent infrastructures.

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Paper short abstract:

The Kiiminkijoki river has seen many stages of environmental management, which are tangibly visible in the landscape. I look at the environmental transformations of the river as a socio-ecological interaction between cultural practices, politics, and the materiality of the river.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout history the changing livelihoods of people and varying forms of environmental management can be witnessed as tangible transformations in the landscapes as the legacies of the previous historical practices carry their material consequences in the environment. In these politically contested transformations that result from different rationales of environmental governance and natural resource utilization, water is a central element.

The Kiiminkijoki river which flows to the Baltic Sea on the northern edge of Oulu region has seen many of these concretely visible transformations. The drying of the lakes for agriculture in the 19th century were followed by the opening of the rapids for timber floating after the second world war. Later, during the latter part of the 20th century the tilling of the peatlands for industrial forestry and the peat production for energy caused changes in the river system which have dramatically altered the ways the waters can be used for other purposes such as fishing and recreation. Most importantly the naturally occurring Baltic salmon population vanished by the end of century.

Nowadays the industrial management of the natural environment is accompanied by the restoration of the water systems and the river basin area with an aim to support the traditional ways of being along the river. The rationales behind managing the environment are consequently highly politically contested. In this paper I look at the environmental change of Kiiminkijoki river basin area as a process in which cultural practices and politically motivated ambitions intersect with the materiality of the river.