Water History

This report provides the historical context for Australian urban and suburban development in the period since European colonisation in 1788. The report is a deliverable for Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) project on ‘Understanding social processes to achieve water sensitive cities’ (Project A2.1).

While the major focus is the three key node cities of the CRCWSC (Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth) the report also provides background information on the histories of other Australian cities and locates the Australian urban experience within international contexts of the ‘settler societies’ of the so-called New World.

The key three cities have differing early histories as well as climate and topographic differences – sub-tropical and hilly Brisbane, temperate and flat Melbourne, and Mediterranean and flat Perth. Despite these differences, residents of each of these cities as with residents of all Australian cities - have from at least since the late nineteenth century demonstrated a clear preference for suburban rather than urban living, and a strong preference for low-density, detached dwellings over higher-density attached ones. They have also demonstrated a willingness to wear the elevated private costs associated with these dwelling and ‘lifestyle’ choices.

In this report we draw on the historical concept of ‘path dependency’ - that is the key constraining roles that decisions made or not made in the past have on contemporary practices and policy options. This central concept leads us to argue that as planners, engineers and policy-makers seek to move us towards a more
water sensitive future, rather than try to impose new morphologies, habits and practices on a likely unwilling Australian public, they should instead actively work with new and existing suburban communities to adapt received ideas about residential and dwelling cultures to these new hydrological constraints.

While the report makes clear that Australians have traditionally been profligate with water, we also demonstrate that they have always shown a remarkable willingness to adapt water habits and usage during times of crisis. Our report proves that whereas in the past planners and governments have traditionally looked to ‘big engineering’ solutions such as newer and ever-larger dams (or more recently desalination plants) in order to deal with issues around water supply and demand, in practice two important but administratively simple and cheap policy changes have had the greatest impact: water pricing and public education campaigns.

The latter has been especially effective during periods of drought. The historical evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that once the impacts of drought and wasteful usage of water have been explained, urban Australians have adapted their water use and behaviours to fit the short-term need for restraint. We see no reason why that should not remain the case into the future. We thus recommend that in a climate change-influenced water constrained-future, public education campaigns about the importance of water sensitivity should become a permanent component of public policy.

Before the emergence of microbiology in the 1860s, the relationship between health and water was understood to hinge mostly on its manifold mineral qualities; medical treatments often involved bathing in particular waters to take advantage of their curative powers. With the help of microscopes, those waters came to be seen as home to dangerous microbes and a cause, as much as a cure, of disease. But while biology placed water management on a new footing, ideas from chemistry about the diverse positive medical effects of mineral waters continued to justify the use of those heterogeneous sources for bathing in pools and spas. In this article, I trace this slow, incomplete transition from chemical to biological understandings of waters and health in Mexico City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Contradictory hydrosocial processes took shape as scientists, businesspeople and politicians sought to deliver biologically pure, potable public water to individual bathrooms and to, at the same time, promote the healing properties of social bathing in chemically heterogeneous waters.

The Edwards Dam, located on the Kennebec River of Maine, in the state’s capitol city, was removed in 1999 to restore fisheries such as alewives, striped bass, American shad, and endangered short-nosed sturgeon. The dam removal was ordered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the express purpose of restoring fisheries, the first time ever this was done in American history. This article examines the local environmental advocacy for river and fisheries restoration and the process resulting in dam removal and fisheries restoration. It argues that the Edwards Dam removal was critical in proving the environmental benefits of river restoration through removal as well as some economic benefits. This contributed to other U.S. efforts to remove dams to restore fisheries and assisted the expansion of this stage of American environmentalism. The article uses a number of primary sources including local newspapers, environmental group materials, and a number of interviews collected by the author.

In Provence, in the Southeastern France, Marseille's water supply has always been problematic. Constrained by a mountainous topography within a rocky and dry landscape its inhabitants have often coped with acute water shortages. Up until the mid-19th century, water resources consisted of an old medieval aqueduct, some karstic springs and many public and private wells. And, in order to overcome the chronic lack of freshwater, solutions were always temporary and ineffective. However, this issue became so pressing in the first half of the nineteenth century, thus forcing municipal officials to quickly deal with this problem. Indeed, the combination of a growing population, a booming industry, but above all severe recurring winter and summer hydrological droughts for about 35 years, such as in 1817/18 and 1833/34 (associated with the apogee of the Little Ice Age in Western Mediterranean), drastically reduced the available volume of water for both citizens and local factories. Consequences on the economy and the urban environment were quick enough but the lack of water mainly resulted in significant sanitary problems. We propose to explore policy answers and socioeconomic options that have solved the supply problems thanks to the construction of a new aqueduct to carry potable water from the Durance River to the city. First, after describing the hydro-climatic context of the Provence area (especially during the second half of the LIA) and the state of water resources of Marseille at this time, we'll present major social, sanitary as well as economic crises due to the lack of water which impacted the city together with their effects on the urban dynamic. Then, we'll analyze public policy and challenging technical choices made by the municipality to deal with chronic water shortages.

Le Carte e la Storia (ISSN 1123-5624) Fascicolo 1, giugno 2020 Ente di afferenza: Università di Bologna (unibo) Copyright c by Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna. Tutti i diritti sono riservati. Per altre informazioni si veda https://www.rivisteweb.it Licenza d'uso L'articoloè messo a disposizione dell'utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente privato e personale, senza scopo di lucro e senza fini direttamente o indirettamente commerciali. Salvo quanto espressamente previsto dalla licenza d'uso Rivisteweb,è fatto divieto di riprodurre, trasmettere, distribuire o altrimenti utilizzare l'articolo, per qualsiasi scopo o fine. Tutti i diritti sono riservati.

In Lebanon, the organization of the water legislation dates back to as far as antiquity. While customs and habits used to govern water in the past, codified laws and their associated legal infrastructure are present nowadays, and cohabitate with persisting unofficial law. Mesopotamian, Roman, Ottoman, and French water laws were superimposed on Moslem customs and practices and traditional Arab social water arrangements in Lebanon, throughout a long history of conquests or mandates. Traditional customs and practices of water use that evolved into lore are still prevailing today, and goes hand in hand with a palimpsest of water laws. Through a review of the co-evolution of 4,000 years of written and unwritten water-related texts, the unique features of a hydro-palimpsest that combines formal and informal systems are put into value in an effort to explore their future potential in the management of water, in light of rapid global changes affecting the resource.

The Berlin-Brandenburg Colloquium for Environmental History is an open forum for discussing environmental history research broadly defined.
This semester, our topics are either European or global.


Elisa Tizzoni will present her research on the environmental policies of the European Court of Auditors, and we will discuss the new Handbook on European Environmental History edited by Anna Katharina Wöbse und Patrick Kupper.

Jacob Darwin Hamblin will take us across the global history of Atoms for Peace, while Elizabeth Hameeteman will familiarise us with the techno-scientific Can-Do world of visions of water desalinization - some of which driven by nuclear energy, too...

Water rights is a social issue of growing importance. Recently, the United Nations declared access to clean drinking water to be a basic human right. Yet financial groups are predicting that water is the next major commodity, to be bought and sold like oil. What few are talking about is the long history of water flowing towards political and social centers, and away from rural populations. As Leith Mullings stated in her presidential address, anthropology pays attention to not only that which is manifest, but also to that which is concealed. A social archaeology of New York City's water system reminds us all of the long-standing nature of urban water crises and provides a way of critiquing past decisions to inform future ones. For approximately 200 years, the city's growth necessitated the acquisition of water from more and more distant sources. But places rich in water are inhabited places. Taking water from rural communities reshaped them and continues to restrict their development. Documenting the materiality of water struggles over time and space provides opportunities to ask what (and who) we are willing to sacrifice to ensure the future of our cities.

In standard textbook accounts, the history of European Community (EC) environmental policy conventionally begins in 1973, when the First Environmental Action Programme was officially accepted. Some texts also mention the Paris summit of October 1972 and the subsequent ministerial meeting of the member states in Bonn on 31 October 1972, where the governments agreed in principle and in detail on the start of environmental policy measures at EC level. 1 Even though these were important steps, putting the new policy on track, the origins of EC environmental policy actually go back to the summer of 1969. The new policy was not simply the result of the enlightened environmental spirit of national governments still under the impression of the Stockholm United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972. In fact, EC environmental action can be traced back to an initiative by what is usually believed to be the least powerful of European institutions, the unelected European Parliament (EP). The EP first put the issue of water pollution on the agenda of the European institutions via an own initiative report, one of the few instruments available to it. 2 Members of the EP (MEPs) responded to a massive fish kill in the river Rhine, Western Europe's main watershed, in June 1969, caused by a pesticide released in Germany. The Dutch were particularly cross with their German neighbours upstream, not only because they had not been notified, but also because they crucially relied on Rhine for their water resources. Activist MEPs from the Committee of Public Health and Social Affairs skilfully widened the issue from the Rhine to river and water pollution more generally, to other issues, such as noise and air pollution, that contemporary scientists and policy makers increasingly conceptualised as part of the problem called the "environment". MEPs argued for the introduction of European level policy action on such environmental issues.

The utilization of hydroturbines exerted an appreciable influence on the location of factories during our research period. In Finland industry was not concentrated in the existing coastal towns: instead, it was decentralized all over the Southern half of the country, being built up on the shores of exploitable rapids. Rural factories have given birth to many modern industrial towns in the inland regions. The relative dispersal of industry during its formative stage had some beneficial effects on the surrounding districts. It restrained the movement of population from the inland provinces to large coastal cities and abroad. The use of hydropower promoted the development of several small scattered centres of population closely connected to the surrounding rural areas. This partially contributed to the economic equality of the various regions of Finland, and, owing to it, the social repercussions of industrialization were nowhere near as traumatic as they might have been if the means of power had primarily been steam, with consequent centralization to coal importing coastal cities.


This topic has also been dealt with in the article:

Timo Myllyntaus, “Finland: The Introduction of Hydraulic Turbines, 1840 – 1940,” Innovation technologique et civilisation, Editions du CNRS. Paris: Commission internationale d'histoire des mouvements sociaux et des structures sociales 1989, pp. 113-130 (Résumé en français, pp. 126-127).

Energy and environmental diplomacy factors were a major, though often unrecognized, part of Canada-United States relations prior to the Cold War. Hydroelectricity was the most important of these factors, particularly power exported from the Canadian side of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin. The history of Canada- U.S. hydroelectricity relations, exports, and regulations offered here covers the key steps, institutions, and actors in the evolution of hydroelectricity geopolitics and governance regimes during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. Most of the earliest large Canadian hydropower projects were built on or planned for border waters, which, after the creation of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, required formal coordination with the United States. Over the following half-century, prospective power projects on border waters continued to dominate the diplomatic dialogue. Federal governments or agencies established broad export restrictions, altering them occasionally, but often subnational governments, special interests, and specific power projects played as large a role in shaping the power trade. The result was a constantly shifting political and regulatory context, albeit one that generally trended toward cooperation and reduced barriers to electricity integration.

After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 the government
department responsible for water governance, in terms of the Irrigation and Conservation of Water Act, No. 8 of 1912 went by the name of the Department of Irrigation. In 1956, when the Water Act, No. 54 of 1956, was passed its name changed to the Department of Water Affairs. The new legislation marked the beginning of a new era in South Africa’s water governance. The focus of the department shifted from irrigation infrastructure and bulk water governance responsibilities, to make an important contribution to the country’s social and economic development. Priorities of the day included the need for more comprehensive water infrastructure for industrial development; the greater demand for water in the country’s rapidly growing urban areas; and taking steps against the increasing threat of water pollution. In this paper the focus is on the way the department, in terms of the Water Act of 1956, responded to the policy of separate development (apartheid), but at the same time took a deeper and long-term view of the development of water infrastructure to be of value for the country and its people, beyond the shorter temporal view of the political leaders of the day. The period 1948–1960 can be seen as the first phase of apartheid (1948–1960). It was notable for the initial emergence of significant opposition amongst the country’s indigenous African people to the white minority government’s apartheid policies, but their struggle was subdued. This phase came to an end at a time when the rest of Africa was engaged in rapid decolonisation and South Africa became politically ostracised in the international arena. What is apparent is that the emergent hydraulic mission of industrialisation promoted unsurpassed development that was destined to have a marked effect on South Africa’s status as a modern state on the African continent.

From the High Middle Ages on, the coastal wetlands of the North Sea Area have been intensively reclaimed and settled. In order to enable intensive agricultural production in these areas, a complex drainage and flood control system was gradually installed, one which demanded a permanent investment of huge amounts of capital and labour. As the maintenance of the water control system was vital for the coastal agro-system, the long-term evolution of investments is an important, yet rarely used, indicator of the economic, social and environmental fortunes of the coastlands. Based on new and very early serial data on water control funding in late medieval Flanders, this article argues that long-term fluctuations in the funding of drainage and flood control were first and foremost related to structural changes within the coastal economy, where an overall decline of investment levels ran parallel to the fourteenth century crisis of the peasant smallholding economy in this region. Exogenous pressures on the other hand, such as storm surges, only provoked a short-term disruption of investments.

Urban and environmental historians are becoming increasingly interested in the social construction of expertise in the management and control of natural resources. Experts are often depicted as disinterested, neutral and objective professionals, sufficiently qualified to gauge an independent perspective on a given problem. Yet what happens when an expert's judgment is called into question by other professional experts? The micro-analysis of socio-technological disasters offers one way to interrogate the construction and challenge of professional expertise at both the empirical and conceptual levels. Taking a comparative approach towards the study of two major reservoir failures involving considerable death and destruction in the United Kingdom – Holmfirth in 1852 and Sheffield in 1864 – this paper draws on the under-utilised research of the sociologist Barry Turner and others on the social aetiology of disasters as a route into revealing and accounting for the contested nature of expertise within the Victorian engineering professions. It is based on extensive archival research, including the written records of local and central government, private waterworks' proprietors, the printed press and the records of public inquiry. The cases reveal remarkable continuities in administrative and professional knowledge regarding the explanation of socio-technological disasters, as well as the widespread use of outside experts to interrogate the supposed failings of interested parties.

Free copy available until 4 December from http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Ps~P15XEnSlBh

keywords: legal history, monopoly, prior appropriation, property theory, water history

Making extensive use of archival and other primary sources, David Schorr demonstrates that the development of the “appropriation doctrine,” a system of private rights in water, was part of a radical attack on monopoly and corporate power in the arid West. Schorr describes how Colorado miners, irrigators, lawmakers, and judges forged a system of private property in water based on a desire to spread property and its benefits as widely as possible among independent citizens. He demonstrates that ownership was not dictated by concerns for economic efficiency, but by a regard for social justice.

Reviewed in Agricultural History, American Historical Review, Arizona Water Resource, Business History Review, Environmental History, Hastings West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law & Policy, Journal of American History, Pacific Historical Review, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, University of Denver Water Law Review, Water History, Western Historical Quarterly, Western Legal History

PROV holds a remarkable collection of maps prepared by mining surveyors in the nineteenth century. The maps record water race networks created by alluvial gold miners, who needed large volumes of water to wash gold from the earth. These mining water systems were often very extensive, winding for miles through the hills to divert water to mining claims. The Beechworth (Ovens) goldfield was an important centre of alluvial mining in colonial Victoria and it was here that the most complex water networks were created. Many of the races and dams built by miners are preserved in goldfields landscapes today. We have integrated historical PROV maps of water races at Beechworth into a geographic information system (GIS) to analyse and understand the location and extent of historical water networks. This combination of historical maps and digital technology offers a powerful new tool to help understand the relationships between competing water users and the changes they brought to colonial mining landscapes.

In 1984 Brent Shaw looked at a number of issues connected with water management for irrigation in North Africa in his paper 'Water and society in the ancient Maghrib: Technology, property and development.' This study greatly improved our understanding of water management and exploitation in rural areas of Roman North Africa, but some of Shaw's conclusions need to be reconsidered, particularly with reference to archaeological evidence. Important questions that need to be addressed are how water was exploited for agricultural production, and who was responsible for this; and whether or not there was a conscious policy to develop Africa's agricultural potential either through the extension of an existing hydraulic technology or through the introduction of new water technologies. The paper investigates these problems by analysing archaeological evidence from the Kasserine survey and in particular the data from irrigation systems in the uplands and lowlands. The main focus is on late antiquity and the transition from the Roman to Vandal periods, tracing continuity in the exploitation of land and irrigation technologies. By combining the archaeology with ancient texts, and in particular a Vandal-period archive of private documents, the so-called 'Albertini Tablets', this investigation examines irrigation systems and the private use of water in the light of Roman legislation.

A mediados del siglo XVIII, la Corona intervino en el cauce alto del río Guadiana para desecar su ribera y aumentar las tierras de cultivo y pasto. La obra, reclamada por las elites locales, se ha puesto como reflejo del antagonismo entre molineros y ganaderos en un contexto dominado por el deseo regio de aumentar los ingresos estatales. No obstante, el proyecto no solo pretendía disminuir la influencia del río, sino reordenar los recursos naturales de la comarca. Este trabajo analiza el resultado de aquella operación basándose en el deslinde ejecutado tras la finalización de la obra. Para ello se traza una panorámica del estado en que quedó la vega tras el drenaje del río, se analiza el impacto socioeconómico de aquella intervención y se contextualizan los cambios institucionales y jurisdiccionales que se derivaron de ella. También se han estudiado las transformaciones paisajísticas que tuvieron lugar y los problemas que las autoridades encontraron a la hora de asegurar la permanencia del proyecto. Para ello se ha hecho uso de documentación archivística, especialmente judicial. La principal conclusión que se ha extraído es que las condiciones naturales y ambientales resultantes de aquella intervención fueron endebles y transitorias, y no solo por la vitalidad del medio fluvial; también a causa de los intereses contrapuestos que protagonizaron las gentes que vivieron del río y en el río. PALABRAS CLAVE: Geografía histórica; paisaje; agua; molinos harineros; Castilla la Nueva; siglo XVIII The Guadiana River and the Real Dehesa de Zacatena at the end of the Ancient Regime. Drainage projects, environmental changes and institutional disputes ABSTRACT: In the mid-18th century, the Spanish Crown took action in the Guadiana riverbed to drain its banks and increase the land for cultivation and grazing. The project, which was demanded by the local elites, has been presented as a reflection of the antagonism between millers and cattle breeders in a context dominated by the government intention to increase state income. However, the plan was not intended to diminish the river influence, but also to reorder the natural resources of the region. This paper analyses the result of that public operation on the basis of the boundary carried out after the work was completed. To this end, the river situation after the drainage is studied. In addition, the socioeconomic impact of that works has been analysed, as well as the institutional and jurisdictional changes that came of it. Finally, the landscape transformations and the problems which were encountered by the authorities in ensuring the permanence of the project have been also studied. For this purpose, historic records have been used, especially judicial ones. The result has been the confirmation that the landscape conditions that result of the project could not be durable, not only because of the vitality of the river environment, but of the diverging interests of the people who lived off of the river.

This article investigates the connection between Roman land division as an instanceo fd eliberate shaping of the landscape,and the management of soil moisture(drainage/irrigation). Predominantly archaeological evidenceshows that the Roman government provided foroptimized land use at the foundationofcolonies by orientating the divisiongridinanideal way. Theland surveyors'abilityto assess an area's topographyand hydrology were instrumentalinthis process.The factthat the relation of the orientation of the division grids and hydrology is not discussed in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum can be explained through the characteristics of the evidence.

The London Bridge Waterworks was founded in 1580 and lasted until the removal of the bridge in 1822. The waterworks was one of the largest water companies in London during this time. In contrast to the other water companies, its history was closely tied to both the bridge itself, as well as the City of London. Its initial growth was linked to City’s expansion, but was more limited in the eighteenth century because its pipes could not reach the expanding suburbs. This paper describes the LBWW mostly at its height around 1745, when its surveyor produced a detailed engineering report of its technology.

The purpose of this contribution is, much has recently been written on the subject of the Middle East water crisis,
a great deal of it highly apocalyptic in tone. Water is a highly politicized issue in the Middle East, and the many alarm bells
are ringing because of this inseparability of water and politics. Water is a key area of dispute: nevertheless many claims
concerning the water crisis are hyperbolic and misleading. Water is a critical area of dispute in the Arab-Israeli conflict;
but given the current climate of peacemaking, and given the general war-weariness among states and populations, such
predictions are excitable pieces of subjectivism. A little more calm objectivity is needed.
Much of the subject is shrouded in a fog of misinformation. Erroneous data and misleading claims often lead to
mistaken understandings of the conflict's roots. In such instances, factual errors serve to suggest that all parties (Israelis,
Palestinians and Jordanians) suffer from a general shortage of water affecting the region. In reality, the water crisis is not
chiefly one of insufficient supply, but of uneven and unequitable distribution. There needs to be an increased awareness
that Israel and Palestine are arid areas, where water is naturally a scarce resource, and where water consumption should be
appropriate to these facts of nature. While supply enhancement may become salient at some future point, allocation of
existing supply is the issue that should be prioritized.
It is upon the issue of water maldistribution that this paper will therefore focus. While some consideration will be
paid to water supply and consumption in the Middle East as a whole, the emphasis will be upon the Palestinian-Israeli
dispute, which is perceived to be the central element in the conflict. This contribution is helpful for understanding the
causes, effects and solutions for water wars and conflicts due to water, happening within Middle East. And, focusing
towards the future problems rising within the rest of nations within the world as water is so valuable for living lives.

This study analyses how and for what purpose water-construction works were carried out in the Kingdom of Hungary ín light of sources from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. The study aims to determine how the masters who took part ín these works acquired the necessary skills. The most important source studied is an account of the reconstruction of a mill in Sopron (Hungary) in 1540, which along with other sources is used to analyse the tasks of millers, ditch-diggers and pond masters.

South Africa’s mining sector has undergone substantial changes in recent times. Currently it is considered a driver of the country’s economic growth and development. However, the manner in which many parts of South Africa are prospected and then summarily turned into mining areas has attracted considerable criticism, especially from civil society. Recently, people living in the catchment of the Groot Marico River in North West Province were up in arms when they discovered that local prospecting for mining nickel was under way. Residents in many parts of the affected area joined hands, regardless of racial differences and decided to oppose attempts by a nickel prospecting company, African Nickel Ltd, to secure rights to conduct prospecting operations in the environmentally sensitive Marico Eye region.
The Groot Marico River, which runs for a distance of some 210km before it joins the Crocodile River to flow into the Limpopo, is currently the only river in North West Province with a quality rating of A/B. It is considered one of the more pristine rivers in South Africa. It forms part of a unique bio-diverse environment with significant fauna and flora th¬at deserves th¬e attention of conservationists.
Irrigation farmers in the upper reaches of the Groot Marico use the river’s water. It’s also a transboundary river in that a substantial portion of the Groot Marico’s water supply is used by ¬Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, in accordance with a long-standing agreement between the governments of South Africa and Botswana.
An influential group of well-informed local residents opposed the prospecting activities and courageously took strong measures to halt all plans of this nature. Quite justifiably, they argued that they had not been given prior notice of these initiatives. Nor was there any consultation on the matter. They were determined to stop all plans for mining in the Groot Marico region and were prepared to resort to legal measures if necessary.
Not all residents felt the same way about the plans for local mining. Some argued that the prospecting could well lead to large-scale mining and this would create jobs for currently unemployed local people. In the report attention is also given to views in favour of mining. It was evident that many of the local residents were unaware of the environmental implications that mining could have on the region. They preferred to concentrate on the need for local economic development.
A remarkable development of the nickel prospecting ‘crisis’ was that specific groups in the regional community began to stand together. The social response saw an articulate sector in civil society, especially in the ranks of the irrigation farmers and their neighbours the traditional Hurutshe communities farming in the catchment of the Groot Marico, joining forces in an attempt to put an end to any plans to mine for nickel in the region. It was as if there was a new sense of an emergent awareness of the value of the Groot Marico River that had been used by local residents for centuries.
Members of North-West University’s CuDyWat conducted a research project to determine the perceptions of the local residents. They also investigated issues about which local residents felt strongly. In the report, attention is paid to:
• Local discontent with plans to prospect for nickel;
• Food security;
• Employment and labour matters;
• Alternative economic development;
• Ecotourism;
• Farming;
• Water supply and sanitation; and
• Local environmental health matters.
Of particular significance is an awareness of the dynamics of the regional political culture and how it influences the thinking of local residents on a myriad of issues. The legal viewpoint in this report is supported by the local non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Marico Land & Environmental Protection Association (Malepa). It makes a strong case for all reasonable concerned and affected parties to firmly oppose the proposed prospecting plans.
In the report, attention is paid to the perceptions of the people involved. However, an underlying objective is that the report should provide local residents with some external insight on their current situation. Attention is thus given to finding a middle ground where members of the regional community can form a ‘commons’  – an area where they can deliberate on the creation of a new sense of knowledge, free from the socio-political constraints and hidden animosities of former times. To find this commons requires a process of robust local social knowledge creation and communication to inform all residents on relevant matters. Ideally the outcome would be the creation of a sense of direction in a crisis that was created by a typical wicked political problem that surfaced in 2010. The creation of a knowledge system forms part of a comprehensive strategy that has to be developed, by local residents so that th¬ey are empowered to improve their livelihoods and secure a continued and sustainable interaction with the Groot Marico River, which is in its own right an integral and central component of the regional environment.

This article builds upon a rich scholarship that has proposed, though with different shades, the concept of socionatures, meaning by this the inextricable hybrid of ecological and social facts. In this article, we aim to explore how the Mafia produces particular socionatural formations, entering into landscapes, becoming rivers and cities, penetrating into the bodies of humans and non-humans. We will develop our argument by exploring a specific geographical area, the Simeto River, and how the Mafia has become intertwined with its ecologies. We will analyse the appropriation of the river since the 1950s, illustrating various ways in which the Mafia has blended with its ecologies: the control of water, the touristification of the river's mouth and the placement of waste facilities. We argue that one crucial feature of Mafia socionatures is the attack against commons, i.e. the attempt to subdue the (re)productive properties of human and more-than-human communities to Mafia economic...

This paper provides an historical overview of the interest in Roman hydraulics in Spain. The impressive Roman infrastructures for the collection, distribution, storage, and drainage of water have produced admiration during the successive historical ages. In addition, in some cases these constructions were reused, repaired and reconstructed due to their functionality. After the late modern period, studies on Roman hydraulics focused on the aqueducts. However, since the 1990s, and especially in the 21st century, the historiography has reached a broader scope as a result of increased social attention on the preservation and enhancement of water resources. Consequently, the topics have become numerous, and they are not just focused on constructions and their technical solutions, but also on water management and usages in different spaces. Thus, we analyse the evolution of this historiographic trend in the country, considering it as a relevant contribution to the creation of a common water culture.

This paper examines the relationship between the design and use of mechanical technology, patronage and investment, and economic return, using three main case studies: water-lifting devices, the water-powered grain mill, and the diverse uses of water-power in mining. Water-power was used on a wide scale and in diversified forms at an early date (by the first century A.D.), and the use of mechanical technology to perform economically critical work had an important impact on economic performance and the potential for per capita growth, especially in the latter centuries B.C. and the first two centuries A.D. Conversely, in the third century A.D. the cessation of the employment of hydraulic mining techniques enabling large-scale extraction of gold and other metals may have had an adverse impact on the economy as a whole. Growth and progress do not necessarily follow a linear pattern of advance; technologies are lost as well as adopted.

Initially introduced to western United States to provide ecosystem services such as erosion control, Tamarix by the mid-1900s had became vilified as a profligate waster of water. This large shrub continues, today, to be indicted for various presumed environmental and economic costs, and millions of dollars are expended on its eradication. In this review, we examine the role of scientists in driving changes in perceptions of Tamarix from valuable import to vilified invader and (in some instances) back to a productive member of riparian plant communities. Scientists over the years have sustained a negative perception of Tamarix by, among other things, (1) citing outmoded sources; (2) inferring causation from correlative studies; (3) applying conclusions beyond the scope (domain) of the studies; and (4) emphasizing findings that present the species as an extreme or unnatural agent of change. Recent research is challenging the prevailing dogma regarding Tamarix’s role in ecosystem function and habitat degradation and many scientists now recommend management shifts from “pest plant” eradication to systemic, process-based restoration. However, prejudice against this and other non-native species persists. To further close the gap between science and management, it is important for scientists to strive to (1) cite sources appropriately; (2) avoid reflexive antiexotic bias; (3) avoid war-based and pestilence-based terminology; (4) heed the levels of certainty and the environmental domain of studies; (5) maintain up-to-date information on educational Web sites; and (6) prior to undertaking restoration or management actions, conduct a thorough and critical review of the literature.

In Roca, Z., Spek, T., Terkeli, T., Plieninger, T., Höchtl, F. (eds.): European Landscapes and Lifestyles: The Mediterranean and Beyond. Lisboa: Edições Universitárias Lusófonas 2007: 285-304.

Rain-making rituals is an important theme in all religious festivals in Greece, ancient and modern, because the religious rituals are performed by the farmers to ensure the forthcoming rain, so the crops may grow, and give a plentiful harvest. The early rains in autumn are of great importance as a preliminary to the sowing. From this perspective, rain-making rituals represent fertility-cult.
Ancient and modern Greece represents two peasant communities, inhabiting the same landscape, with the same climate and almost the same technological level. Both communities show similarities in several ways, such as folk religion, which relates to the basic economic needs of the community.
The sowing of cereals today extends from the middle of October to the end of December, depending of the rains. The best guide for the farmer has always been the rain, the condition of the soil and his own experience and weather-wisdom. The season of sowing was and is a time of great anxiety for the Greek farmer. Perhaps the rains will be delayed or will not come in the right amount, at the right intervals. People feel a greater need for ritual and magic on occasions when their own technical skills are limited.

In ancient times, springs where representing water-nymphs. Today springs are dedicated the Virgin Mary, the Life-giving Spring. In ancient times the life-giving spring was also a female goddess, connected with Mother Earth, but she needed to be fertilized by a male god. The Mysteries at Eleusis was celebrated around the first of October, one month before sowing, to ensure rain to make the corn grow. During these ceremonies dedicated the Corn-mother, a magical formula “rain, conceive” was uttered and a water-pouring ritual was performed.
Since there are some important characteristics connected with the rain-making rituals in Greece, ancient and modern, despite many changes in the dynamics of history, modern rituals as observed in rural Greece can give a clearer picture of the way ancient people perceived the way they could influence the gods to ensure their life-giving water.
The paper will make a comparison between some important ancient festivals celebrated before sowing, and modern parallels, celebrated “to let it rain”.

Accepted version of article published in Textual Practice, 2020.

In recent years ecocriticism and the environmental humanities have undergone a 'hydrological turn', sometimes referred to as the emergence of the 'blue humanities'. This 'turn' has, however, typically focused on the maritime and oceanic rather than the fresh water essential for the reproduction of much life on earth. In this article I analyse contemporary Canadian poet Rita Wong's 2015 collection undercurrent for thematic and formal insights into how dominant ways of understanding water have enabled its exploitation within the capitalist world-system. I argue that Wong's poetry resists a concept that geographer Jamie Linton calls 'modern water' (2010: 14), or water as ultimately reducible to abstract molecules of 'H₂O' circulating within the hydrological cycle. Wong's poems illustrate how this concept has facilitated the exhaustion and contamination of the world's water in the pursuit of profit, amplifying these concerns in formal strategies that situate local Canadian water histories within what Jason W. Moore describes as capitalism's 'world-ecological regime'. I combine world-systems theory with Indigenous, ecofeminist and posthumanist thought to show how Wong's poetry models non-anthropocentric modes of relating to water and other water-dependent beings that move towards environmental justice.