Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
4.1 Introduction
No water, no life. Nearly every environmental historian encounters water-related
issues, at one stage or another of his or her research. Such issues have even been at
the core of proto-environmental history essays.
1
The statistics indeed aim at being
aware that water is almost everywhere on Earth, the
: 70 % of the
surface of our planet is covered by water, of which 97 % are in oceans and 2 % in
ice (this last proportion has been decreasing for the last few decades). The concept
of
“
Blue Planet
”
implies focusing on the relationships between water and the
human societies and questioning the various uses of the different types of resources
(sea, streams, ponds, groundwater, ice). Of course, one has to keep in mind that
people do not have the same relationships with water, if they live in Greenland, in
the United States or in Sahara. For environmental historians, the relationships
between societies and their
“
Water resources
”
are crucial not only because water is a
necessity for life, but also because the dramatic demographic, cultural, economic,
social, spatial and political changes since the late eighteenth century had many
consequences on water resources.
The uses of water resources throughout history can be classi
“
waterscapes
”
ve major
categories: humankind vital needs and comfort (including personal hygiene and
cleanliness of the daily environment); agricultural use for cattle and for irrigation;
industrial use as a component of the fabrication process or as a source of energy;
means of transportation of goods and people; lastly, the aesthetic or cultural
dimension of waterscapes. Besides, we need to take into account the potential
hazards carried by water or climate (epidemics,
ed into
ooding, landslides, and drought).
Even if, during the last century, humankind has altered the biosphere as never
before, it is quite evident that the great water manipulation efforts pursued by
various societies, engineers and political leaders have produced signi
cant imbal-
ances in the relationships between local societies and their waterscapes. These
production of new socio-technical environments, reshaped by vital, political, eco-
nomic is at the core of water resources
'
environmental history.
Water has always been a topic of interest in environmental history, whether
approached by the disappearance of
sh in rivers, the history of resources con-
servation or the pollution by urban wastewater and industrial ef
uents.
2
It is now
recognized as a major research subject, as illustrated by the founding of an Inter-
national Water History Association (2001),
3
and very recently by a new scienti
c
and interdisciplinary journal, Water History (July 2009).
The present essay has no claim to be exhaustive about such a broad topic, around
which many
elds of study meet. Rather than trying to cover all aspects of water
1
Reclus (
1869
). About the
series: see Mink (
2006
).
2
See respectively: Carson (
1962
), Hays (
1959
) and Tarr (
1996
). For reviews about the urban
environment: Dieter (
2004
). A case-study about Italy: Neri Serneri (
2007
).
3
Review articles of one of its international conferences can be found in a special issue of
Environment and History, May 2010.
“
The Rivers of America
”
