Blue Papers: a Journal for Empowering Water and Heritage for Sustainable Development edited by Carola Hein, Matteo D’Agostino, Carlien Donkor & Zuzanna Sliwinska.
Environmental Threats to Prehistoric Treasures: Tassili n’Ajjer and Hoggar Facing Climatic Disruptions
In Tassili n’Ajjer, a UNESCO World Heritage property, and the Hoggar Mountains prehistoric rupestrian (rock) art reveals a critical narrative of environmental transformation. Dating from 10,000 BC to approximately the first millennium AD, these paintings document a once-verdant Sahara, contrasting sharply with today’s arid landscape. These archaeological treasures now face an existential threat from contemporary climate change. Unpredictable rainfall, increased humidity and temperature fluctuations are systematically degrading the delicate art. As climate change intensifies, the study emphasizes the need for integrated conservation approaches that combine advanced monitoring, community-based stewardship and international collaboration.
Copyright (c) 2025 Amira Ghennaï, Said Madani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Watermills as Cultural-Natural Ecosystems: Tangible and Intangible Heritage for Sustainable Water and Energy Management in a Changing Climate
Watermills are not remnants of obsolete technologies but dynamic socio-ecological systems in which hydrology, craftsman ship, landscape processes and community knowledge have coevolved for centuries. Although mills appear in many UNESCO World Heritage and Intangible Heritage inscriptions, their ecological functions and climate-adaptation potential remain largely underrecognized. This article demonstrates how historic mill infrastructures – by regulating flow, managing sediment, supporting biodiversity and generating low-impact energy – embody long-standing forms of water governance that anticipate today’s nature-based solutions. Drawing on recent evidence, the article shows that active or revived milling practices strengthen landscape resilience, whereas abandoned mills deteriorate rapidly under climate stress, amplifying environmental risks.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Carmela Grano https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ancient Wood and Climate Resilience: Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps
As climate change threatens heritage sites, modern settlements and landscapes around the world through flooding and rising sea levels, closer examination of prehistoric innovations may inspire solutions based on practices that have been tested for over 7000 years. Elevated architecture, natural ventilation systems and minimal hydrological impact provide actionable blueprints for sustainable building and planning today. By integrating these time-tested strategies with modern technology, the UNESCO World Heritage property of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps can contribute to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, transforming ancient techniques into modern climate adaptation tools.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cyril Dworsky, Barbara Fath https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring the Venetian Lagoon: Toward A New Culture of Environmental Heritage
Venice and its Lagoon, a UNESCO World Heritage property, epitomizes the challenges of water-related climate change. Historically, it has been an exemplary site of human life in close interaction with water. Today, with rising sea levels and intensifying storm surges, it offers a powerful case for developing cohesive, inclusive, and adaptive water management. The lessons emerging from Venice have relevance to other UNESCO heritage sites. In all its complexity, Venice underscores the need to recognize water’s dynamic nature in governance and to avoid reliance on rigid, fail-safe solutions, instead emphasizing collaborative actions supported by political commitment. This article reframes the heritage of Venice and its lagoon as a dynamic, amphibious process, and argues that collaborative, adaptive governance is the only viable path to a sustainable future.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Chiara Tosi, Luca Velo, Michela Pace, Mette Juhl Jessen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Impact of Climate Change on Cultural Heritage: The Case of the Tomb of Askia
The UN SDG Agenda does not mitigate the impacts of flooding and desertification or address the regional insecurity affecting the Tomb of Askia and the surrounding area, Gao, which is experiencing devastating droughts and rainfall, increasing insecurity. Only through a deeper understanding of the interrelation of these issues and by significant reporting improvements, can we realize the UN 2030 Agenda.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mamadou Samaké https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Modern Water Management and the Challenges of Climate Change at the World Heritage Property Upper Harz Water Management System
The Upper Harz Water Management System is an outstanding example of effective water management over the centuries. Through historical development and adaptive change over centuries, a multifunctional system has evolved that remains in active use today. Since the site’s UNESCO designation as a World Heritage property in 2010, continuous monitoring and maintenance have been integral to its management. In recent years, challenges arising from climate change and safety-related hydraulic engineering issues, as well as financial constraints, have put the monument under increasing pressure. With the common goal of ensuring that the historic elements and their operation continue to contribute to a wide range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provide essential public services in the future, changes are necessary. World Heritage management that incorporates the importance of water management is therefore essential, just as, conversely, the World Heritage and the monument play a supporting role and basis for the management of water in the Upper Harz Water Management System.
Copyright (c) 2025 Manuela Armenat, Christian Bellak, Andreas Lange https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Amsterdam’s Quay Walls: Methods for Connecting Past, Present and Future
The much-needed repair and rebuilding of Amsterdam’s historical quay walls and bridges coincides with growing demand for innovation, ranging from improved logistics and energy systems to enhanced biodiversity and climate resilience. These technology-driven transformations are unfolding in the heart of a World Heritage property known for its distinctive architectural and urban character. This article explores the complexities of integrating heritage into transdisciplinary design processes, focusing on the Canal Ring Area inside the Singelgracht. It proposes three axes for planning interventions that draw meaningfully on the past while addressing future needs, including those related to climate change. In particular, the article considers how historical analysis, spatial mapping and narrative-based approaches can strengthen the integration of historic spaces and practices into locally grounded, sustainable, climate-responsive design.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carola Hein, Regina Klinger, Christel Voncken, Prapti Gupta, Vincent Baptist https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Water Management in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve: The Village of Pampaneira at the Barranco de Poqueira Heritage Site
Recent changes in how water resources are managed in the Alpujarra – a vulnerable region on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada in Andalusia, Spain – are contributing to the degradation of formerly lush landscapes, which are now becoming increasingly arid under the pressure of global climate change. Poor water management practices risk pushing the environment beyond a point of no return, making recovery impossible unless the current climate emergency is addressed. It is therefore necessary to learn from the millennia-old culture and traditional processes of adaptation and resilience that have enabled communities in this region to thrive without overexploiting or depleting natural resources. This paper examines the village of Pampaneira, located in the Barranco de Poqueira, a heritage site within the Sierra Nevada UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The village has historically practiced a unique and sustainable approach to water management, supporting human consumption, agriculture, daily activities, energy production and bioclimatic mechanisms established in the municipality.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luis José García-Pulido https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Wetland Contract as a Governance Tool to Manage Conflicts in the Venetian Lagoon
Venice and its Lagoon, a vulnerable UNESCO World Heritage property, requires innovative governance tools to manage its complexity amid intensifying impacts of climate change. The local community has the potential to act as a living laboratory for testing new approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation. This article examines the participatory process behind the Wetland Contract for the Northern Lagoon of Venice, a government instrument designed to strengthen protection of the lagoon’s wetlands. The initiative brings together diverse stakeholders and local actors who commit to managing, restoring and protecting wetlands in a coordinated manner. The contract aims to balance competing priorities of socioeconomic development and biodiversity conservation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Chiara Tosi, Alessia Franzese, Mette Juhl Jessen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Environmental Monitoring for Water Heritage: Innovations and Challenges for the Grand Canal of Suzhou, China
The Grand Canal in China is a regional waterway infrastructure serving multiple functions, including transportation and water regulation, and historically, it has supported economic growth and urbanization along its route. Within China’s unique decentralized environmental management system, the multifaceted value of the Grand Canal presents distinct challenges, including inter-regional and inter-departmental challenges. This article examines the latest water management initiatives along the Suzhou section of the Grand Canal and explores the role of environmental monitoring in protecting this UNESCO World Heritage property. The experimental integration of water-surface-aerial heritage monitoring with the Joint Meeting System in Suzhou provides a nuanced perspective on the interplay between technology and sustainable development.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ting Wang https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Allowing Natural Sedimentation in the Nieuwe Waterweg to Reduce Salinity Intrusion and the Effects of Sea Level Rise
The Nieuwe Waterweg is the artificial mouth of the Rhine and Meuse Rivers in the Netherlands and an important shipping channel for the Port of Rotterdam. The channel, about a half-kilometer wide, is dredged to depths of more than 16 m to allow navigation. This substantial depth has adverse effects on flood safety, ecology and salinity intrusion in the lower river system. Mitigating these effects through engineering is costly and increasingly unviable with rising sea levels. A straightforward, nature-based alternative is to allow natural sedimentation, gradually making the channel shallower again while the port continues to expand seaward. We present 1:1000 scale physical experiments as a future vision for sedimentation in the ports and the Nieuwe Waterweg. The observed behavior aligns with that of similar estuaries and ports worldwide, demonstrating the broader applicability of this approach. Based on the current sediment budget, the sedimentation rate is estimated 0.5–1.0 m per decade. If transitional and structural changes in port logistics are coordinated with this sedimentation rate, the port economy can be expected to benefit.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maarten Kleinhans, Silke Baltussen, Eise Nota, Jana Cox, Han Meijer, Jasper Hugtenburg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Water Spaces of St. Petersburg and its World Heritage: Climate Change and Other Threats
St. Petersburg and its surrounding areas have been shaped by their relationship with water. Following the example of Amsterdam, city founder Peter the Great sought to supplement the Neva River Delta with numerous canals. He also aimed to make the new Russian capital the country’s primary port and trade center by shifting it toward the open sea, which led to the establishment of the port city of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island. Today, the historic center of St. Petersburg, including the Neva water spaces and the Kronstadt forts and harbors on this islands, is listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, comprising 116 individual cultural heritage sites. However, with the intensifying impacts of climate change, the property is at risk of flooding. Specialists’ calculations have made it possible to make accurate predictions and propose measures to protect the city from such threats. The outcomes were incorporated into St. Petersburg’s Regional Climate Change Adaptation Plan; however, the document pays little attention to safeguarding cultural heritage. At the same time, rapid urbanization poses just as serious a threat as climate change to St. Petersburg and its surrounding areas, and for many years has brought harm to the “Historic Centre of St. Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.”
Copyright (c) 2025 Sergey Gorbatenko https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Water Management System of Augsburg: UNESCO World Heritage Property, Global Practice Example and Role Model
The buildings and infrastructure of the UNESCO World Heritage property, the Water Management System of Augsburg, document the use of water resources over the course of 800 years. The system embodies sustainability and is recognised for its innovative solutions. The foundation for its management is the 2019 management plan, developed for the site’s UNESCO nomination. Building upon this foundation, the City of Augsburg implemented its Klimawandelanpassungskonzept (Climate Adaptation Plan) in 2022. This subsequent program focuses on urban resilience and sustainable development, linking directly to the World Heritage property by identifying “water” as a key action field. Current responses to climate challenges, closely connected to the Augsburg World Heritage property, include three EU projects: Licca Liber, LIFE, and Contempo2, which aim to restore the Lech River and surrounding floodplain habitats.
Copyright (c) 2025 Christian Schaller https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Learning from the Subak World Heritage Property: The Importance of Co-Creation for Water Management and Climate Adaptation
The Cultural Landscape of Bali Province, a UNESCO World Heritage property in Indonesia, features ancient rice terraces and the subak irrigation system, reflecting a millennium-old harmony between humans, nature and the spiritual world. The subak landscape faces increasing challenges that threaten its sustainability. Alongside the pressure of rapidly expanding tourism, the subak system is increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity and shifting weather patterns due to climate change. This article examines the role of co-creation and local knowledge, advocating for the incorporation of community-led practices in the management of World Heritage properties. Co-creation can improve the effectiveness of management plans, align conservation goals with local communities’ adaptive practices and enhance the resilience of the subak system. The article underscores the critical need for World Heritage management plans to integrate climate adaptation strategies rooted in local knowledge, ensuring a more responsive and sustainable approach to preserving the heritage landscape.
Copyright (c) 2025 Diana Rahman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Resilience Value and Recovery: The Symbiotic Relationship between Classical Gardens of Suzhou and the Historic Urban Water System
The World Heritage property Classical Gardens of Suzhou (CGS) comprises water-focused cultural landscapes closely integrated with the historic urban water system (HUWS) of the ancient city of Suzhou in China. Historically, the gardens and the water system developed together, influencing and complementing one another in a symbiotic relationship. In response to the combined pressures of climate change and rapid urbanization, the resilience value – that is, the inherent capacity to adapt to and withstand environmental stresses – embedded in this relationship offers critical insights for urban planners, ecologists and cultural heritage agencies working to improve the flood and ecological resilience of gardens and ancient cities. This article surveys relevant scholarship and draws on field visits and interviews. It focuses on the resilience value of the symbiotic relationship that developed between the gardens and the urban water system and reviews key policies and practices since the 1950s. It summarizes efforts that have helped revive the symbiotic relationship and proposes strategies to further promote the recovery of this relationship by drawing on its embedded resilience value to enhance the resilience of both the gardens and the city of Suzhou.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yapeng Ou, Zhen Cai, Qingzhou Wu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
An Integrated Water System: The Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces
The Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2013, integrates traditional farming, irrigation, water management and the Hani people’s spiritual relationship with nature. It embodies traditional ecosystemic practices and provides a model for sustainable development aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The terraces exemplify a comprehensive water management system (SDG 6), grounded in resilient communities (SDG 11), efficient traditional farming (SDG 12) and climate-resilient water management (SDG 13). This article examines this traditional approach to water management to offer insights regarding the challenges involved in conserving and (re)creating holistic water systems. In the context of climate change, safeguarding this cultural landscape against flooding, drought and socioeconomic pressures is of critical importance.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tianchen Dai, Carola Hein https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Water, Climate and World Heritage: Navigating Threat and Opportunity
The frequency and intensity of weather extremes are rising globally due to anthropogenic climate change, the degradation of ecosystems’ integrity, and the breach of six out of nine planetary boundaries over the last decades (Richardson et al. 2023). Water is central to understanding these changes and a critical focus for adaptation. According to the World Meteorological Organization (2021; cited in UNESCO 2025a), water-related hazards such as droughts, storms and floods have caused over 90 per cent of the world’s major disasters since 1970, and have led to more than 2 million deaths and economic losses exceeding USD 3.6 trillion.
Copyright (c) 2025 Zuzanna Sliwinska, Tino Mager, Carola Hein https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Water Management in World Heritage Properties in Times of Climate Change
Water remembers. It is humans who forget. Elif Shafak, There are Rivers in the Sky
Copyright (c) 2025 Sara Ahmed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Ilulissat Icefjord: Local Stewardship and Global Responsibility in a Changing Climate
The Sermermiut archaeological site at the Ilulissat Icefjord contains cultural remnants from three Inuit cultures spanning nearly 4000 years. This unique site is now under threat from climate change and oceanic forces. The permafrost layer, which has long supported the site, including the cultural-historical ruins located on it, is thawing, causing destabilization of the ground and severe erosion of the slopes. A fieldwork initiative conducted in the summer of 2024 by collaborative teams from Greenland’s cultural and heritage institutions, in partnership with international technical assistance programs, studied these impacts using advanced monitoring techniques and community involvement, setting an example for adaptive management strategies that align with the UN 2030 Agenda. This article highlights how climate change is affecting both cultural heritage and contemporary life at the Ilulissat Icefjord, and emphasizes the importance of combining scientific research, responsible site management and local community engagement to safeguard this UNESCO World Heritage property. Through adaptive management, integration of local knowledge and strong collaboration across sectors, the Ilulissat Icefjord can remain both a globally significant natural site and a resilient, living Arctic community in a changing climate.
Copyright (c) 2025 Bo Albrechtsen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Water Systems Design: Connecting and Developing Methods for the Value Case Approach
Water uses and practices are typically dissociated and considered separately: drinking water, sewage systems and shipping are often treated as distinct systems. Especially in a time of climate-related water systems change, a more holistic approach is needed. This article explores the background of and inspiration for for the value case approach developed and tested in several workshops for port city territories and water systems under my leadership as UNESCO Chair Water, Ports and Historic Cities and with the PortCityFutures Center of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) university consortium. The article first explores the selection of multiple and diverse methodologies for mapping spaces, stakeholders and cultures over time, and the rationale for the choice of models. It then briefly introduces the reasoning for the various approaches that come together to contextualize current spatial, social and cultural conditions and help guide the development of a shared mission and vision for sustainable and inclusive water futures through hands-on workshops and activities.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carola Hein https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Making Sustainability Transitions Appealing: The Need for Alternative Narratives in France
Sustainability transitions offer opportunities to rethink and improve society, such as by improving well-being, reducing inequalities and reconnecting with nature. Yet, mainstream political narratives focus on the short-term costs of sustainability transitions and fail to highlight environmental measures that consider people’s social and cultural realities. This article discusses the shortcomings of current narratives of sustainability transitions in France and explores alternative approaches. Drawing on water heritage and local values can help shape narratives that resonate with people in their context, and allow them to take a long-term view. The lake and city of Annecy is an interesting example of how water heritage and local values can be used to shape appealing narratives in support of sustainability transitions.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maëlle Salzinger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Interview with Anne Poelina | Sustaining Intergenerational Guardianship and Equity for the Martuwarra Catchment
The Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) Council has been established by senior elders, including Anne Poelina, to represent different parts of the river. The interview explores the history of the Council and its goals for holistic development based on what they call “forever” economies. Dr. Poelina explains the Council’s diverse ways of promoting intergenerational equity through the Youth Council, their conservation plan with the nine native title groups and the reason the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) Council joined the Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET) as a living museum. This interview also serves as an introduction to the Living Water Heritage project discussed in this issue of Blue Papers by Lachie Carracher.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anne Poelina, Carlien Donkor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Methodologies for Inspiring, Locally Grounded Sustainability Transitions: The Value Case for Annecy, France
Methodologies that draw on heritage and local values can stimulate new ideas and actions to make sustainability transitions more locally grounded and inspiring. The value case approach is one such methodology that was applied to the lake and city of Annecy, in France, during a course on water systems design. The author describes the steps of the value case and discusses how heritage and local values served as a compass to develop a vision and to propose actions toward an inspiring future.
The Peshwa Nahar System: Sustainable Water Management in the Past and for the Future
Urban water infrastructure in India is currently focused on technocratic solutions, often disregarding sociocultural and environmental values. This article examines the eighteenth-century Peshwa-period nahar (aqueduct) system in Pune, within the broader context of three centuries of urbanization. Developed as part of the 2023 professional education course Water Systems Design: Learning from the Past to Design Resilient Water Futures, it employs the value case methodology and the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to highlight ecosystem-based thinking reflecting traditional knowledge systems. Although today the nahar system is no longer functional, the authors argue that it can inform future design thinking and offers an important example for initiatives like India’s Smart Cities program, offering a sustainable water management approach by integrating ecological and sociocultural values in infrastructure planning.
Copyright (c) 2025 Radhika Mulay, Pallavee Gokhale https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Parched Paradise: Building a Common Future Amid the Crisis of Modern Water in Mexico City
For more than a century, the ejido system, a historic water and land management system in rural areas of Mexico, has provided a spatial and social context for long-term, sustainable water distribution. The advent of public water distribution under the paradigm of so-called modern water has led the authorities of Mexico City to over-rely on a supply-side approach. As a result, the hydrological boundaries of the local and neighboring watersheds have been stretched to a dangerous degree. Furthermore, many residents experience limited access to clean water. Today we need to rethink the role of state, society and the environment to inspire future community practices in the urban context. This article proposes a location and design for a community building in an irregular neighborhood in the western hillslopes of Mexico City, which could function as a platform for collective action, inspired by ejido elements.
Copyright (c) 2025 David Sauer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Designing with Sound as a Methodology to Reconnect Water, Culture and Heritage in Tetouan, Morocco
This paper explores the use of soundscape design to reconnect the people of Tetouan, Morocco, with their cultural heritage as embodied in their historic skundo water system. Our understanding of soundscapes within this context was developed through an in-depth soundscape analysis within the medina of Tetouan that identified how the skundo system and its audible sounds are still present. To amplify the presence of the skundo system and raise awareness of the value of water, we used the system’s traditional clay pipes, with their audible and tactile qualities, as focal elements in our design interventions. Through the soundscape analysis, we designed interventions in several unique spaces that highlight the value of water within two possible future climate scenarios: one involving an abundance of water and the other its absence. Through these sound interventions, we aim to reconnect residents with their water and cultural heritage and emphasize the importance of sustainable water management while integrating local traditions.
Copyright (c) 2025 Regina Klinger, Nicola Vollmer, Aylin Yazici https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Designing For Extremes: Heritage Strategies for Rising Sea Level Adaptation in The Hague
This article presents insights gained from an international research-by-design workshop on the future of the historic harbor of Scheveningen, its heritage and the districts surrounding it in The Hague. The workshop – part of long-standing cooperation between Brazil and the Netherlands on heritage management – explored how and to what extent historic features can accommodate adaptation to rising sea levels. The results of the workshop provide insights for coastal cities worldwide and show that historic features can support nature-based and adaptive strategies for climate resilience and that it is possible to integrate heritage into spatial planning for sustainable urban futures.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marlies Augustijn, Mila Avellar Montezuma, Beate Begon, Jean-Paul Corten, Carola Hein https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Toward a Value Case Approach for Designing Sustainable Water Systems
Designing water systems – interconnected networks of water-related structures and practices – is not only a matter of technology and economics, but also of history, institutions and culture. Understanding these multiple, overlapping and interconnected spaces and practices requires a holistic approach that contextualizes current projects and helps identify challenges and opportunities. The article introduces a value case approach, including tools and methods that can be used to connect spatial, social and cultural conditions and their change over time. Such comprehensive understanding can potentially be used to facilitate societal change and guide political decision-making. The article first explores the rationale and setup of a value-case approach in the context of the PortCityFutures Center and the work of the UNESCO Chair Water, Ports and Historic Cities. It concludes by introducing key elements and methodological tools.
Digital Terrain Models from Historic Data Sets: The Case of Land Subsidence, Water Management and Sustainable Land Use in the Dutch Lowlands
The region surrounding Gouda, in the middle of the Dutch Delta, is one of the lowest-lying areas in the Netherlands. The historic inner city is situated at the current high-water mark (Amsterdam Ordnance Datum, or NAP). In contrast, the surrounding landscape lies between two and six meters below that due to subsidence as a result of draining the land and making it available for urbanization and agriculture. The original factors that caused the land to subside are still at play here, while relative sea level rise adds to the problem by making these areas prone to flooding. In this region, accurate digital terrain models make an invaluable contribution to data-driven governance and decision-making. These models can illuminate how changing conditions affect heritage sites and the cultural landscape. We propose and evaluate a methodology for developing accurate terrain models from historical aerial photographs. The method provides high-density, high-precision data for the past half-century. This data can provide insight into the long-term effects of local interventions on local subsidence, making the method a valuable tool for developing risk inventories for proposed interventions.
Copyright (c) 2025 Roeland Emaus, Sylvia Leenaers https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Taxonomy of Water Practices, Functions and Values across Space and Time
In 2022, when we proposed capturing water, culture and heritage with a set of icons, we were hoping to gain a better understanding of the relationships between different types of water uses, spaces and practices. As a team, we were hesitant about categorizing water spaces and questioned the usefulness of doing so. However, after more than two years of working with the icons – through the Blue Papers journal, TU Delft’s Water Systems Design course,1 and numerous workshops – we have come to recognize the benefits of this type of categorization. Our experience has confirmed some of our initial assumptions while also offering new insights. To reflect on what we have learned, we decided to revisit and update the icons and their descriptions. Classification through the icons, per se, is not a solution to any particular problem involving water, culture and heritage. Yet, discussions around their use – for structuring research, connecting seemingly different practices and organizing exchanges of views among diverse groups – can lead to better understanding of diverse perspectives and potentially to the development of solutions. This contribution shares the process of visualizing, describing and activating the various water spaces and functions through design and practices. In this contribution we share how we have developed and used the icons. We also share our thoughts about the use of water icons and their relevance across various contexts, as well as their potential and limitations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carola Hein, Lea Kayrouz, Zuzanna Sliwinska, Matteo D'Agostino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0