by Johann Tempelhoff, Heather Hoag, Maurits Ertsen, Ellen Arnold, Matthew Bender, Kate Berry, Carol Fort, David Pietz, Muchaparara Musemwa, Masayoshi Nakawo, Jason Ur, Petra van Dam, Martin Melosi, Verena Winiwarter, and Tony Wilkinson

Introduction

The relationship between water and humanity has always been inextricably intertwined throughout history, but water has been and is likely to continue to be one of the most pressing environmental and resource concerns. Studying water history enhances our understanding about the nexus between the human and physical worlds within specific temporal and spatial settings. As problems of water availability and competition are becoming ever more acute, examples of past water management and social relations to water use have become increasingly relevant to our understanding of future scenarios of water use. Recently many research findings demonstrating high-quality scholarship on water history have been published in diverse journals, suggesting the field is expanding in both size and scope.
The value human societies place on water—for life, domestic use, economic production, and spirituality—has led all civilizations to manipulate water flows (Adams 1992; Boomgaard 2007; Collins 1990; Diaz and Morehouse 2003; Donahue and Johnston 1998; Gill 2000; Hundley 1992; Lansing 1991; Lucero and Fash 2006; Marcus and Stanish 2005; Magnusson 2001; Miller 2001; Pietz 2002; Rortajada 2000; Scarborough 2003; Steinberg 1991; Ward 2003; Worster 1985). One of the earliest, if not the earliest, textually documented war was fought between the Mesopotamian city-states of Lagash and Umma over a canal and its associated irrigated fields (Cooper 1983). Whether it is for food production, drinking water, sanitation, transportation, electricity generation, or other material needs, access to and use of water has played defining roles in the development of human institutions.

Yet water, be it manipulated by human agency or not, is not necessary beneficial. Large flooding can be very disruptive (Bankoff 2003), as the recent Asian tsunami and the flooding of New Orleans have proven once more. Besides, the human interference with (ground)water can lead to very unexpected and unwanted consequences. Soils saturated with salts due to irrigation, desertification, and broken dams caused havoc at a grand scale (Reisner 1986). The deep-felt emotions by victims and onlookers, the long-lasting material damage, and ultimately, the impetus for technological improvement deserve attention within water history.

Humans attribute a variety of meanings to water, and this differs according to culture and time. Connotations of water such as purity and transition are widespread. Classic examples are the preference of Hindu people to die near the river Ganges and have their ashes put in the river, the ritual of baptism which symbolizes the conversion to Christianity, and the body washing of Muslims to clean before praying.

The combination of material, cultural, and religious uses and meanings of water has shaped water systems and has emphasized the intrinsic proximity of the natural and human worlds. One of the central aims of water history is to explore this interrelatedness, thus surfacing the changing relationship between people and water over time. In this relationship, the material properties of water do matter. Composed of two atoms, the water
molecule has both peculiar and highly useful chemical properties. As the chemist and former editor of Nature magazine Philip Ball explains:

Water’s strangeness resides almost wholly in its hydrogen-bonded character. While it is not by any means the only molecule that can form hydrogen bonds, no other has just the right shape to allow the network to extend throughout all space: the crucial twist of the hips to impersonate water opens up the third dimension. The hydrogen bonds impose structural constraints that are most unusual for a liquid, and these in turn affect the physical properties such as density, heat capacity and heat conductance – as well as the way that water accommodates dissolved molecules […]’’ (Ball
1999, p. 168).

In addition to its physical properties, the movement of water through the larger hydrological cycle (and through that the global energy cycle as well) adds a unique chronological element. Water in its various forms is in constant motion through time and space—it evaporates from the oceans, falls to the ground, is absorbed into the soil or stored in frozen (and melting) icecaps, and eventually returns to the oceans. The timescale for each droplet of water can differ greatly. Groundwater can be thousands of years old; today’s rain may travel only a day between ocean and land. This temporal property of water connects it directly to human action. The water we experience today most likely has come into contact with humans before.

It seems that the attention for the history of water in the scholarly field is rising. Since 2008, at least three academic journals have devoted issues to water. Technology and Culture’s July 2008 issue showcased the thematic and geographical breadth of the field: from sanitation in England and Scandinavia and tank irrigation in India and Indonesia to the cultural dynamics of water supply in Istanbul. The January 2009 special issue of the scientific journal Physics and Chemistry of the Earth focused on contemporary issues of water management and the growth of global institutions concerned with water, while the March 2009 issue of World Archaeology explored the relationship between water control and state formation as well as the meanings and functions of water across time and space.

This recent spate of research on water confirms that water history has developed into a vibrant historical subfield—one that incorporates and contributes to environmental history, urban history, and the history of technology and landscape. Furthermore, the centrality of water to human and natural history offers the opportunity for historians to collaborate with and learn from colleagues in archaeology, anthropology, the sciences, engineering, geography, and development studies, to name but the most obvious. This new journal on water history will enable the academic community to develop a cumulative body of knowledge that will define the identity of this sub-discipline and create space for interdisciplinary scholarly engagement (compare with Tempelhoff 2005).

 

This article is adapted and excerpted from the following article in Water History, under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 4.0). To see a list of works cited, view the article PDF. 

Tempelhoff, Johann et. al. “Where has the water come from?” Water History 1 ( 2009): 1-8. DOI: 10.1007/s12685-009-0003-6