CANALS · Changing Water Cultures

Changing Water Cultures

In a nutshell, the objectives of “Changing Water Cultures” (CANALS) are expressed in the ambiguity of its project title: (a) It studies how water cultures are changing (due to climate change) and (b) it has set its aim to changing water cultures (to better adapt to climate change). My case study is the German city of Reutlingen that in recent years has been heavily impacted by extreme weather events. CANALS aims to develop transdisciplinary ways of convening an ‘extended peer community’ of water stakeholders for policymaking. Climate change (changes in average temperature, precipitation, and weather intensity) is putting significant stress on EU water infrastructures. The project claims that current understandings of water, climate, and infrastructures struggle to address emerging uncertainties due to climate change. Dominant technocratic systems of knowledge and practice supporting water infrastructures in Europe are being undermined by rapid changes, which introduce new uncertainties and contest old securities. Novel ways of mobilising knowledge for water infrastructures are needed that readmits communities’ diverse cultural interactions with water to promote adaptive decision-making. So, a proper regard for water cultures is required. Under the project’s perspective, cultures are considered to be both practices and systems of symbols and meanings. CANALS’ water culture perspective recognises the hybrid character of water, which exists independently of humans and at the same time is culturally enacted through human practices. It also sees infrastructures as social practices connecting people and objects in the world in socio-material relations. A water-cultural perspective thus better captures the complex processes around water infrastructures in the context of challenges posed by climate change. Adopting an innovative water culture perspective, CANALS will first make visible the spectrum of knowledges and practices used by different social groups for maintaining infrastructures. Going further, the project will develop transdisciplinary ways of convening an ‘extended peer community’ of water stakeholders, to together appraise the quality of their water knowledges for policymaking. Due to the Norwegian and German Covid regulations that were in place when the project began, the start of the empirical work had to be postponed and only started in January 2022. Despite the early termination of the project (due to personal reasons), the empirical research is ongoing and will continue.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз