Waterways and the Cultural Landscape (Routledge Cultural Heritage and Tourism Series)

Water control and management have been fundamental to the building of human civilisation. In Europe, the regulation of major rivers, the digging of canals and the wetland reclamation schemes from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, generated new typologies of waterscapes with significant implications for the people who resided within them.

This book explores the role of waterways as a form of heritage, culture and sense of place and the potential of this to underpin the development of cultural tourism. With a multidisciplinary approach across the social sciences and humanities, chapters explore how the control and management of water flows are among some of the most significant human activities to transform the natural environment. Based upon a wealth and breadth of European case studies, the book uncovers the complex relationships we have with waterways, the ways that they have been represented over recent centuries and the ways in which they continue to be redefined in different cultural contexts. Contributions recognise not only valuable assets of hydrology that are at the core of landscape management, but also more intangible aspects that matter to people, such as their familiarity, affecting what is understood as the fluvial sense of place.

This highly original collection will be of interest to those working in cultural tourism, cultural geography, heritage studies, cultural history, landscape studies and leisure studies.

Francesco Vallerani is professor of geography at the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, Italy. His main fields of expertise are human and cultural geography, landscape evolution and heritage, with special focuses on waterscapes and water-based sustainable tourism in both European and South American countries.

Francesco Visentin is a human geographer with research interests in sustainable tourism and cultural history. His research focuses on water and rural landscapes changes especially in Italy, Spain and England. He is currently a fellow research at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, involved in some projects concerning cultural heritage tourism.