Water as hazard and water as heritage: Report of the European
Geosciences Union Topical Event in Rome, 13.-14. June 2016
Abstract
“Water as hazard and water as heritage” was an international workshop
funded by the European Geosciences Union and run in frame of the “Spazi
aperti” international event of the Romanian Academy in Rome, along with
other cultural events. The “Spazi aperti” (open spaces) event is an
international exhibition inviting the scholars in arts and humanities at
other foreign academies in Rome, an international city. The convener of
the workshop, the first author, was Vasile Pârvan fellow at that time in
Rome, on a topic about water, and volunteered to the “Spazi aperti”
event, whose curator was Roxana Mihaly. Fellows from different academies
contributed to the book. Participation was multidisciplinary, from
geosciences to archeology, art history, architecture and urban and
landscape planning. Participation was also international, from Romania,
Italy, the USA, the UK and Germany. In 2018 the report was published,
with support of the Marie Curie Alumni Association, which also supports
participation to present the book at the EGU GA in 2019. Marie Curie
Alumni contributed to the book. Working on the report has been supported
by two short term scientific missions in frame of the COST action TD1406
(“Intelligent management of heritage buildings”), both under the
mentorship of Alex Dill, co-editor of the book, a conference stay in
Karlsruhe funded by the Marie Curie Alumni Association and a mobility
project of the Romanian science authority (PN-III-P1-1.1-MC2017-1334),
all leading to Karslruhe, Germany. The book has also been presented at
the Romanian Architecture Biennale 2018, an event in frame of the
European Year of Cultural Heritage of the European Commission. The book
has also been announced on platforms such as the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences and CORDIS of the European Union
(https://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/129019_de.html). A contact has been
established to present also on the EGU blog. The book contains an
overview of the event (both the Spazi aperti exhibition and the
workshop, including its webpage) and the abstracts of the presentations,
along with images and the CVs of the presenters. The presentations
include: symbols of water in the work of Carlo Scarpa, water as hazard
in case of earthquakes, postwar riverfront reconstruction, water in the
arts, waterways across Europe, water and archaeology (architecture and
archaeology, Roman baths, virtual museums), water sketching,
waterscapes, precipitation estimation, water and natural risks in smart
cities, pastoralism and water, new forms of water in landscape. The
countries covered are in Europe and beyond (near East), including
different countries in Europe than those of the authors (such as
Danemark and the Balkans for example). The contributions display the
dual character of water, between hazard (geoscience) and heritage
(arts), and thus link to previous contributions of the first author to
the EGU, co(convening) since 2002 the session on natural hazards’ impact
on urban areas and infrastructure.