Environmental History of the Viennese Danube 1500 - 1890
Abstract
This project aims to produce the first integrated, interdisciplinary environmental history of the Viennese Danube from Early Modern times to the end of the 19th century. As environmental history, it is situated on the interface of several scholarly fields and strives to bridge approaches. Social and natural dynamics are equally important, the project focuses on their interaction. The project consists of three thematic subprojects. We will study how humans perceived of riverine landscapes, which strategies guided land use along the river’s course, how the river shaped patterns of supply and disposal of materials for the city, how the population of Vienna was affected by catastrophic floods, and how the river itself was changed and changed its characteristics over the roughly 400 years investigated. The subprojects are connected via two cross-cutting issues. One is the critical reflection of sources and their usability for environmental history. Secondly, we shall establish a concept-based synthesis to integrate the results, adequately dealing with the complexity of interactions within and around the city over time. Thematic integration is fostered by five overarching research questions. We will focus on the changing role of the river Danube from 1500 to 1920, on the functions of the river for the city and its surroundings, on the interventions humans undertook to secure these functions and to protect humans and infrastructures from the rivers threats, on the long-term legacies of these human interventions into the riverine landscape, and, linking centre and periphery on the effects of the urban development of Vienna on selected regions along the Austrian Danube. The project breaks new ground as it broadens our knowledge of the role of rivers for an urban society in the time before industrialisation. It aims to widen the temporal scope of existing approaches to study e.g. energy supply or land use by systematically assembling historical sources from the 16th century onwards and making them available for the study of the river’s role in urban development. An array of methods will be combined and adapted, such as historical GIS, historical material flow analysis. The application and further development of these methods for their use in environmental history is a major achievement in itself. Our study will produce a multitude of results related to hydromorphology, urban metabolism or cultural representation, historical source reflection and concept-based synthesis. The results will be synthesized in scholarly papers.
keywords Environmental history River-society interaction Viennese Danube Riverine landscapes
Publikationen
Historical hydrological records: a key to understanding past Danube dynamics
Autoren: Hohensinner, S. Jahr: 2011
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
GIS-based reconstruction of historical river engineering measures at the Viennese Danube River since the 13th century
Autoren: Hohensinner, S. & Lager, B. Jahr: 2011
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
Becoming an "Imperial River" - Engineering and Disputing the Viennese Danube in Early Modern Times
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Sonnlechner, Ch Jahr: 2012
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
The Environmental History of the Danube River Basin as an Issue of Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research
Autoren: Winiwarter, V; Schmid, M; Hohensinner, S; Haidvogl, G Jahr: 2013
Chapter in collected volumes
The more dikes the higher the floods: Vienna and its Danube floods, c. 1700 to 1918
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Schmid, M Jahr: 2013
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
Two steps back, one step forward: Reconstructing the dynamic Danube riverscape under human influence in Vienna
Autoren: Hohennsinner, S Jahr: 2013
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
Changes in water and land: the reconstructed Viennese riverscape from 1500 to the present
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Lager, B; Sonnlechner, C; Haidvogl, G; Gierlinger, S; Schmid, M; Krausmann, F; Winiwarter, V Jahr: 2013
Journal articles
Floods, fights and a fluid river: the Viennese Danube in the sixteenth century
Autoren: Sonnlechner, C; Hohensinner, S; Haidvogl, G Jahr: 2013
Journal articles
Wie die Donau gebändigt wurde - Umweltgeschichte, die auch ein Fenster in die Zukunft ist
Autoren: Winiwarter, V; Gierlinger, S; Haidvogl, G; Hohensinner, S; Schmid, M; Sonnlechner, C Jahr: 2013
Newspaper / Magazine article
Urban land for a growing city at the banks of a moving river: Vienna’s spread into the Danube island Unterer Werd from the late 17th to the beginning of the 20th century
Autoren: Haidvogl, G; Guthyne-Horvath, M; Gierlinger, S; Hohensinner, S; Sonnlechner, C Jahr: 2013
Journal articles
Danube circulations: River dynamics and human response
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2013
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
"Vienna's Glacier": How the Viennese dealt with ice, ice jams and ice floods on the Danube, approximately 1500-1950
Autoren: Schmid, M; Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2013
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
Genug Holz für Stadt und Fluss? Wiens Holzressourcen in dynamischen Donau-Auen
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Drescher, A; Eckmüllner, O; Egger, G; Gierlinger, S; Hager, H; Haidvogl, G; Jungwirth, M Jahr: 2013
Forschungsbericht (extern. Auftraggeber)
Analysis of large Danube flood events at Vienna since 1700
Autoren: Kiss, A; Blöschl, G; Hohensinner, S; Perdigao, R Jahr: 2014
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
Wood resources in dynamic Danube floodplains – historical reconstruction and implications for management and restoration (Les ressources de bois dans les plaines d’inondations du Danube : reconstitution historique et implications pour la gestion et la restauration)
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Drescher, A; Eckmüllner, O; Egger, G; Gierlinger, S; Hager, H; Haidvogl, G Jahr: 2015
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
Wien und seine Gewässer - Eine turbulente Umweltgeschichte
Autoren: Winiwarter, V; Sonnlechner, C; Gierlinger, S; Haidvogl, G; Hauer, F; Hohensinner, S; Pollack, G; Spitzbart-Glasl, C Jahr: 2015
Journal articles
Historische Hochwässer der Wiener Donau und ihrer Zubringer
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2015
Monographs
Historische Wasserbauten an der Wiener Donau und ihren Zubringern
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Hahmann, A Jahr: 2015
Monographs
Bibliografie historischer Karten und Literatur zu österreichischen Flusslandschaften
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2015
Monographs
The more dikes, the higher the floods: Vienna and its Danube floods
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Schmid, M Jahr: 2016
Chapter in collected volumes
Die unbekannte dritte Dimension: Geländehöhen, Gewässertiefen und Dynamik österreichischer Donaulandschaften vor der Regulierung
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Jungwirth, M Jahr: 2016
Journal articles
Wasser, Garten, Stadtfragment - Entstehung und Metamorphose des Erdberger Maises
Autoren: Hauer, F; Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2016
Journal articles
Immer höher - die Wiener Hochwasser-Risikospirale (Higher and higher - the Viennese flood risk spiral)
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2016
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
GIS-based reconstruction of Vienna’s historical landscape since the 16th century
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2016
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
GIS reconstruction of the Viennese Danube river landscape 1529-2010
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2019
Chapter in collected volumes
Der Donau auf der Spur. Katalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung in der Schallaburg 2020
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2020
Chapter in collected volumes
Ein Wiener Umgebungsplan aus dem 16. Jahrhundert im Staatsarchiv Turin
Autoren: Hohensinner, S; Krause, H; Sonnlechner, C Jahr: 2020
Journal articles
Historische Hochwässer der Wiener Donau und ihrer Zubringer, 2. erweiterte Ausgabe
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2020
Journal articles
Historische Wasserbauten an der Wiener Donau und ihren Zubringern, 2. erweiterte Ausgabe
Autoren: Hohensinner, S: Hahmann, A Jahr: 2020
Journal articles
Bibliografie historischer Karten und Literatur zu österreichischen Flusslandschaften, 3. erweiterte Ausgabe
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2020
Journal articles
Wien und die Donau - Landschaftswandel und Wasserbaumaßnahmen seit dem frühen 16. Jahrhundert
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2020
Journal articles
Data description of "building age map, Vienna, around 1920".
Autoren: Reimer, F; Kral, U; Sönmez, EC; Hauer, F; Hohensinner, S; Wolfinger, H; Stuppacher, K; Danzinger, A; Hengl, I; Prospero, L; Prunner, S; Rechberger, H; Jahr: 2022
Journal articles
Zähmung der Wiener Donau (Taming the Vienna Danube)
Autoren: Hohensinner, S Jahr: 2023
Chapter in collected volumes
Project staff
Gertrud Haidvogl
Priv.-Doz. Mag. Dr.phil. Gertrud Haidvogl
gertrud.haidvogl@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-81204
BOKU Project Leader
15.05.2010 - 14.10.2012
Severin Hohensinner
Dipl.-Ing. Dr.nat.techn. Severin Hohensinner
severin.hohensinner@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-81203
Project Staff
15.05.2010 - 14.10.2012
BOKU partners
External partners
Alpen Adria University Klagenfurt, IFF Vienna, Institute of Social Ecoloy, Centre for Envrionmental History
Univ. Prof. Dr. Verena Winiwarter
coordinator