Copyright information

“Drought, Mud, Filth, and Flood: Water Crises in Australian Cities, 1880s–2010s” was created by Andrea Gaynor, Margaret Cook, Lionel Frost, Jenny Gregory, Ruth Morgan, Martin Shanahan, Peter Spearritt, Susan Avey, Nathan Etherington, Elizabeth Gralton, and Daniel Martin (2019) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This refers only to the text and does not include image rights. Please click on an image to view its individual rights status.

Drought, Mud, Filth, and Flood: Water Crises in Australian Cities, 1880s–2010s

In this exhibition, we invite visitors to consider the historical relationship of “water crises” of various kinds to the development of urban water systems, through the experience of the driest inhabited continent on earth, Australia. We have chosen a range of different departures from water-related business as usual—from shortage to flood, pollution to drainage—in the five mainland Australian state capitals from the late nineteenth century to the present. The part of this exhibition devoted to each city focuses thematically on just one or two kinds of crisis, while the timeline covers a wider range of events in each place.

About the Exhibition

About the author

Gaynor, Andrea

University of Western Australia

Andrea Gaynor is Associate Professor of History at the University of Western Australia. An environmental historian, she seeks to use the contextualizing and narrative power of history to address contemporary problems. She is co-editor, with Nick Rose, of Reclaiming the Urban Commons: The Past, Present and Future of Food Growing in Australian Towns and Cities (UWAP 2018). At UWA, she is Chair of the History Discipline Group and Director of the Centre for Western Australian History; she also convenes the Australian and New Zealand Environmental History Network and endeavors to inform policy as a member of The Beeliar Group: Professors for Environmental Responsibility.

Cook, Margaret

University of Queensland & La Trobe University, Australia

Dr Margaret Cook is an environmental historian, cultural heritage consultant, a Post-Thesis Fellow at the University of Queensland, and an Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe University. Her PhD, completed in 2018, explored the history of floods in the Brisbane River and her findings have been published in national and international journals and in a forthcoming book, A River with a City Problem, with University of Queensland Press. Her current research deals with the colonial settlement of central Queensland for the production of cotton in the 1920s, particularly gender, climate and water.

orcid.org/0000-0002-3354-0658

Frost, Lionel

Monash University, Australia

Born and raised in Melbourne, Lionel Frost is an associate professor in the Department of Economics, Monash Business School at Monash University. He is current President of the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, and has published extensively on urban and economic history in Australia and North America. Recent publications include “The Economic History of the Pacific,” in J. R. McNeill and K. Pomeranz (eds), The Cambridge World History Volume VII: Production, Destruction, and Competition, 1750–Present (2015).

Gregory, Jenny

University of Western Australia

Jenny Gregory AM, is Emeritus Professor of History at The University of Western Australia, after a career at UWA that included time as Head of the School of Humanities, Chair of History and Director of UWA Press. Author of numerous publications in the fields of urban history, planning and heritage, her current research projects include responses to water famines and past governance of water and sanitation in Australian cities. Currently President of the History Council of WA, she has received a number of awards for her contribution to her profession and the community.

Morgan, Ruth

Monash University, Australia

Ruth Morgan is a Senior Research Fellow in the History Program at Monash University. She has published widely on the climate and water histories of Australia and the British Empire, including her award-winning book, Running Out? Water in Western Australia (2015). Her current project, on environmental exchanges between British India and the Australian colonies, has been generously supported by the Australian Research Council and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She is also a Lead Author in Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Assessment Report 6.

Shanahan, Martin

University of South Australia

Martin Shanahan is Professor of Economic and Business History at the University of South Australia and visiting Professor at the University of Goteborg (Sweden). He has written extensively on wealth inequality, business cartels, water markets, and climate change from the perspective of economic and business history. He is currently involved in a number of projects, including work (with Lionel Frost) that examines the impact on health and living standards of variations in access to water in two Australian cities.

Spearritt, Peter

University of Queensland, Australia

Peter Spearritt began his scholarly life as an urban historian and continues to be fascinated by how cities function and the impact they have on their environment. His Sydney’s Century: A History (2000) traces the growth of Australia’s largest city over the twentieth century, while Where History Happened (2018) examines urban and rural sites, from Cooktown in North Queensland to New Norcia, the Benedictine Abbey north of Perth. He is a critic of quick-fix solutions to urban water shortages, especially the building of desalination plants, when household water tanks and lowering household use of water would suffice in most instances.

Avey, Susan

University of South Australia

Dr Susan Avey is an architect and urban historian. Her research interests include individual agency in the historical development of urban environments, discovering everyday lived experiences of cities through historical data as well as the potential of drawing as a historical research tool. Recently Susan has worked in the School of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia and the International School of Hotel Management as a lecturer, studio educator, and academic researcher. She is currently engaged as a researcher in the School of Commerce at UniSA.

Etherington, Nathan

University of Sydney, Australia

Nathan Etherington is a doctoral candidate at the University of Sydney and a registered architect. He has degrees in architecture and arts from Harvard and the University of Sydney and his research is located at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urban environments. Nathan is the founder and principal of NEA, an architecture practice based in Sydney. His current research interests explore the construction of urban landscapes through engineering and infrastructure.

Gralton, Elizabeth

University of Western Australia

Elizabeth Gralton has a PhD in nineteenth-century French history from the University of Western Australia. Her research focused on contemporary reactions to and portrayals of the Paris Universal Exhibitions. She has taught in the areas of nineteenth-century Europe, early-modern France, urban history and art history. She is now based in Melbourne, working as a research consultant and studying cultural materials conservation.

Martin, Daniel

University of Western Australia

Daniel Jan Martin is a designer, urbanist, and researcher based in the School of Design at The University of Western Australia. He studies urban ecology and hydrology in relationship to architecture and urbanism. His work has focussed on mapping, environmental communication, and education. Since 2016, Daniel has worked within the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities where his current research is exploring strategies for coordinating infill housing with ecological repair.

Browse the exhibition

About the Exhibition

This exhibition arose from an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research project on “Water and the Making of Urban Australia: A History Since 1900” (DP180100807). The project aims to produce the first integrated and comparative historical study of the provision, use, and cultures of water in Australia’s five largest cities from 1900 to the present, leading to new understandings of the historical drivers of today’s urban water systems and how these systems have historically impacted on human and ecological welfare.

Drought, Mud, Filth, and Flood: Water Crises in Australian Cities, 1880s–2010s

In this exhibition, we invite visitors to consider the historical relationship of “water crises” of various kinds to the development of urban water systems, through the experience of the driest inhabited continent on earth, Australia. We have chosen a range of different departures from water-related business as usual—from shortage to flood, pollution to drainage—in the five mainland Australian state capitals from the late nineteenth century to the present. The part of this exhibition devoted to each city focuses thematically on just one or two kinds of crisis, while the timeline covers a wider range of events in each place.

About the Exhibition

About the author

Gaynor, Andrea

University of Western Australia

Andrea Gaynor is Associate Professor of History at the University of Western Australia. An environmental historian, she seeks to use the contextualizing and narrative power of history to address contemporary problems. She is co-editor, with Nick Rose, of Reclaiming the Urban Commons: The Past, Present and Future of Food Growing in Australian Towns and Cities (UWAP 2018). At UWA, she is Chair of the History Discipline Group and Director of the Centre for Western Australian History; she also convenes the Australian and New Zealand Environmental History Network and endeavors to inform policy as a member of The Beeliar Group: Professors for Environmental Responsibility.

Cook, Margaret

University of Queensland & La Trobe University, Australia

Dr Margaret Cook is an environmental historian, cultural heritage consultant, a Post-Thesis Fellow at the University of Queensland, and an Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe University. Her PhD, completed in 2018, explored the history of floods in the Brisbane River and her findings have been published in national and international journals and in a forthcoming book, A River with a City Problem, with University of Queensland Press. Her current research deals with the colonial settlement of central Queensland for the production of cotton in the 1920s, particularly gender, climate and water.

orcid.org/0000-0002-3354-0658

Frost, Lionel

Monash University, Australia

Born and raised in Melbourne, Lionel Frost is an associate professor in the Department of Economics, Monash Business School at Monash University. He is current President of the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, and has published extensively on urban and economic history in Australia and North America. Recent publications include “The Economic History of the Pacific,” in J. R. McNeill and K. Pomeranz (eds), The Cambridge World History Volume VII: Production, Destruction, and Competition, 1750–Present (2015).

Gregory, Jenny

University of Western Australia

Jenny Gregory AM, is Emeritus Professor of History at The University of Western Australia, after a career at UWA that included time as Head of the School of Humanities, Chair of History and Director of UWA Press. Author of numerous publications in the fields of urban history, planning and heritage, her current research projects include responses to water famines and past governance of water and sanitation in Australian cities. Currently President of the History Council of WA, she has received a number of awards for her contribution to her profession and the community.

Morgan, Ruth

Monash University, Australia

Ruth Morgan is a Senior Research Fellow in the History Program at Monash University. She has published widely on the climate and water histories of Australia and the British Empire, including her award-winning book, Running Out? Water in Western Australia (2015). Her current project, on environmental exchanges between British India and the Australian colonies, has been generously supported by the Australian Research Council and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She is also a Lead Author in Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Assessment Report 6.

Shanahan, Martin

University of South Australia

Martin Shanahan is Professor of Economic and Business History at the University of South Australia and visiting Professor at the University of Goteborg (Sweden). He has written extensively on wealth inequality, business cartels, water markets, and climate change from the perspective of economic and business history. He is currently involved in a number of projects, including work (with Lionel Frost) that examines the impact on health and living standards of variations in access to water in two Australian cities.

Spearritt, Peter

University of Queensland, Australia

Peter Spearritt began his scholarly life as an urban historian and continues to be fascinated by how cities function and the impact they have on their environment. His Sydney’s Century: A History (2000) traces the growth of Australia’s largest city over the twentieth century, while Where History Happened (2018) examines urban and rural sites, from Cooktown in North Queensland to New Norcia, the Benedictine Abbey north of Perth. He is a critic of quick-fix solutions to urban water shortages, especially the building of desalination plants, when household water tanks and lowering household use of water would suffice in most instances.

Avey, Susan

University of South Australia

Dr Susan Avey is an architect and urban historian. Her research interests include individual agency in the historical development of urban environments, discovering everyday lived experiences of cities through historical data as well as the potential of drawing as a historical research tool. Recently Susan has worked in the School of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia and the International School of Hotel Management as a lecturer, studio educator, and academic researcher. She is currently engaged as a researcher in the School of Commerce at UniSA.

Etherington, Nathan

University of Sydney, Australia

Nathan Etherington is a doctoral candidate at the University of Sydney and a registered architect. He has degrees in architecture and arts from Harvard and the University of Sydney and his research is located at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urban environments. Nathan is the founder and principal of NEA, an architecture practice based in Sydney. His current research interests explore the construction of urban landscapes through engineering and infrastructure.

Gralton, Elizabeth

University of Western Australia

Elizabeth Gralton has a PhD in nineteenth-century French history from the University of Western Australia. Her research focused on contemporary reactions to and portrayals of the Paris Universal Exhibitions. She has taught in the areas of nineteenth-century Europe, early-modern France, urban history and art history. She is now based in Melbourne, working as a research consultant and studying cultural materials conservation.

Martin, Daniel

University of Western Australia

Daniel Jan Martin is a designer, urbanist, and researcher based in the School of Design at The University of Western Australia. He studies urban ecology and hydrology in relationship to architecture and urbanism. His work has focussed on mapping, environmental communication, and education. Since 2016, Daniel has worked within the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities where his current research is exploring strategies for coordinating infill housing with ecological repair.

Browse the exhibition

The Northwest Passage Timeline: Maps and Expeditions

This timelines about the history of the Northwest Passage takes its readers on a journey of discovery from the mid-fifteenth century to today.

The Northwest Passage: Myth, Environment, and Resources

This exhibition tells the story of the Northwest Passage from the pursuit of a myth to the exploitation of natural resources. Historian Elena Baldassarri takes readers on a multimedia tour of the Arctic, featuring interactive maps, photographs, videos, and interviews with experts, scholars, and elders of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada.

Elena Baldassarri

About the author

Baldassarri, Elena

Roma Tre University, Italy

Elena Baldassarri is an Assistant Professor in North American History at the Humanistic Department of Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy. Her research interests focus on the history of Canada and the United States, and the relationship between cultural and social rights in Canada. Her most recent publications cover US environmental policy, Canada’s sovereignty over the lands and waters of the Arctic. In past she has obtained a Canada Grant (2012) at the John-F.-Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien, Freie Universität Berlin, a Faculty Research Grants/Bourses de recherche International Council for Canadian Studies (ICCS) (2007), and a Travel Grant from the Italian Association for Canadian Studies (AISC) (2006). She is the author of several articles and books including Canada e Quebec: Un problema di identità nazionale (1947–70) [Canada and Quebec: a problem of national identity]. Roma: Viella, 2009, and has edited Percorsi migratori e accoglienza fra storia e politiche di gestione [Migration routes and migrant reception: history and policies], edited with Pia G. Celozzi Baldelli. Roma: Aracne, 2009, and La Guerra Fredda nella satira politica Est/Ovest [Cold War and political satire] edited with Pia G. Celozzi Baldelli. Roma: Aracne, 2010.

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The Water Shops of Republican Tianjin

by Mu Cao

|

Arcadia, Summer 2019, no. 20

Read more about The Water Shops of Republican Tianjin

Defending the Shoreline: From Cannon to Beach Nourishment in Gulf Islands National Seashore

by Alanna Casey

|

Arcadia, Summer 2019, no. 19

Read more about Defending the Shoreline: From Cannon to Beach Nourishment in Gulf Islands National Seashore

About the Exhibition

This exhibition shows some of the many links between the Neva River in St. Petersburg and the Viennese Danube discovered during the joint Russian-Austrian research project “The Long-Term Dynamics of Fish Populations and Ecosystems of European Rivers.”

“Commanding, Sovereign Stream”:
The Neva and the Viennese Danube in the History of Imperial Metropolitan Centers

The exhibition aims to reveal and visualize the power of mighty rivers so crucially important for the history of St. Petersburg and Vienna—the major imperial centers of continental Europe in the modern era.

Gertrud Haidvogl, Alexei Kraikovski, and Julia Lajus

About the author

Haidvogl, Gertrud

Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management (IHG), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria

Gertrud Haidvogl studied history at the University of Vienna. She works at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, and is specialized in the history of riverine landscapes and historical changes of fish populations. Haidvogl is a member of the Center for Environmental History Vienna.

Kraikovski, Alexei

Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History at National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia

Alexei Kraikovski graduated from St. Petersburg University and got his PhD in history from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2005. He is Associate Professor of History and Senior Research Fellow at at the Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History at National Research University Higher School of Economics. His research interests include marine environmental history, urban history, the history of urban rivers, economic history, historical geography, and resource studies.

orcid.org/0000-0002-1355-7954

Lajus, Julia

Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History at National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia

Julia Lajus has a Candidate of Science degree (Russian PhD degree) from the Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences. She is Associate Professor of History and Leading Research Fellow at at the Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History at National Research University Higher School of Economics. Her research interests include the environmental history of biological resources, especially in marine and polar areas, and the history of field sciences such as fisheries and oceanography. Julia Lajus served as the vice president of the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH) from 2011-2015.

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Nourish: A 360° Video Poem (Baltic Sea)

In this chapter from the virtual exhibition “Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey,” Jesse Peterson’s 360° video presents both an environment and posthuman character from which the human cannot be disentangled, in the context of cultural eutrophication fueled by anthropogenic sources of pollution and climate change affecting the marine environment.

Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey

Communicating global environmental issues in new and exciting ways can lead to a better public understanding of academic research. The international doctoral researchers of the ENHANCE Innovative Training Network (ITN) present their interdisciplinary projects through short, immersive videos, accompanied by analytical contextualization. These six 360º videos and one multiple-screen video triptych, shot in different countries and ecosystems, aim to bring people closer to an in situ experience of global environments, their complexities, and our relationship to them.

ENHANCE ITN

About the author

Doctoral researchers, ENHANCE ITN

The international doctoral researchers of the ENHANCE Innovative Training Network (ITN) are funded by the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions, and spread across four leading academic institutions: the Deutsches Museum, the Rachel Carson Center, KTH Stockholm, and the University of Leeds

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Salt Symbiosis on the Black Sea (Bulgaria)

In this chapter from the virtual exhibition “Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey,” Anna Antonova’s 360º video immerses the viewer in a unique habitat on the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea: the salt flats in the Atanasovsko Lake near the city of Burgas. She considers these salt flats a natural symbiosis between humans and their coastal environment, which support traditional human labor, industry, and health while simultaneously providing critical avian and aquatic ecosystem habitats.

Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey

Communicating global environmental issues in new and exciting ways can lead to a better public understanding of academic research. The international doctoral researchers of the ENHANCE Innovative Training Network (ITN) present their interdisciplinary projects through short, immersive videos, accompanied by analytical contextualization. These six 360º videos and one multiple-screen video triptych, shot in different countries and ecosystems, aim to bring people closer to an in situ experience of global environments, their complexities, and our relationship to them.

ENHANCE ITN

About the author

Doctoral researchers, ENHANCE ITN

The international doctoral researchers of the ENHANCE Innovative Training Network (ITN) are funded by the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions, and spread across four leading academic institutions: the Deutsches Museum, the Rachel Carson Center, KTH Stockholm, and the University of Leeds

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The Power and the Water Project: Connecting Pasts with Futures

The Power and the Water: Connecting Pasts with Futures examines the nature of environmental connectivities since industrialization and how their legacies challenge us in the early 21st century.

Read more about The Power and the Water Project: Connecting Pasts with Futures

"State Conservation Efforts of Seasonal Wetlands along the Mississippi River"

The authors compare the administrative regulations and actions aimed at protecting and conserving isolated wetlands in ten states along the Mississippi River corridor. They highlight the necessity for reliable data for at-risk wetlands to foster conservation practices.

Read more about "State Conservation Efforts of Seasonal Wetlands along the Mississippi River"

water

Copyright information

Drought, Mud, Filth, and Flood: Water Crises in Australian Cities, 1880s–2010s

About the author

Browse the exhibition

About the Exhibition

Drought, Mud, Filth, and Flood: Water Crises in Australian Cities, 1880s–2010s

About the author

Browse the exhibition

The Northwest Passage Timeline: Maps and Expeditions

The Northwest Passage: Myth, Environment, and Resources

About the author

Browse the exhibition

About the Exhibition

“Commanding, Sovereign Stream”: The Neva and the Viennese Danube in the History of Imperial Metropolitan Centers

About the author

Browse the exhibition

Nourish: A 360° Video Poem (Baltic Sea)

Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey

About the author

Browse the exhibition

Salt Symbiosis on the Black Sea (Bulgaria)

Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey

About the author

Browse the exhibition

“Commanding, Sovereign Stream”:
The Neva and the Viennese Danube in the History of Imperial Metropolitan Centers