Introduction
In recent years, Europe has experienced a wave of floods: large parts of Central Europe (September 2024), Valencia (September 2024), and the Weser Valley (July 2021) are just a few examples. These floods caused enormous human and material damage. The greatest damage was inflicted primarily in historical floodplains. The recent floods are therefore not a new phenomenon, but rather a reminder of a forgotten historical reality. In the past, floods occurred more frequently and sometimes formed an active part of land management. Today, we are increasingly less aware that floods have always taken place along our rivers. Flowing water is often no longer conspicuously visible in contemporary cities and suburbs. This invisibility means that residents are no longer reminded of the everyday presence and potential danger of water.
There is therefore a clear need for tools to analyze and study the human restructuring of river valleys. The contemporary landscape is not merely the result of natural evolution, but rather of increasingly intensive human intervention in the landscape. This intervention has been frequently illustrated in plans and maps. Belgium is one of the European countries with the most extensive cartographic collections. As early as the 16th century, maps were produced in abundance for various purposes. These maps offer an immensely rich source for historical research into decision-making regarding urban and water policy in the past.
What?
With a view to future-oriented water resilience for cities, a tailored dataset and toolkit are essential. To date, the infrastructure to conduct targeted research into the evolution of water landscapes in the Scheldt Valley over time is still lacking. However, such an infrastructure is necessary to investigate how contemporary urban landscapes are a product of centuries of river restructuring. That is why Artemis-UA was established. The project aims to provide a publicly accessible mapping infrastructure for long-term research on cities and their water infrastructure from a historical perspective. The unique wealth of handmade historical maps in the Belgian archives will form the basis for this. For the project, some 300 handwritten maps from the period between the 16th and 20th centuries will be processed. These maps constitute a new addition to the Artemis project, as they will make it possible to extract precisely localizable and unique knowledge and make it accessible.
Artemis-UA will provide a digital blueprint for three cities in the Scheldt Valley and their peri-urban surroundings. The three cities covered are: Antwerp (one of the largest cities along the Scheldt) and Dendermonde and Lokeren (each representing a different level of settlement size situated on the tributaries of the Dender and Durme). The cities constitute interesting case studies given their urbanization, growing human intervention, and water management. The Scheldt region was recently designated a national park. Nature and heritage go hand in hand here.
How?
The project revolves around 4 pillars:
collecting relevant local maps depicting cities and their (peri)urban landscapes over time
locating these maps through georeferencing
semi-automated data extraction to enrich the dataset
supplementing the Artemis project
These additions will help Artemis reach its full potential by enabling contributions in a wide range of research disciplines, including: urban (and environmental) history, water management, heritage management, planning, and many more aspects.
Who?
Precisely within this research field, researchers from the Center for Urban History (CUH), the Center for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC), Antwerp Cultural Heritage Sciences (ARCHES), and the Urban Studies Institute (USI) are among the forerunners in international and interdisciplinary research into urban water landscapes. These research groups start from a strong spatial perspective, in which both the planned and the lived environment take center stage.