Project description
Addressing climate threats through historical insights
Deltas, some of the world’s most urbanised and prosperous regions, are now under siege from climate change, jeopardising their very existence. The urgent need for innovative solutions has spurred global collaboration among delta cities. However, little is known about the expertise employed by earlier civilisations to construct and protect these vital urban centres. In this context, the ERC-funded URBAN-DELTA project will study the historical roots of water-related engineering, proposing that major advancements were strategic rather than random. By studying construction techniques in three key European and Chinese deltas pre-1800, it aims to uncover patterns of innovation. Through a multidisciplinary approach integrating Engineering, Economic, and Architectural History, it seeks to redefine our understanding of how architectural innovation emerges.
Objective
Deltas are among the most urbanised and wealthiest regions of the world. Today, their very existence is threatened by climate change. Innovative solutions are urgently needed, and delta cities around the globe have joined forces to confront the climate crisis. The dependence on innovation for their survival is however not a recent phenomenon but has a longer history. Surprisingly, little is known about the specialised skills and knowledge shown by earlier civilisations in constructing and protecting these cities.
URBAN-DELTA hypothesizes that major advances in the history of water-related engineering were not random but occurred at specific places and times. Several pioneering hotspots in the pre-industrial age seem to have existed. Therefore, the aim of URBAN-DELTA is to attain an entirely new, multidisciplinary understanding of technological innovations by tracing and explaining their historical emergence in the production of the built environment in Eurasian deltas before 1800.
This project is the first in-depth comparative study of construction techniques for marshy conditions. It examines three key deltas in Europe and China and questions how builders overcame technological limitations. Did innovation occur incrementally or were there spurts at specific times and places? What were the dynamics of these processes and what factors stimulated innovation?
URBAN-DELTAs methodological innovation is to study the built environment from a comparative perspective, combining approaches from Engineering, Economic and Architectural History. It tests hypotheses central to the debate on the conditions for innovation by looking at a vital industry, hitherto ignored in scholarship. This will result in a fundamental rethinking of how architecture comes into being and provides an entirely new explanatory framework for future research. In addition, it generates new knowledge that is urgently needed for the preservation of heritage threatened by climate change.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
3000 Leuven
Belgium