Cutting Channels Between Past and Present: Histories of Urban Water Management

January 17, 2024

|

12:00 PM

Today, urban dwellers tend to think about where their water comes from only when it stops flowing, or when it flows too much. This water usually makes it to residential consumers through an extensive and technologically sophisticated infrastructure that remains largely invisible outside times of crisis. Across much of human history (and in many parts of the world today), by contrast, the question of where to get water for daily needs was much more immediate. This is especially true of places where large numbers of people gathered together in dense settlements, posing challenges for both the supply of fresh water and the disposal of wastewater and excess precipitation. While the technologies used to gather and distribute water in the past may have been less complex than those now in use, the basic principles are the same: water is pulled downhill by gravity, soaks into the soil, evaporates into the air, and can be retained and directed by barriers and conduits. The investigation of water management in urban contexts in the past can help us to understand the challenges those societies dealt with and the solutions they developed. Not only are these solutions sometimes relevant to modern challenges in water management in densely-settled areas, but they also help us understand the evolution of the systems we now have. This panel brings together scholars who study human interactions with water resources in urban environments of the past, from the Romans to the Maya to the modern US Southwest. They will explain how their research illuminates past water management practices, and discuss the connection of those practices with social and historical developments in both the Old and the New Worlds.

WATCH THE RECORDING

PANELISTS

Frances Acuña

Climate Resilience Lead Organizer,

Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin

Frances Acuña has lived in southeast Austin for 25 years. She began advocating for the Dove Springs community in 2010 by working with Police Officers in crime and safety. In 2012, she became a Community Healthworker and started getting involved as a community leader and working as a Community Health Healthworker to advocate for healthcare and physical activity in childhood obesity. She also worked with fellow community members serving as first responders during the October 2013 and 2015 floods in Dove Springs. In 2017, Frances joined GAVA as a Community Organizer where she worked to increase access to healthy food and physical activity. Later with continued floods and residents being displaced due to flooding and Infrastructure issues, her priority became Climate Resiliency focusing on efforts to build community power to advocate for flood mitigation and the right to stay in the neighborhoods where residents are most impacted by natural disasters and social disparities. Now as the Climate Resilience Lead Organizer for GAVA, she is concentrating her efforts bridging the communication gap between residents and stakeholders emphasizing response and responsibility where equity and public safety is a mutual priority. When she is not spending her time in the community organizing or meeting with stakeholders, you can find her in her garden or spending time with her family.

Katie Landry-Guyton

Senior Service Hydrologist,

National Weather Service

Katie Landry-Guyton currently serves as the Senior Service Hydrologist for the National Weather Service (NWS) in Houston, TX. Her primary role is to serve as the liaison between the local weather forecast office, the West Gulf River Forecast Center, local emergency managers and hydrologic stakeholders in southeast Texas. In her tenure, she has worked numerous high-impact flooding events such as Hurricane Harvey and Tropical Storm Imelda where she provided hydrologic decision support services to core partners for resource placement, emergency response, and recovery efforts. Prior to joining the Houston office in 2017, Katie earned a B.S. in Geosciences from Mississippi State University in 2012, and worked as a Hydrometeorologist for the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell, LA, from 2012 to 2017.

Paola Passalacqua, Ph.D

Professor,

Cockrell School of Engineering

Paola Passalacqua is a Professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering in the Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Genoa, Italy, with a BS (2002) in Environmental Engineering, and received a MS (2005) and a PhD (2009) in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on transport processes along river and delta networks, with particular focus on flooding, river-floodplain connectivity, and coastal resilience. Dr. Passalacqua is the lead PI of SETx-UIFL, a DOE funded Urban Integrated Field Laboratory that focuses on the compounding effects of flooding and air pollution on Southeast Texas communities. Additionally, she is the Chair of Planet Texas 2050, a Bridging Barrier mission at the University of Texas to advance interdisciplinary research on resilience and to co-design adaptative strategies with stakeholders and frontline communities in Texas. Dr. Passalacqua has been honored with several awards including the Bagnold Medal of the European Geosciences Union (2022), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2014) and the University of Texas Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award (2017).

Gabriele Villarini, Ph.D

Professor,

Princeton University

Professor Villarini's research interests focus broadly on flood hydrology, extreme events, hydroclimatology, and climate predictions and projections. He has received a number of national and international awards, including the Hydrological Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award by the European Geosciences Union (2013), and the James B. Macelwane Medal by the American Geophysical Union (2016). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2016). He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, including articles in Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Advances in Water Resources.

PANELISTS

Tim Beach, Ph.D

Professor,

College of Liberal Arts

Tim Beach holds the C. B. Smith, Sr., Centennial Chair in Geography and the Environment. He has conducted field research with hundreds of students on geomorphology and geoarchaeology in the Corn Belt of the United States, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Syria, Turkey, Iceland, and Germany funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, USAID, and Georgetown University. These sixty plus field seasons have been the bases for more than eighty peer-reviewed publications and hundreds of scientific presentations and many keynote addresses around the world. His research focuses on soil and agricultural systems, geomorphology, water, environmental change, and geoarchaeology, particularly in the Mayan world. He has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and awarded Guggenheim and Dumbarton Oaks Fellowships. In 2023, he was selected as a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers.

Michael Holleran, Ph.D

Associate Professor,

School of Architecture

Michael Holleran earned his PhD at MIT. He came to UT in 2006, after teaching in Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, and then at the University of Colorado, where he served as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Architecture and Planning. His first book, 'Boston's Changeful Times,' is a history of the origins of preservation and planning in Boston. His current book-in progress is The Urban Ditch: Landscape, Life and Afterlives. His newest course is History of Water in Cities.

Adam Rabinowitz, Ph.D

Associate Professor,

College of Liberal Arts

Adam Rabinowitz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classics, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the Acting Director of the Institute of Classical Archaeology, and a founding member and former Faculty Chair (2021-22) of the Theme Organizing Committee of the Planet Texas 2050 Grand Challenge. He is an active field archaeologist with a current project at the Greek and Roman site of Histria in Romania, with interests including ancient colonization and the archaeology of food and drink. With colleagues in Geosciences, Geography, and Integrative Biology, he is one of the leaders of the Stories of Ancient Resilience flagship.

Rabun Taylor, Ph.D

Professor,

College of Liberal Arts

Rabun Taylor is Floyd A. Cailloux Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. His publications include Roman Builders: A Study in Architectural Process and The Moral Mirror of Roman Art (both from Cambridge University Press), and most recently Ancient Naples: A Documentary History (Italica Press). His interests include Greek and Roman architecture, art, urbanism, religion, material culture, and technology. He directs the Aqua Traiana Project, a multidisciplinary archaeological initiative devoted to understanding the water systems of the ancient city of Rome within their broader environmental, political, and social contexts.

RSVPs Closed