The emergence of the environmental humanities presents a unique opportunity for scholarship to tackle the human dimensions of the environmental crisis. It might finally allow such work to attain the critical mass it needs to break out of customary disciplinary confines and reach a wider public, at a time when natural scientists have begun to acknowledge that an understanding of the environmental crisis must include insights from the humanities and social sciences. In order to realize this potential, scholars in the environmental humanities need to map the common ground on which close interdisciplinary cooperation will be possible. This essay takes up this task with regard to two fields that have embraced the environmental humanities with particular fervour, namely ecocriticism and environmental history. After outlining an ideal of slow scholarship which cultivates thinking across different spatiotemporal scales and seeks to sustain meaningful public debate, the essay argues that both ecocriticism and environmental history are concerned with practices of environing: each studies the material and symbolic transformations by which "the environment" is configured as a space for human action. Three areas of research are singled out as offering promising models for cooperation between ecocriticism and environmental history: eco-historicism, environmental justice, and new materialism. Bringing the fruits of such efforts to a wider audience will require environmental humanities scholars to experiment with new ways of organizing and disseminating knowledge.

Im bunten Flickenteppich der überseeischen Besitzungen, die das Deutsche Reich während seiner kurzen Lebenszeit zusammenfügte, sticht das deutsch-chinesische Qingdao heraus, da es im Vergleich zu den Besitzungen in Afrika eine andere Funktion erfüllte -vor allem aufgrund seiner modellhaft angelegten Wasserinfrastruktur. Das Reichsmarineamt, dem die Verwaltung der zukünftigen "Hafenkolonie" -zunächst kaum mehr als ein Fischerdorf -oblag, hatte bei der Implementierung dieses Vorhabens ein bemerkenswertes Maß an Freiheit. Die deutsche Regierung investierte zudem enorme Summen, um China und der Welt seine technokulturellen Errungenschaften vorzuführen. Dabei griff man massiv auf die natürlichen Ressourcen des bergigen Hinterlandes zurück. Dieser Beitrag fokussiert auf die Wasserinfrastruktur von Qingdao sowie deren Rolle für die öffentliche Gesundheit und weitere Erschließung des Großraumes. Dabei werden nicht nur Ambivalenzen der Wasserinfrastruktur als "tool of empire" an Hand von empirischem Material aufgezeigt. Vor allem geht der Beitrag -in Anlehnung an das Konzept des "urbanen Metabolismus" -ihren ökologischen Auswirkungen nach, speziell der landschaftlichen Transformation der umliegenden Berge sowie ihre Folgen für den Wasserhaushalt der Region. Es wird dabei die These vertreten, dass ökologische Veränderungen eine wesentlich größere Rolle bei der Bewertung kolonialer Unternehmungen spielen sollten.Schlüsselwörter: China, Deutsches Kaiserreich, Infrastruktur, Wasser, Forstwesen Within the colorful tapestry of colonial possessions the German empire acquired over the short period of its existence, Qingdao stands out because it fulfilled a different role from settlements in Africa-especially because of its exemplary planned water infrastructure: its technological model, the resulting (public) hygiene, and the adjunct brewery. The National Naval Office (Reichsmarineamt), which oversaw the administration of the future "harbour colony"-at first little more than a little fishing village-enjoyed a remarkable degree of freedom in implementing this project. The German government invested heavily in showing off its techno-cultural achievements to China and the world and thereby massively exploited the natural resources of the mountainous interior. This contribution focuses on Qingdao's water infrastructure and its role in public hygiene and further area development. This article will not only use new empirical evidence to demonstrate that the water infrastructure was an ambivalent "tool of empire". Relying on the concept of "urban metabolism," this paper primarily traces the ecological consequences, particularly the landscape transformation of the mountains surrounding the bay and the implications for the region's water resources. When evaluating colonial enterprises, changes in local ecology should play a significantly greater role.

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