Toward a Cultural Heritage of Adaptation: A Plea to Embrace the Heritage of a Culture of Risk, Vulnerability and Adaptation

Abstract

We need to tell a new story about urbanizing delta regions. Historically, large-scale 'iconic' hydraulic works and modern industrial ports have been celebrated as showing the power of humans to control and subject nature. The emphasis on this part of cultural heritage tends to bury the remains of engineering and urban development of the previous periods and to erase the ebb and flow of natural processes in the earlier landscape. Instead of emphasizing resistance against nature and victories over nature, we need to embrace mitigation, adaptation, and uncertainty. Many urbanized delta regions, including the Dutch delta, have a rich history of such approaches. We can learn from that history, from the successes as well as from the failures. This chapter is a plea to embrace the dynamic and evolutionary character of delta regions and the cultures of adaptation which have been developed over many centuries. It means that another policy concerning cultural heritage should be stimulated in urbanizing deltas, fostering a heritage with an adaptive approach, not as a complete departure from present ways of doing things, but as a new stage in a centuries-long tradition. 401 402 H. Meyer Mitigation, adaptation, uncertainty: It seems that these themes are new and that they mean a fundamental break with the policies and strategies of the past. That is the dominating story, especially concerning urbanizing deltas. These regions have been developed into important hubs of the fossil fuel economy during the last 150 years. The transshipment, storage, and processing of fossil fuels are required large industrial and port areas and a sophisticated infrastructure of deep sea ports, quay walls, navigation channels, and flood defense systems. Mitigation, including the transition toward new energy systems, will have great impact on both land use and infrastructure in these regions. Next to it, adapting to the effects of climate change, like rising sea level and increasing peak discharges of rivers, requires a fundamental revision of flood defense strategies. Today's uncertain circumstances seem to call for these sharp breaks with the long-term spatial and technical arrangements of delta regions.But presenting the adaptive approach as a new approach, breaking with traditions, makes it vulnerable and easy to attack by opponents. Most of the national cultural heritage in the Netherlands (and there are many similar examples in other countries) conveys a message that it is possible to resist, control, and subdue nature: We did it for centuries, with increasing success, so why should we s change to another approach? These monuments are cherished as characteristic reminders of a strong collective culture which has claimed land from the sea step-by-step, making untamed marshlands submit to human will. In particular, the large hydraulic works of the nineteenth and twentieth century are celebrated as important chapters of a story on the supremacy of a nation state, a new technology of steam power, fossil energy, and an industrial economy, tools tha...

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