Today, more research efforts are needed in order to better understand both the physical heritage and the socio-cultural values of any water-related legacy worldwide. To foster new knowledge on sustainable water governance and face growing water challenges at the global level, our Network promotes a deeper understanding of the ancestral relationship between people and water and greater awareness of humanity’s water history.
Our Charter commits the network to reconnecting people with the tangible and intangible heritage of water, including its social, cultural, ecological, artistic, and spiritual dimensions. However, to recover the value of water in all its multi-functional forms, new inter-disciplinary, post-disciplinary, and holistic approaches must be promoted.
To this end, our network fosters the development of research aimed at creating new connections between water-related ancestral knowledge and contemporary management practices to promote more farsighted uses of the available technologies.
The UNESCO Chair “Water, Heritage, and Sustainable Development” was established in 2021 at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, with the support of our Network.
By investigating water sciences and environmental humanities with a focus on SDGs, the Chair offers training activities, lectures, and webinars aimed at developing new imaginative content for museums and new methods and tools for education yearly.
The UNESCO Chair organizes annual series of lectures and webinars with pioneering scholars and practitioners as a contribution to implementing the IHP Resolution on ‘water sustainability education and water awareness efforts’.
The Chair is located at Ca’ Bottacin, in Venice, and is housed by NICHE – The New Institute, Center for Environmental Humanities at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy.