Water and Landscapes

Abstract

Not easily defined, landscapes have a cultural orientation reflecting the diversity of users who inhabit them. For waterscapes, such as swamps, in the colonial and Early Republic periods of the United States, swamps were perceived initially as hostile and untamed lands to early settlers. To Native American populations and Diasporan Africans, the swamps represented sustenance and at times, freedom. By the mid-nineteenth century, a new appreciation for riverscapes, such as that of the Mississippi, Volga, or the Thames, emerged as major rivers assumed the role of national icons. By the beginning of the twentieth century, riverscape aesthetics expanded to include the engineered landscape of large-scale dams, such as Dnieperstroi in the Soviet Union. Contemporary riverscapes tout the restoration of rivers, particularly in urban settings. The remediation of the Fez River, restoring its sense of place in the Fez community, is one such example.