On October 8th, the UNESCO Ecohydrology Youth Network hosted a webinar titled “River Culture: Our Natural Flow”, featuring Prof. Dr. Karl Matthias Wantzen, EUCOR Excellence Chair „Water and Sustainability” and UNESCO Chair „Rivers and Heritage” at the Université de Strasbourg.
The event attracted 99 participants and sparked a lively discussion on the role of the cultural pillar of ecohydrology in modern water management.
The full recording of the webinar is available here: https://youtu.be/FsJR4vD5jfE
About the Speaker
Professor Wantzen’s expertise covers ecology, biodiversity and human nature-interactions, specifically in freshwater systems and their aquatic-terrestrial interaction zones. In 2014 he was nominated “UNESCO Chair for River Culture/Fleuves et Patrimoine”, awarding his efforts for knowledge transfer between Europe and countries of the Global South (renomination in 2018).
The River Culture Concept (Wantzen et al. E&H 2016) is increasingly considered as an innovative tool for harmonising humans and environment in river-floodplain corridors worldwide, in 2023 he published a homonymous book with UNESCO (book „River Culture: Life as a dance to the rhythm of the waters„, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000382775), covering 30 river systems worldwide, with a focus on evolution of biocultural diversities, menaces and how people cooperate to manage rivers sustainably.
Since October 2023, KM Wantzen is also “Excellence Chair on Water and Sustainability” on behalf of EUCOR-The European Campus in the trinational Upper Rhine area and works at the Universities of Strasbourg, France and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, i.a. on the creation of a new, transdisciplinary MSc. Course on “Continental Water Sustainability”.