Intangible Heritage to Strengthen Local Water Management

Abstract

Can intangible cultural heritage (ICH) help to reduce biodiversity loss and and water shortages related to climate change? Can it contribute to managing water shortages and surpluses on a local level? This article argues that some useful forms of intangible, “living” heritage offer valuable knowledge and practices that can serve as adaptive strategies in a changing environment. Binding practitioners to a specific place and to each other and connecting past and future generations, ICH can bring local knowledge and experience into the work field. The examples introduced here include grassland irrigation, water milling and hedge-laying: all used in the past, replaced by new inventions (e.g. fertilizers, new techniques for grinding grains and barbed wire taking the place of hedges respectively), and reintroduced because of their potential role in water management and ability to help create a climate-robust landscape. The valuable insights and practices of “citizen scientists” using these traditional techniques are too often overlooked by policy makers and academics.