Abstract
Floodplains represent a global hotspot of sensitive socioenvironmental changes and early human forcing mechanisms. In this review, we focus on the environmental conditions of preindustrial floodplains in Central Europe and the fluvial societies that operated there. Due to their high land-use capacity and the simultaneous necessity of land reclamation and risk minimisation, societies have radically restructured the Central European floodplains. According to the current scientific consensus, up to 95% of Central European floodplains have been extensively restructured or destroyed. Therefore, question arises as to whether or when it is justified to understand Central European floodplains as a ‘Fluvial Anthroposphere’. The case studies available to date show that human-induced impacts on floodplain morphologies and environments and the formation of specific fluvial societies reveal fundamental changes in the medieval and preindustrial modern periods. We aim to contribute to disentangling the questions of when and why humans became a significant controlling factor in Central European floodplain formation, and how humans in interaction with natural processes and other chains of effects have modified floodplains. As a conclusion, we superimpose emerging fields of research concerning the onset of the Fluvial Anthroposphere and provide 10 specific thematic objectives for future multidisciplinary work.
Highlights
Floodplains as Hotspots of Socioenvironmental ChangesWe understand floodplains as the natural area of a river system that is or has been characterised by episodic or periodic flooding during periods of higher discharge [1,2].Floodplains comprise the active riverbed and palaeochannels, and roughly correspond to the distribution of Holocene flood sediments
Embankments, dykes, artificial channels, milldams, fishponds and weirs, bridges and systematic levelling and waste disposal from this era are typically encountered archaeological features [9,62,67,68,69]. The impact of these anthropogenic features on floodplain sedimentation and fluvial morphodynamics has been discussed [43,49,70], but the features themselves have rarely been the target of specific research, so they usually serve to tell a rather simplistic background story
(b) Knowledge of natural palaeohydrological conditions underpins any attempt to pinpoint the transition towards the Fluvial Anthroposphere. This means that even if the palaeohydrological focus of floodplain research relates to the medieval and preindustrial modern period, the full Holocene floodplain history needs to be considered in order to identify and quantify anthropogenic changes
Summary
Lukas Werther 1 , Natascha Mehler 1,2 , Gerrit Jasper Schenk 3 and Christoph Zielhofer 4, *.
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