UNESCO Chair
Water, Heritage and Sustainable Development
The Chair “Water, Heritage, and Sustainable Development” established at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice is active within the Programme UNITWIN/UNESCO, which promotes inter-university cooperation and networking to enhance institutional capacities through knowledge sharing and collaborative work.
Mission
The UNESCO Chair: “Water, Heritage and Sustainable Development” was established at Ca' Foscari University of Venice in 2021. The Chair is housed at THE NEW INSTITUTE Center for Enviromental Humanities, which is located in Venice at Ca’ Bottacin.
THE NEW INSTITUTE Center for Enviromental Humanities
Ca’ Bottacin, Dorsoduro 3911, 30123 Venice (Italy)
unescochair.water@unive.it
The UNESCO Chair aims at building new teaching initiatives on water education, generating innovation through research, and promoting cultural diversity. The Chair is active as a think tank and bridge builder between academia, water museums, civil society, local communities, and policy-making.
By connecting cultural geography and the environmental humanities to water sciences and the Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030, the Chair is active in identifying and supporting new interdisciplinary approaches to develop digital materials for education and training on water and sustainability.
The general objective of the UNESCO Chair is to respond to training needs of water museums and institutional members of the Global Network of Water Museums. Museums manage worldwide an outstanding water heritage, both cultural and natural, and today there is an urgent need to strengthen and link their agendas on water education to the SDGs and to the UNESCO-IHP Resolution n.5 (XXIII) titled “Global Network of Water Museums and UNESCO-IHP in support of water sustainability education and water awareness efforts”.
The training courses organized by the UNESCO Chair are addressed to the staff of water museums, scholars and professionals in the field of water, and indirectly also to museums’ target audiences and people of all age groups to promote more sustainable water uses globally.
Goals
Identify and foster new interdisciplinary approaches for connecting natural and human sciences to water heritage (both natural and cultural, tangible and intangible) and generating innovation through research
Address capacity building needs and training gaps of water museums world wide, with specific reference to the members of the Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET), and promote cultural diversity
Focus the attention and interest of all water museums and WAMU-NET members towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with reference to any kind of water-related heritage, including ‘minor’ heritage, water values, and other intangible aspects
Foster cooperation with other high-level research centers and international organizations, including UNESCO Chairs and Centres, to ensure that the international community of water museums has a stronger role in the present debate on water sustainability education
Training courses
The UNESCO Chair “Water, Heritage and Sustainable Development” organizes, in cooperation with the Global Network of Water Museums and Civiltà dell’Acqua International Centre, four training courses for the period 2021-2024.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the 1st course of the series is made through a number of webinars addressed to the staff of water museums, scholars and professionals in the fields of water.
Water, Culture, and Society
Between Ancestral Practices and Freshwater Multifunctionality
The second series of lectures and webinars organized by the UNESCO Chair on ‘Water, Heritage, and Sustainable Development’ and THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Envrironmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice will be held in presence and online from 29 September to 6 December 2022. Among the different scholars and practitioners invited for this year’s series, the pioneering water anthropologist Veronica Strang (Durham) will give a lecture on indigenous water beings and multi-species democracy.
Other topics include:
- ancestral knowledge and hydro-technologies
- cosmological and legal frameworks
- sustainable groundwater management
This year’s series is organized in cooperation with the UNESCO Chair on ‘Rivers and Heritage’ (University of Tours, France), the UNESCO Chair on ‘Water and Culture’ (University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay), and the Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET).
The event will be held in English, Spanish, and French.
For information please write to: unescochair.water@unive.it
More info
Beyond museums - 2021
Tools for promoting the natural and cultural water heritage
The first training course organised by the Chair will be held online in form of a webinar series and will focus on different tools, strategies and good practices aimed at promoting water heritage outside museums.
The course includes 12 webinars and 24 highly qualified speakers from different nationalities. It will run on Zoom every Friday from 13.00 to 15.00 CET starting from the 22nd of October and until the 21st of January 2022.
During the course, the following topics are presented and discussed: inland hydrography, riverscapes and urban waterscapes; reading and interpretation of ancestral technologies; heritage mapping and digitization; itinerary design and digital audioguides; methodologies to build participative approaches for enhanced water management; eco-museums and community-led water museums; visual anthropology, collection of oral histories and video interviews; water as sustainable tourism resource; engaging audiences outside museums.
Course presentations
2021
22nd October 2021
 | Francesco Vallerani Ca' Foscari University of Venice, UNESCO Chair holder, Italy | 4.64 M |
| Eriberto Eulisse UNESCO Chair coordinator, Italy | 6.11 M |
29th October 2021
| Jordi Morató Farreras UNESCO Chair “Sustainability”, UPC, Barcelona, Spain | 5.66 M |
5th November 2021
| Javier Taks UNESCO chair “Agua y cultura”, Montevideo, Uruguay | 1.90 M |
| Sara Ahmed Living Water Museum, India | 4.78 M |
12th November 2021
- Please visit the dedicated page WHEN WATERS SPEAK #3- Water Walks.
19th November 2021
| Giulio Castelli University of Florence, Italy | 5.15 M |
| Lucrezia Gigante Leicester University, UK | 5.17 M |
26th November 2021
| Valentina Bonifacio Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy | 4.99 M |
| Alice Chautard University of Oxford, UK | 9.73 M |
3rd December 2021
| Robin Weinberg Oral History Association | 10.13 M |
10th December 2021
| Michael Scoullos HYDRIA, Greece | 3.85 M |
| Farah Kabir Action Aid Bangladesh | 3.34 M |
17th December 2021
| Edo Bricchetti Ecomuseum of Martesana, Italy | 21 M |
| Osvaldo Negra MUSE-Science Museum Trento, Italy | 13.61 M |
2022
7th January 2022
| Paolo Pileri Politecnico di Milano, Italy | 5.84 M |
| Ifor Duncan Ca' Foscari University of Venice | 3.55 M |
14th January 2022
| Graham Boxer Canal & River Trust, UK | 5.46 M |
21st January 2022
| Hidenobu Jinnai Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan | 9.52 M |
| Steven Loiselle University of Siena, Italy / Earthwatch | 3.08 M |
Events and news
Past events and news
Partners
Other UNESCO Centres and Chairs
linked to the training activity for water museum
