The 12 articles in the volume ‘Conflicts over Water Management and Water Rights from the End of Antiquity to Industrialisation’, edited by Michele Campopiano and Gerrit Jasper Schenk show how humans have tried to control this resource over the last two millennia.

Using the results of the second international conference at Lorsch Abbey in 2019 a total of 11 researchers are investigating this question by analysing various examples ranging from fishing conflicts in Upper Lusatia to medieval irrigation systems in southwest China.

In one of these contributions, G. J. Schenk examines the development of the Weschnitz river from the eighth to the 18th century, focussing on the emergence of a fluvial anthroposphere, i.e. the development of man as the dominant shaping factor of his environment and the surrounding river landscape.

In doing so, he finds the Lorsch monastery, the local sovereigns and the towns along the Bergstrasse as the key players in the region. He can also observe peak phases of human influence in the increasing regulation and intervention in the water landscape since late antiquity in the Carolingian period and in the transitional phase to the early modern period between the 15th and 16th centuries.

The task of the ongoing DFG-funded project ‘The Weschnitz river landscape and its interaction with Lorsch Abbey’ is now to deepen and expand these findings on an interdisciplinary basis.