Environmental History 4

Mauro Agnoletti
Simone Neri Serneri Editors

The Basic
Environmental
History
Environmental History

Volume 4

Series editor
Mauro Agnoletti, Florence, Italy

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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10168

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Mauro Agnoletti Simone Neri Serneri
•

Editors

The Basic Environmental

History

123
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Editors
Mauro Agnoletti Simone Neri Serneri
DEISTAF Political and International Sciences
University of Florence University of Siena
Florence Siena
Italy Italy

ISSN 2211-9019 ISSN 2211-9027 (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-319-09179-2 ISBN 978-3-319-09180-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8

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Environmental History and other Histories.
A Foreword

Environmental history has by now acquired a history of its own. The theme has
been treated by generations of scholars who have produced a great number of
research studies and compared notes and findings in numerous conferences, asso-
ciations and academic journals. The fields of interest are many and varied, as are the
methods of survey, which have often matured at the crossroads between arts and
humanities, social and natural sciences.

What is Environmental History?

The recurring debate on “what is environmental history?” has received numerous

and basically converging responses. One of the most concise considers that its
purpose is the study of “man and the rest of nature”. A decidedly controversial
definition in respect of the distinction, when not contraposition, between the human
world and the natural world, underlying dominant cultural and scientific tradition,
not only in historical studies, in the modern world. With regard to the object and to
the end proposed by studies in environmental history, it would, however, appear
more incisive to speak of a discipline that has the purpose of studying the rela-
tionships between man and the environment in their historical dynamics.
The definition presents various original heuristic implications, but ultimately it is
probably more suitable and tends to suggest a holistic approach to the history of
man and nature. An approach which, moreover, is widespread among environ-
mental historians, largely derived from studies in natural history, historical ecology,
forest history, historical geography and concerned primarily with delineating the
numerous changes in the natural environment—from the history of climate change,
to changes in landscape or forest cover, from the history of natural disasters to that
of epidemics or the variation in animal species, which have been induced by or, on
the contrary, condition man’s social life. Furthermore, the above-mentioned dis-
ciplines remind us that the history of relationships between man and nature did not
begin with studies in environmental history, nor with the work by John Perkins

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vi Environmental History and other Histories. A Foreword

Marsh, but had already been put forward in the early eighteenth century in Germany
with the work of Friedrich Stisser. That definition and that approach, however, risk
depicting the relationship between human societies and the natural world in
excessively naturalistic terms, thus overshadowing the tension between the two
areas or considering it as solved. The natural world and human societies are more
easily understandable when they are considered as two systemic and complex
realities, fully interactive with each other. The dynamics of the natural world, or,
better, of the ecosystems and the dynamics of anthropic societies are the most
strongly interactive with each other because they rest on the same material, phys-
ical, chemical and biological base. But for this very reason, an irreducible state of
tension is created which sometimes opens the way to widespread conflict.
In history the tension between anthropic dynamics and ecological dynamics has
always been an evident reality, albeit with different modes, intensities and out-
comes. It was during the twentieth century, however, that it developed and
expressed its explosive power. The main cause for this marked discontinuity was
technological development which basically reversed the relationship of dependency
between the environmental context and the anthropic context; since then, at least in
the short term, human societies have been more successful in adapting ecosystems
to their needs rather than the reverse, as occurred previously.
The enormous and, at times, threatening consequences of this change in reci-
procal adaptability remind us that—as Donald Worster noted—men are more than
ever simultaneously agents and victims of environmental history. But they also
induce us not to stop at considering only the most sensational changes in landscape,
extinction of animal species or the most conspicuous forms of pollution and to
perceive behind these phenomenons the emergence of the most critical forms of
tension intrinsic in the constant interaction between the reproductive dynamics of
anthropic and environmental systems. These reproductive dynamics proceed
through a partial, yet continuous, reciprocal incorporation between the two systems.
In turn, this incorporation occurs with processes and intensities which are mediated
and progressively redefined by available technology. The outcomes are the con-
sequence of the interaction between reproductive mechanisms and therefore reflect
the capacity of anthropic and environmental systems to reproduce through a suc-
cession of equilibrium and disequilibrium phases. Increasingly over the last century
and latter decades, the negative effects of the dynamics between man and nature
have become more and more evident. As a consequence of the rapid change in
environmental structures, the sustainability of the reproduction processes of
anthropic systems—those that permit the satisfaction of basic needs and the more
complex manifestations of social life—has become more and more uncertain.
Moreover, the very concept of sustainability, however widespread in political
spheres, is subject to growing criticism in scientific circles. The idea of the sus-
tainability of development based on the conservation of a determined quota of
systems defined as “natural”, is largely a cultural construction given that, strictly
speaking, systems that are really natural are now very limited on a planetary scale.
More often it is naturalness on the rebound after previous anthropic impacts, or
semi-naturalness, whereas the sustainability necessary for the life of man refers to

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Environmental History and other Histories. A Foreword vii

environmental parameters, rather than to quotas of naturalness for the conservation

of various animal and vegetable species. The return to nature proposed by much of
environmental literature, as a remedy for the disequilibria referred to above, at least
from the nineteenth century onwards, is in effect largely the result of the cultural
hegemony of currents of thought in Northern Europe and North America which
have imposed the value of natural landscapes on that of cultural landscapes which
for four or five centuries have represented the template, as described in the Grand
Tour literature.
The aim of environmental history is, therefore, to rebuild the relationships and
interactions between anthropic and environmental systems, as they were historically
set up. Environmental history moves from its awareness of the relative autonomy
that characterises the reproductive dynamics of both. It is gradually freeing itself of
the merely conservationist perspective that has characterised and still characterises
most of its approaches, because its object of study is strictly the changing trans-
formative equilibrium that is set up between social systems and ecosystems. In fact,
the relationships between them have anything but a static nature, but rather pro-
cessual, because it stretches over time and is therefore eminently historical. In other
words, historicity is an intrinsic quality in relationships between anthropic and
environmental systems precisely because they interact during their respective
reproduction processes which, far from reproducing their initial conditions—have a
developmental and transformative nature. It also follows that historicity is manifold,
if we consider the different levels over which it spreads—“historical times, bio-
logical times” wrote Enzo Tiezzi over 30 years ago—but profoundly unitary
because anthropic and environmental systems are ultimately part of the same
context: the former are, however, an expression of one of the most specialised of the
innumerable biological forms that populate the latter.
In conclusion, environmental history is, by definition, a field of tension. Not
only, as referred above, because attention can be calibrated to the relationship
between man and the rest of nature, privileging either its unitary profile or internal
dualism. But—and this is the aspect that most interests us—because, while it
develops as a distinct disciplinary area, at the same time it proposes to be a means
of critical comparison with more consolidated areas of historical research: economic
history, urban history, the history of technology, the history of ideas and cultural
history, the history of public policies and, last but not least, social history. On the
other hand, it is no coincidence that many scholars from the above-recalled fields of
research have become animators of environmental history, bringing with them
debatable issues fuelled by the motivating force, sensitivity and knowledge of
environmentalist mobilisation which in the 1970s spread throughout Europe, the
United States and more widely in Asia, Africa and the American continent. And
indeed they have impregnated environmental history research with traditions and
cultural and social experiences from their various areas of origin.

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viii Environmental History and other Histories. A Foreword

Another Point of View: Themes and Suggestions

The essays in this volume mainly reflect this acceptation of environmental history
and aim to compare, stimulate and even contest widely consolidated knowledge and
compartmentation of predominant historiography. Altogether, the collection of
essays make the book first and foremost an introductory instrument to the main
themes of environmental history, illustrating its development over time, methodo-
logical implications, results achieved and those still under discussion. However, the
problem is not that of proposing environmental history as another, distinct and, as
such, delimited disciplinary area in search of legitimacy in its own right. Or to offer
an overview of the main research studies and consequently the potentialities of
environmental history. Quite the opposite, for the overriding aspiration is to show
that the doubts, methods and knowledge elaborated by environmental history have a
heuristic value that is far from negligible precisely in its attitude to the most
consolidated major historiography. For this reason, this book gives an overview of
the main themes of environmental history as it is an essential component of the
basic knowledge of global history. But, at the same time, it introduces specific
aspects which are useful both for anyone wanting to deepen his/her studies of
environmental historiography and for those interested in one of the many disci-
plinary areas—from rural history to urban history, from the history of technology to
the history of public health, etc.—with which environmental history, often with
some difficulty, develops a dialogue.
The choice of themes, therefore, is not encyclopaedic, but intentionally selective.
The expositive approach does not consider environmental history from within, as a
primary disciplinary area, nor does it illustrate the making of this historiography.
On the contrary, it endeavours to place environmental issues within a much wider
field of research and its manifold thematic stratifications. Least of all, the book
intends to denounce the gravity of environmental issues—not because they are not
serious or worthy of denunciation—but because its concern is primarily with
promoting knowledge of the past rather than recounting the present-day crisis.
Circumscribed, but nonetheless challenging, tasks. We hope to succeed in our
undertaking. Nor is it the task of the book, let alone of this introduction, to identify
dominating lines in the environmental history of the planet, or of any other con-
tinent or other thematic area. We do not propose to give a brief outline of the
environmental history of the planet or part of it. Many already exist, albeit fre-
quently characterised by limits and typical of attempts to reduce to a global-scale
processes that are decidedly more complex which can only be studied on a local
scale. We shall merely summarise introductory knowledge, but also—while making
no claim to sufficiency or exclusivity—propose methods and analytical and inter-
pretative concepts, the fruit of long and qualified experience acquired by the authors
of the essays in their respective areas of research and, more in general, of their in-
depth knowledge of European and global environmental historiography.
Various essays have different approaches. All share a comprehensive overview
of their own theme and develop a narration that necessarily leaves in the

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Environmental History and other Histories. A Foreword ix

background the history of policies and practices and environmental conflicts. But
the choice of the central theme and expositive style responds to different criteria,
because the preference is given to descriptive and interpretative efficacy rather than
to analytical orderliness. In some cases, a certain environmental medium has been
used as barycentre: soil, air and water. In others, a process, such as growth, has been
taken as the main theme, and a certain factor, like energy or the interaction between
a multitude of factors has been considered. Or, again, production and reproduction
processes have been used as a reference, to examine, in one case, waste and
residues and, in another, the most acute and serious critical manifestations, chiefly
those caused by inappropriate, and therefore risky technologies. Lastly, in another
case, the chief observation point is the urban structure that organizes media,
resources and processes. Without prejudice to these distinctions, echoes of each of
these different approaches can easily be perceived in all the essays.
Likewise, various asymmetries are also seen in the capacity of each essay to
communicate critically with the other historical disciplines: a capacity that is
unquestionably evident and incisive in the case of urban history or, for example, of
economic growth problems or the role of energy, but—on the contrary—forcedly
more restrained in the case of environmental history of the soil, an area of inves-
tigation still in its infancy. Each essay deals with numerous distinct themes and
those that generally circulate, return and in various ways aggregate all together in
the essays. Particularly worthy of attention is the vast theme of growth, in the sense
of material and, consequently, economic growth, because it deals with the con-
nection between nature and social development, growth being none other than the
use of natural resources to the advantage of human society. So to study growth from
the viewpoint of environmental history means not only proposing responses to
many aporias or highlighting choices, paths, crises, etc., but—as Tello and Javier
recount in their essay—explaining how economic growth takes place. On the other
hand, precisely the theme of growth shows how the nature/society connection has
an intrinsic historicity, because its processuality not only determines different ways
of realization—depending on the various factors available—but determines its
cyclicity, since the availability of resources depends on their characteristics and
therefore is a constitutive rather than a marginal growth factor.
The other theme that is closely linked and, to a large extent, recurrent since it is
crucial in mediating between nature and society, is technological development.
Technology is the means by which portions of nature become available resources
for the productive and reproductive processes of anthropic societies: it is the
instrument of what the economists call their valorisation, in other words, of their
utilisation for economic and social development. So technology—with its specific
modes of action—largely determines the methods, intensities and outcomes of the
incorporation of part of the ecosystems in anthropic processes. Also for this reason,
the technological question largely characterises and supports many essays in the
book. It applies to the use of soil, especially after agricultural practices underwent
great innovation with the advance of industrialization. But of similar relevance is
the story of water, air or waste or, evidently, risks, accidents and disasters caused by
the use of technology in industrial society. It is understandably at the centre of the

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x Environmental History and other Histories. A Foreword

environmental history of urban systems which, by definition, are the outcome of the
functional integration of numerous technologies aimed at diversifying and articu-
lating the social life of a multitude of people and, at the same time, making it less
dependent upon nature’s reproduction cycles.
In other words, it is evident that the themes dealt with, the approaches and
methods of research and interpretative proposals—far from being self-referential
and determined by ideological and militant impulses—establish a close, albeit
critical, dialogue with the questions and results of consolidated major historiogra-
phy. Environmental history has the merit of broadening the view of historical
reflection. Because, metaphorically speaking, it forces taking into consideration
other points of view, other methods of knowledge and other disciplinary compe-
tences. But also in a real sense, because environmental history has an intrinsic
spatial dimension that is difficult to define, since it continually calls upon the
cohesion or concatenation of ecosystems and always refers to the direct connections
that unite the local context to the global context.
Even a brief overall consideration confirms that the essays in this book have
several common and peculiar traits which deserve to be stressed because they
highlight the richness of the environmental historical approach. Only apparently
more extrinsic is the question of periodisation, the conceptual barycentre of every
historical reflection. In a formal consideration, the periodisation adopted varies in
the different essays: in one respect it is easy to perceive the tendency to stretch
backwards in respect of the present in search of anchors to account for the body of
changes, but also their different ways of gathering together. In another respect there
is a common second tendency to concentrate narration in the centuries that are
closest to us. This arrangement is partly for practical reasons—to respond to
present-day doubts—but above all derives from environmental history’s historio-
graphic solicitations: over the last two centuries anthropic societies have succeeded
in making an unparalleled and exceptional impact on the natural world leading to an
undoubted acceleration in the history of environmental changes. Those changes
have always occurred, sometimes with important, indeed catastrophic, conse-
quences in local and regional and even continental contexts—suffice it to recall the
so-called “Columbian exchange” which followed the mass arrival of Europeans on
the American continent—but from the end of the eighteenth century, they acquired
an unprecedented rhythm, intensity and extension on global scale.
Generally speaking, the essays do not, however, treat their respective themes in a
systematically global dimension, aimed at embracing the entire planet as a whole.
They do, however, endeavour, with inevitably diverse possibilities and results—to
assume a worldwide perspective that takes into account the plurality of the planet’s
experiences, their connections in history and in the present. Within these coordi-
nates it is easy to perceive first that environmental history is simultaneously the
history of relationships between anthropic systems and ecosystems and the history
of man’s knowledge of nature, as well as the history of the policies and practices
that have consequently been implemented. So, for example, the environmental
history of soil tells us about technical knowledge, agricultural practices, the culture
of agricultural societies, which have characterised much of human history. But it

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Environmental History and other Histories. A Foreword xi

looks at anthropic practices (the use of forests, livestock breeding, cultivations,

irrigation, etc.), hinging on the ecosystem in which they are immersed and which
they influence, in the awareness that those practices are within that ecosystem; they
are the mode of constructing man’s ecological niche. So they do not alter a given
equilibrium in itself, but introduce themselves into transformative dynamics that are
wide-ranging and more complex. An analytical perspective reminds us that the
natural, environmental dimension is a constituent of anthropic practices, not only
preliminary to them.
This observation should, in turn, be placed in relation to another which, as
various essays suggest, attributes to technology—insofar as it is a crucial instrument
of mediation between nature and society—a key role in determining the periodi-
sation of environmental history, marked by the transition between successive states
of equilibrium between social structures and ecosystems. Not because technological
innovations shape periodisation deterministically, maybe after the hypothetical
formation of environmental bottlenecks caused by the obsolescence of a technology
and a corresponding depletion of a primary resource. But rather because the tran-
sition to different ways of relating between society and environment—for example
in the epochal transition to the large-scale exploitation of fossil fuels, the treatment
of urban waste, the change in use of agricultural land, etc.—hinges on technological
innovations which at times are seen to be comparatively more remunerative as
much in terms of cost as in use value, in the exploitation of one natural resource or
another which they allow to be incorporated in social reproduction processes. So
even in this regard anthropic dynamics—those relating to the economic profitability
of a certain technology—and ecosystem dynamics—deriving from its environ-
mental impact—are inextricably intertwined.
The integration between social factors and ecological factors is in fact at the
centre of the analytical and interpretative models proposed by environmental his-
tory. Whether the approach is “socio-metabolic”, borrowed from ecological econ-
omy, “urban metabolism” or “ecological heritage”, the essays in this book prove
their originality and fecundity, compared with traditional approaches which con-
sider development and social changes determined almost exclusively by intrinsic
cultural or institutional factors. To consider the capacity, or lack of it, to introduce
portions of ecosystems into anthropic systems and the methods for realizing it, as
decisive explicative factors of the dynamics of social development is however an
extremely innovative and promising approach. Mainly for two reasons: First
because it calls for greater attention to the quantity and quality of the overall
patrimony of available resources—in the various contexts—for social development.
Second, and more in general, because it prompts the abandonment of a solipsistic,
accumulative and linear vision of social development and invites consideration of
the fact that the circulation of resources (between ecosystems and anthropic sys-
tems, but to a likewise significant extent also within these) fuels close interaction
between the various systems.
That interaction, and the flows and exchanges that fuel it—even more so fol-
lowing the epochal changes induced by the advent of urban-industrial society—
frustrate all investigations that consider social development separately, territory by

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xii Environmental History and other Histories. A Foreword

territory and country by country. But they impose the repositioning of development
processes in a multiplicity of spatial, local, regional and global contexts that
accounts for the procurement of the resources that fuel them, the dislocation of
residue from anthropic processes and above all of the interaction and accumulation
phenomenons consequent to those flows. The result is a conception of development
as a composite and plural process, of variable intensity, with a helical trend and
partially reversible. The only one that makes it possible to explain the otherwise
misleadingly defined “aporias” of development and to fully assess the sustainability
of present social and ecosystem structures, if not of future ones. Because, even in
the case of environmental history, although knowledge of the past does not place us
in a position to foresee the future, it undoubtedly gives us a better understanding of
the times in which we live.

Mauro Agnoletti
Simone Neri Serneri

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Contents

1 Energy in History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Paolo Malanima

2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions,

Approaches and Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Enric Tello-Aragay and Gabriel Jover-Avellà

3 Environmental History of Soils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Verena Winiwarter

4 Environmental History of Water Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Stéphane Frioux

5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection . . . . . . . . . 143

Stephen Mosley

6 Urban Development and Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Dieter Schott

7 History of Waste Management and the Social

and Cultural Representations of Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Sabine Barles

8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Gianni Silei

xiii

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Editors and Contributors

About the Editors

Mauro Agnoletti is an Associate Professor at the University of Florence, where he

teaches landscape planning and environmental history at the Faculty of Agriculture.
He has an abilitation to full-time Professor in Landscape Planning and Economic
History. Most of his studies and activities have been dedicated to forest and land-
scape history and to transfer research findings into policies. He chairs the unit on
landscape policies at the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. He is a
scientific expert for UNESCO, CBD, European Landscape Convention, FAO. He is
a codirector of the scientific “Journal Global Environment” and member of the board
of the International Association of Environmental History Organizations. He has
produced more than 120 scientific articles and 20 books. www.landscape.unifi.it.
Simone Neri Serneri completed his Ph.D. in History at the University of Pisa
(Italy). He is a full-time Professor of Contemporary History at the Department of
Political and International Sciences at the University of Siena (Italy) and Director of
the Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Toscana (Florence). He is a member of the
editorial board “Global environment” and “Contemporanea. Rivista di storia
dell’800 e del 900”. He has been a member of the Board and Italian Regional
Representative of the European Society for Environmental History. In the field of
environmental history, he researched mainly about urban and industrial develop-
ment, water resources and pollution and environmental policies in Italy from the
late nineteenth century to the present. He is author of Incorporare la natura. Storie
ambientali del Novecento [Rome, 2005] and many articles in collective books and
co-edited the books Industria, ambiente e territorio. Per una storia ambientale
delle aree industriali in Italia [Bologna, 2009]; Storia e ambiente. Città, risorse e
territori nell’Italia contemporanea [Rome, 2007] and the on line World environ-
mental history by Eolls.

xv

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xvi Editors and Contributors

About the Contributors

Sabine Barles is a Professor at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a

member of the laboratory Géographie-Cités (University Paris 1, University Paris 7
and French National Research Council). She is a Civil Engineer (1988) and
obtained a Master’s degree in Urbanism (1989) and a Master’s degree in History of
Technology (1990) and later a Ph.D. in Urbanism (1993). The focus of her research
is the history of technology and of the urban environment and the interactions
between societies and nature (eighteenth–twentieth centuries) through urban
metabolism and urban and territorial ecology. She has published La ville délétère.
Médecins et ingénieurs dans l’espace urbain, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles (Seyssel, Champ
Vallon, 1999) and L’invention des déchets urbains, France, 1790–1970 (Seyssel,
Champ Vallon, 2005), and articles and chapters of books about the urban envi-
ronment, mostly about Paris (see for instance Barles “The Seine and Parisian
Metabolism: Growth of Capital Dependencies in the nineteenth and twentieth
Centuries”, in: Castonguay, S., Evenden, M.D. (eds.), Urban Waters: Rivers, Cities
and the Production of Space in Europe and North America, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh
University Press, 2012, p. 94–112; Billen, G., Garnier, J., Barles (eds.), Special
issue “History of the urban environmental imprint”, Regional Environmental
Change 12(2), 2012).
Stéphane Frioux is an Assistant Professor of History at the Université Lyon 2,
France, where he teaches European modern history and urban history, and research
in urban environmental history at the Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-
Alpes (UMR CNRS 5190 LARHRA). He published Les batailles de l’hygiène.
Villes et environnement de Pasteur aux Trente Glorieuses (Paris, PUF, 2013), in
which he examines the municipal policies of environmental sanitation and the
implementation of water and waste treatment facilities in French cities in the first
half of the twentieth century. Among his articles, “At a green crossroads: recent
theses in urban environmental history in Europe and North America”, Urban
History, vol. 39/3, 2012: 529–539, and “Pour une histoire politique de l’envi-
ronnement au 20e siècle”, Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, 113, 2012/1: 3–12.
He is currently working on environmental protection policies in twentieth century
France, shifting his focus from water pollution to air pollution.
Gabriel Jover-Avellà is an Associate Professor of the Department of Economics at
University of Girona (http://www.udg.edu/personal/tabid/8656/Default.aspx?ID=
52454) and collaborator researcher of the international project Sustainable Farm
Systems: Long-Term Socio-Ecological Metabolism of Western Agriculture funded
from 2012 to 2017 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada, together with the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness in Spain. His
research is focused on agrarian history from the sixteenth to the eighteenth cen-
turies. He uses farm accounts from the Majorca Island to analyse the changes in
Mediterranean organic agro-systems. He has published recently the first results in
Gabriel Jover and Jerònia Pons (2012) Possessions, renda de la terra i treball

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Editors and Contributors xvii

assalariat. L’illa de Mallorca, 1400–1660, Documenta Universitària-Biblioteca

d’Història Rural, Girona [Farms, rents and wage-labour. Majorca Island,
1400–1660]. En Enric Saguer, Gabriel Jover i Helena Benito (2013) Comptes de
senyor, comptes de pages. Les comptabilitats en la història rural. Documenta
Universitaria-Biblioteca d’Història Rural [Landlor accounts, Peasant accounts.
Accounting in Rural History]. He has published in journals like Revista de Historia
Económica-Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Histoire &
Mesure, among others.
Paolo Malanima is a Professor of Economic History and Economics (University
«Magna Graecia» in Catanzaro). He received his education at the Scuola Normale
Superiore (Pisa) and University of Pisa. Malanima is Co-President of the European
School for Training in Economic and Social Historical Research (ESTER) (Uni-
versity of Leiden) and a member of the editorial board of the journals Società e
Storia and Rivista di Storia Economica, corresponding editor of the International
Review of Social History, member of the Consejo of Investigaciones de Historia
Economica, and Revista de Istorie A Moldovei, member of the editorial board of the
Economic History Review and Scandinavian Review of Economic History. His
research is long-term economic history and the history of energy. His book Pre-
Modern European Economy. One Thousand Years (tenth–nineteenth Centuries),
Brill: Leiden-Boston, 2009; german translation as Europäische Wir-
tschaftsgeschichte 10–19. Jarhundert. Wien: Böhlau, 2010, refers to both these
areas of research. He is the author of Le energie degli italiani. Due secoli di storia,
Milano, B. Mondadori, 2013, and coauthor of A. Kander, P. Malanima, P. Warde,
Power to the people. Energy in Europe over the last five centuries, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 2013.
Stephen Mosley completed both his MA and Ph.D. in History at Lancaster Uni-
versity. He is now a Senior Lecturer in History in the School of Cultural Studies at
Leeds Metropolitan University. Mosley’s research interests are in environmental
history, particularly the history of environmental pollution and associated socio-
economic and health issues. His publications include: Common Ground: Inte-
grating the Social and Environmental in History (2011, with Geneviève Massard-
Guilbaud) which opens up a dialogue between the two disciplines; The Chimney of
the World: A History of Smoke Pollution in Victorian and Edwardian Manchester
(2008 edn.), which examines the human and environmental costs of smoke pol-
lution in the world’s first industrial city; and The Environment in World History
(2010), which offers a fresh environmental perspective on familiar world history
narratives of imperialism and colonialism, trade and commerce, technological
progress and the advance of civilisation. He has been an Editor of the journal
Environment and History since 2010.
Dieter Schott studied History, Political Science and English at the University of
Konstanz and the Free University of Berlin. He gained his Ph.D. with a thesis on
history of the city of Konstanz in the interwar-period. His habilitation thesis Die
Vernetzung der Stadt (=Networking the City) (Darmstadt University of Technology

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xviii Editors and Contributors

1996, published 1999) analyses urban electrification processes in three German

cities in the context of wider processes of urban development in the period
1880–1918. From 2000 to 2004, he taught as Professor for the History of Urban
Planning at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, UK. Since 2004,
he teaches Modern History at Darmstadt University of Technology. He was par-
ticularly involved with promoting international exchange on urban environmental
history, co-editing for example the proceedings of a 2002 conference at Leicester on
Resources of the City (Aldershot 2005). He has published widely in the fields of
urban and environmental history of the nineteenth and twentieth century, on natural
disasters, energy and infrastructures, rivers and cities. His most recent book is a text
book on European Urbanization with a particular focus on city-environment-rela-
tions (Die Urbanisierung Europas. Eine umweltgeschichtliche Einführung, to be
released 3/2014). He is the president of the German Society for Urban History and a
member of the International Council of the European Association of Urban History
(EAUH).
Gianni Silei is an Aggregate Professor of Social History in the Dipartimento di
Scienze Politiche e Internazionali and coordinator of the Observatory on Risks and
Natural and Technological Events and Disasters (Osservatorio Rischi e Eventi
Naturali e Tecnologici, Orent) under the Centro Interuniversitario per la Storia del
Cambiamento Sociale e dell’ Innovazione (Ciscam) at the University of Siena. He is
a member of the European Society for Environmental History (Eseh). His research
interests include welfare state and social protection policies history, contemporary
fear culture and natural and man-made disasters history. Among his recent publi-
cations: Le radici dell’incertezza. Storia della paura tra Otto e Novecento (2008);
Ambiente, rischio sismico e prevenzione nella Storia d’Italia (2011); Volontariato e
mutua solidarietà. 150 anni di previdenza in Italia (2011); Espansione e crisi: le
politiche di welfare in Italia tra gli anni Settanta e Ottanta, in Momenti del welfare
in Italia. Storiografia e percorsi di ricerca (2012); Breve storia dello Stato sociale
(2013).
Enric Tello-Aragay is a full-time Professor of the Department of Economic His-
tory and Institutions at the University of Barcelona (http://www.ub.edu/histeco/eng/
inici.htm) and a co-researcher of the international project Sustainable Farm Sys-
tems: Long-Term Socio-Ecological Metabolism of Western Agriculture funded from
2012 to 2017 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,
together with the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness in Spain, that
assembles seven universities in six countries. He publishes on environmental as
well as economic history of Catalonia and Spain, using socio-metabolic approaches
to energy and material balances of agricultural systems, as well as landscape
ecology analysis of land cover land-use changes. Some of his last publications are:
(with Parcerisas, L.; Marull, J.; Pino, J.; Coll, F. and Basnou, C., 2012): Land use
changes, landscape ecology and their socioeconomic driving forces in the Spanish
Mediterranean coast (El Maresme County, 1850–2005), Environmental Science &
Policy 23:120–132; (with Garrabou, R.; Cussó, X.; Olarieta, J.R. and Galán, E.

[email protected]
Editors and Contributors xix

(2012): Fertilizing methods and nutrient balance at the end of traditional organic
agriculture in the Mediterranean bioregion: Catalonia (Spain) in the 1860s, Human
Ecology 40(3):369–383; or (with Ostos, J.R., 2012): Water consumption in Bar-
celona and its regional environmental imprint: a long-term history (1717–2008),
Regional Environmental Change 12(2):347–361.
Verena Winiwarter was first trained as a Chemical Engineer. After years of
working in atmospheric research, she earned her Ph.D. in Environmental History at
the University of Vienna in 1998. She was granted the venia legendi in Human
Ecology in 2003. From 2003 to 2006, she held a postdoctoral fellowship in envi-
ronmental history (APART fellowship) awarded by the Austrian Academy of
Sciences at the Institute for Soil Research, University of Natural Resources and
Applied Life Sciences, Vienna and at the Faculty for Interdisciplinary Research of
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, where she holds the first chair in Environ-
mental History in Austria since 3/2007. Since 2010, she also serves as Dean of the
faculty for interdisciplinary studies there. Her main research interests comprise the
history of landscapes, in particular rivers, waste, images and the environmental
history of soils. She has been among the founding members of ESEH, the European
Society for Environmental History. From 2001 to 2005, she served as President of
ESEH. A corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, she has
published numerous articles and edited several books. Her CV can be downloaded
at: http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/socec/downloads/CV_VW_01-10_13_new.pdf.

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Chapter 1
Energy in History

Paolo Malanima

Abstract The topic of energy is of central interest today. Although a long-term

view can be useful in order to clarify contemporary trends and future perspectives,
scholarly literature provides little information on the consumption of energy sources
by past societies, before the beginning of the 20th century. In the following anal-
ysis, the topic of energy will be discussed from the viewpoint of economics, with a
long-term historical perspective. After a brief introduction in Sects. 1.1 and 1.2 will
examine some definitions and concepts, useful when dealing with energy and the
role of energy within the economy. Section 1.3 will focus on the relationship
between humans and energy in pre-modern societies. Section 1.4 will discuss the
energy transition, that is changes in energy and environment from the early modern
age to the present day. In the Conclusion (Sect. 1.5) general estimates will be
proposed of past energy consumption on the whole.

1.1 Introduction

Scholars disagree about the role of energy within the economy. An optimistic view
is shared by many economists. Their opinion is that raw materials played virtually
no role in the modern development of the economy, as growth depended and
continues to depend on knowledge, technical progress and capital. The contribution
of natural resources to past and present growth is almost non-existent; and energy is
a natural resource. After all energy represents today—they say—something less
than 10 % of aggregate demand in the advanced economies.
Scholars with interest in environmental changes support the opposite view on the
role of material goods and nature in the economy. Environment and natural
materials played an important function in the development of human societies and
in history on the whole. Energy in particular is of central importance in economic

P. Malanima (&)
Università Magna Graecia, Catanzaro, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 1

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_1

[email protected]
2 P. Malanima

life and is also a central concern, given the heavy impact of energy consumption on
the environment, especially in the last two centuries. Material underpinnings to
economic success are not to be underrated, in their opinion.1

1.2 Definitions and Concepts

1.2.1 An Economic Definition

In daily life we have direct contact with matter, but not with energy. Matter can be
touched, its form described and it is to be found underfoot as well as around us.
With energy it is different. Its indirect effects are only perceived deriving from
changes either in the structure, that is the molecular or atomic composition of
matter, or in its location in space, such as in the case of a stream of water or wind,
whose potential energy we can exploit. In both cases effects such as movement, heat
or light reveal the presence of what we call energy from about 200 years.
In physics energy is defined as the ability of bodies to perform work.2 Since
work is the result of force by distance, then energy includes any movement of some
material body in space together with the potential energy deriving from its position.
Heat as well is the result of the movement of the components of matter. When
dealing with the economy and then with the interrelationship between humans and
the environment, our definition must be a little different. We could define energy in
economic terms as the capacity of performing work, useful for human beings,
thanks to changes introduced with some cost or effort in the structure of the matter
or its location in space. Solar heat is of primary importance for the existence of life.
The definition of energy in physics includes it. Since it is a free source of energy, it
is not included in our economic definition; whereas the capture of solar rays by
means of some mechanism in order to heat water or produce electric power is
included. In the first case solar heat is not an economic resource, while it is in the
second. The formation of biomass in a forest is a transformation of the Sun’s energy
by the plants through photosynthesis and is not included in this definition either. On
the other hand, firewood is included, which is a part of forest biomass used by
human beings for heating, cooking and melting metals. Food is a source of energy
in economic terms, since its consumption enables the performance of useful work
and its production implies some cost. Food for animals is only exploitable, and then
it is an economic resource, when metabolised by those animals utilized by humans
for agricultural work. It is their fuel, and, since the power of the working animals is
exploited by the people, its calories have to be divided among the consumers (such
as the fuel of our cars today is divided among the population and is part of their per
capita consumption). When consumed by wild animals in a forest, however, these

1
On these topics see the first two chapters of Kander et al. (2013) chaps. 1 and 2.
2
Useful the discussion of the definitions of energy in Kostic (2004, 527–538) (2007).

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1 Energy in History 3

calories are not a source of mechanical power for humans and then are not included
in our calculation of past energy consumption. Both fossil fuels used today and
uranium are also energy carriers. They were not until a quite recent epoch, since
they were not utilized in order to produce economic goods and services.
Although the definition of energy in physics is much wider than in economics,
the definition here proposed is much wider than the ordinary meaning of the term
energy. Many people immediately think of modern sources, when speaking of
energy, and do not include daily food consumption. It is well known that working
animals played a central role in pre-modern agricultural economies, but their feed is
not considered as a main source of energy for humans. The lack of a clear defi-
nition, common to most contributions devoted to the history of energy, prevents
from the possibility of calculating energy consumption in past societies.

1.2.2 Energy and Production

In the long history of technology, main developments consisted in the increasing

knowledge about the possibility of “extracting” energy from the input of natural
resources. The production process and the role of energy can be represented by the
following diagram (Fig. 1.1).
The diagram can be seen as an illustration of the ordinary production function:

Y ¼ AFðL; R; KÞ:

Labour (L) and capital (K), the factors of any productive process of useful goods
and services (Y), can be better defined, from the viewpoint of energy, as converters
able to extract energy from resources (R) in order to transform materials into
commodities. Y is in fact a function (F) of the converters. The progress of technical
knowledge embodied in A, plays a central role in the production function. In one

input converters

Labour (L)

Resources (R) PRODUCT (Y )

Capital (K )

Fig. 1.1 Natural resources, converters of energy, product

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4 P. Malanima

sense, energy is the main input; that is to say, the main input is that part of matter
(resources R) transformed by the converters, that is by workers (L), who metabolize
food, and capital (K), which transforms some materials such as firewood, coal, oil,
gas and electricity into mechanical work, heat and light.
The increase in productivity of energy, as a consequence both of discoveries
of new sources and technologies (macro-inventions) or improvements in the
exploitation of those already existing (micro-inventions)3 can be represented by
the following ratio:

Y
p¼
E

where Y is output (in value) and E is the total input of energy in physical terms
(in Calories or joules or any other energy measure). The formula represents the
productivity of energy, that is the product generated by the unit of energy. It is
the reciprocal of the better known energy intensity (i), or the energy we need to
produce an unit of GDP:

E
i¼
Y

In the previous diagram, energy productivity is the result of the ratio between the
final product (in money) and the input of matter (food, coal, oil…) transformed into
energy by the converters (in kcal, joules…). It is a measure of the efficiency of the
energy converters from a technical viewpoint. The result is also conditioned
by changes in the structure of the product. The increasing importance of less energy
intensive sectors can result in an increase in energy productivity (or decline in
energy intensity) even without any technical change.

1.2.3 Energy and History

At the end of the 20th century, per capita energy consumption, on a world scale,
was about 50,000 kcal per day; that is 76 GJ per year, including traditional sources.
About 80 % of this consumption was represented by organic fossil sources; coal,
oil and natural gas. Nuclear energy represented 6 % and hydroelectricity 2 %. This
8 % was the non organic contribution to the energy balance. The remaining 12 %
consisted of biomass, i.e. organic vegetable sources (Table 1.1). If the waste uti-
lized in order to produce energy is excluded, the rest of this 12 % was composed of
food for humans and working animals (today a marginal source of power), and
firewood, an important item of consumption only in developing countries.

3
For the terms “micro-” and “macro-inventions” see Mokyr (1990).

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1 Energy in History 5

Table 1.1 Daily and yearly per capita consumption of energy worldwide around 2000 (kcal, Toe
and %)
Sources kcal per capita per day Toe per capita per year (%)
3 Non organic 4,000 0.15 8
2 Organic fossil 40,000 1.47 80
1 Organic vegetable 6,000 0.22 12
50,000 1.84 100
Source IEA, World Energy Outlook 2010, OECD/IEA, Annex A, Tables for Scenario Projections
Note Organic Vegetable food, firewood and feed for working animals; Organic Fossil coal, oil,
natural gas; Non organic nuclear, wind, hydro, photovoltaic. Toe = ton oil equivalent =
10 million kcal

This composition of the energy balance reveals the strata of a long history of
technical conquests.4 The history of energy technology is nothing else than the
chronological analysis of our present energy balance, in order to single out the
various ways of extracting energy from matter to produce heat, movement, light,
work etc. Following Table 1.1, we will track the history of energy consumption
from the most remote layer (1) that is Organic vegetable sources, to the develop-
ment of Organic fossil sources, the intermediate stratum (2), and subsequently to
the progressing Non organic sources (3), which will be the basis of our future
energy systems.5
From the viewpoint of energy, the long history of mankind could be divided into
two main epochs (corresponding to the first two lines of Table 1.1):
• First epoch the about 5–7 million years from the birth of the human species until
the early modern age, that is about 5 centuries ago, and
• Second epoch the recent history of the last 500 years, which has witnessed a fast
acceleration in the pace of energy consumption.
In the first long epoch, energy sources were represented by food for humans,
fodder for animals and firewood, that is biomass, with a small addition of water and
wind power. The second epoch witnesses the rapid partial replacement of the old
sources by fossil carriers, which became and still are the main energy sources.
While in the first epoch energy was scarce, expensive and environmental changes
heavily influenced its availability, during recent history energy has been plentiful,
its price relatively low and the influence of the energy consumption on the envi-
ronment considerable.

4
Still important on the big changes in the history of energy is the book by Cipolla (1962).
5
“Organic economies” is the expression used by Wrigley (1988). With reference to the history of
energy, the same term of “organic” had been used before by Cottrell (2009), See also Wrigley
(2010).

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6 P. Malanima

Here is a synthetic view of the sources characterizing these two main epochs:

First epoch Second epoch

Food Coal
Firewood Oil
Fodder (for working animals) Primary electricity
Water power Natural gas
Wind power Nuclear power

Although the energy system prevailing today is apparently different from the
simple digestion of food (the first energy source), or from the burning of firewood
by our primitive ancestors, it is based on the same principle, which is the oxidation
of Carbon compounds by breaking their chemical ties. Since Carbon compounds
are defined in chemistry as organic compounds and organic chemistry is the
chemistry of organic compounds, we could define all the energy systems which
have existed until today as organic and the economies based on those organic
sources as organic economies. Coal, oil and natural gas, the basic sources oxidized
today in order to bring about organized, that is mechanical, work, heating or light
are carbon compounds such as bread or firewood. The difference between pre-
modern and modern energy systems depends on the fact that, until the recent energy
transition, organic vegetable sources were exploited, whilst from then on organic
fossil energy sources became the basis of our economy. Since organic vegetable
sources of energy were transformed into work by biological converters (animals)
and fossil sources are transformed by mechanical converters (machines), we are
able to distinguish past economies according to the system of energy they employed
and the prevailing kind of converters in:
1. organic vegetable economies or biological economies;
2. organic fossil economies or mechanical economies.6
Given the importance of energy in human history, changes in the use of this
main input mark the evolution of humans in relation to their environment much
more than changes in the use of those materials, such as stone and metals, ordinarily
utilized by the historians to distinguish the main epochs of human history.

6
In chemistry “organic” refers to Carbon compounds. The term has been used by F. Cottrell and
A. Wrigley (see the previous footnote) to distinguish past agricultural economies (whose base was
an organic energy system) from modern economies (based on mineral fossil sources). However,
fossil fuels are also organic compounds. To avoid misunderstandings I think it useful to distinguish
“Past agricultural organic vegetable economies” from “Modern organic fossil economies”.

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1 Energy in History 7

1.3 Pre-modern Organic Vegetable Economies

At the end of the 18th century three were the main economic sources of energy;
corresponding to three different kinds of biomass. According to the age of the
discovery and exploitation of these three sources, three ages can be distinguished in
the distant past (that is in the First epoch identified in Sect. 1.2.3). The original
source was food, the second was firewood and the third was fodder for working
animals. A relatively small contribution came from two other carriers: falling water,
the potential energy of which was exploited by watermills; and wind, utilized both
by sailboats, and, much later, mills.

1.3.1 The First Age: Food

Since the birth of the human species some 5–7 million years ago, and then for some
85–90 % of human history, food was the only source of energy. In this long period,
the only transformation of matter in order to engender movement and heat was the
metabolism of organic material either produced spontaneously by plants and veg-
etation or converted into meat by some other animal consumed by humans as food.
Although nothing certain can be said about energy consumption per head at that
time, given the stature and physical structure of these early humans, consumption
per day of about 2,000 Cal could be plausible. Their own body was the early
machine used by humans. An animal body is not very efficient in the conversion of
energy. Only 15–20 % of the input of energy, that is 300–400 Cal, is transformed
into work, while the rest is utilized in order to support the metabolism and dispersed
in the environment as heat and waste. The economic output of these far ancestors
consisted in collecting, transporting and consuming this original input of energy.

1.3.2 The Second Age: Fire

The use of fire has been the main conquest in the history of energy.7 The first
evidence of fire being used by humans refers to several different regions of the
world and can be dated between 1 million and 500,000 years ago. Fire was a
conquest of independent groups of humans in several parts of the world and the
main source of energy for several millennia. Its use spread slowly. In this case, as in
the case of food, an estimate of the level of energy consumption by our distant
ancestors can only be speculative. As far as is known for much more recent ages,
the level of firewood consumption in different regions in pre-modern times may
have varied from 1 kg per head per day to 10 in cold climates, that is between

7
On the discovery of fire see particularly Perlès (1977) and Goudsblom (1992).

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8 P. Malanima

3,000–4,000 and 30,000–40,000 Cal. A daily consumption of about 1 kg per capita

could be assumed for the humans living in relatively warm climates. In northern
regions firewood consumption was considerably higher. Fire could be used for
heating, cooking, lighting, and for protection against wild animals. Although, with
fire, Calories per head drastically increased from 2,000 to 3,000–4,000 per day or
more, that is 5–6 GJ per year, the efficiency in its use was very low. The useful
energy exploited by the population did not exceed 5 % of its Calories, the rest being
lost in the air.

1.3.3 The Third Age: Agriculture

During the Mesolithic, the end of glaciations and the rise in temperature enabled
humans to increase the cultivation of vegetables and particularly cereals. The
overall availability of energy in the form of food increased dramatically and sup-
ported the growth of population. In per capita terms, the perspective is different.
Since population increased rapidly in the agricultural regions of the World, avail-
ability of food per head did not increase. A diet based on cereals represented a
deterioration, as is witnessed by the decrease in stature following the spread of
agriculture. Agriculture, as the main human activity, progressed quite slowly, if we
compare the diffusion of this technological conquest to the following ones. From
the Near East, where primarily developed 10,000 years ago, agriculture progressed
towards Europe at the speed of 1 km per year. Within 3,000 years, agriculture
reached northern Europe. At the same time, the new economic system was
spreading from northern China and central America, the regions of the world where
agriculture independently developed at the same time or a little later than in the
Near East.
A new development in the agricultural transition took place during a second
phase: from about 5,000 years until 3000 BCE. The period can be considered as a
true revolution. The fundamental change was represented by the taming of animals,
(oxen, donkeys, horses and camels), and their utilization in agriculture and trans-
portation. Humans’ energy endowment was rising. If we consider a working animal
as a machine and divide his daily input of energy as food—about 20,000 Cal—
among the humans who employed him, consumption per head may have increased
by 20–50 % or more, according to the ratio between working animals and human
beings; which is not easy to define for these distant epochs. Only about 15 % of this
input represented, however, useful energy, that is energy converted into work.
During this age, several innovations allowed a more efficient utilization of
humans’ power, fuels and animals; e.g. the wheel, the working of metals, pottery,
the plough, and the sail. The sail was previously used, but it only spread widely
during this revolutionary epoch. The use of wind was the first example of the
utilization of a non-organic source of energy, not generated by the photosynthesis
of vegetables. Labour productivity rose markedly. Even though some changes in
the agricultural energy system also took place in the following centuries, technical

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1 Energy in History 9

progress was modest on the whole. Water and windmills, invented respectively
3 centuries BCE (as recent research suggests) and in the 7th century CE, were the
main innovations in the energy basis of the agrarian civilisations. Although
important from a technological viewpoint, these changes added very little in terms
of energy availability: ordinarily no more than 1–2 %.8

1.3.4 Main Features of the Organic Vegetable Economies

Although several important differences exist among the three ages of our organic
vegetable past, there are also some analogies; especially when dealing with the
relationship between humans and environment. The dependence of this energy
system on soil implies several constraints to the possibilities of economic
development.
1. Reproducible sources Vegetable energy carriers are reproducible. They are
based on solar radiation and since the Sun has existed for 4.5 billion years and
will continue to exist for 5 billion years, vegetable materials may be considered
as an endless source of energy. Organic vegetable economies have been sus-
tainable since solar energy allowed a continuous flow of exploitable biomass.
However, only a negligible part of solar radiation reaching the Earth, less than
1 %, is transformed into phytomass by the vegetable species. Of this 1 %, only
an insignificant part is utilized by humans and working animals. On the other
hand, increase in the exploitation of phytomass was far from easy. The avail-
ability of more vegetable sources implied extension of the arables and pastures
and the gathering of firewood, which was difficult to transport over long dis-
tances. The ways of utilizing the phytomass were also in conflict, since more
arables implied less pastures and woods. Thus, while the availability of these
carriers was endless, their exploitation was hard and time consuming. The
production of phytomass was, furthermore, subject to climatic changes both in
the short and long run and heavily influenced by temperature changes and
weather variations. Long-term climatic changes could also raise or diminish the
extent of cultivation and wood productivity. Past organic vegetable economies,
based on reproducible sources of energy, were the economies of poverty and
famine.
2. Climate and energy Given that, in pre-modern organic vegetable energy sys-
tems, transformation of the Sun’s radiation into biomass by means of photo-
synthesis was fundamental and since the heat of the Sun is not constant on
Earth, the energy basis—phytomass—of any human activity was subject to
changes. Climatic phases have thus marked the history of mankind. The
availability of phytomass deeply varied and strongly influenced human econo-
mies. Glaciations caused a decline in available energy and therefore in the

8
On the quantification of water and wind power see Malanima (1996).

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10 P. Malanima

number of humans and the evolution of their settlements. The end of the gla-
ciations provoked changes in the main human activities; from hunting and
gathering to agriculture. Agricultural civilizations were also deeply influenced
by climatic variations. While warm periods were favourable to the spread of
cultivations and the multiplication of mankind, cold epochs corresponded to
demographic declines. Roman civilisation flourished in a warm period and was
accompanied by population rise, while the early Middle Ages, characterized by
a cold climate, was an epoch of demographic decline. The so-called warm
Medieval Climatic Optimum coincided with worldwide population increase,
between 900 and about 1270, while the following Little Ice Age, from 1270
until 1820, was again a period of economic hardship and population stability or
slow increase. While present day energy systems heavily influence the envi-
ronment and climate, until a few centuries ago the opposite was true.
3. Efficiency and energy intensity Only a part of energy input is actually trans-
formed into useful energy (or energy services, that is mechanical work, light and
useful heat). How great this share is depends on the efficiency of the converters
of energy, that is labour (L) and capital goods (K). The thermodynamic effi-
ciency (η) of the system of energy can be represented through the following ratio
between the energy services (Eu) and the total input of energy (Ei):

Eu
g¼
Ei

Today, in our developed economies, this ratio is about 0.35; that is 35 % of the
input of energy becomes actual mechanical work, light or useful heat. In past
agricultural civilizations, the efficiency was much lower. A plausible calculation
is easier for the past, when biological converters prevailed, than for the present.
Today, in fact, the variety of machines, with diverse yields, make hard any
estimate. The ratio between useful mechanical work and input of energy into
biological converters, such as humans and working animals, is around
15–20 %.9 Part of the intake of energy in the form of food is not digested and is
expelled as waste, whilst the main part is utilized as metabolic energy in order to
repair the cells, digest and preserve body heat. A human being or animal con-
sumes even when inactive. The use of firewood is even less efficient. The greater
part of the heat is dispersed without any benefit for those who burn the wood. Its
yield is about 5–10 %. Overall, the efficiency of a vegetable energy system
based on biological converters, such as that of ancient civilizations, was around
15 % at the most: that is 1,000–1,500 kcal. were transformed into useful
mechanical work or useful heat; the rest was lost. Thermal machines are much
more efficient than biological converters such as animals and humans.
4 Low Power Power is defined as the maximum of energy liberated in a second by
a biological or technical engine. In the economies of the past another

9
See the useful Herman (2007).

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1 Energy in History 11

consequence of the usage of biomass converted into work was the low level of
power attainable. The power of a man using a tool is about 0.05 horsepower
(HP). That of a horse or donkey can be 10 times higher. A watermill can provide
3–5 HP, while a windmill can reach 8–10 HP. As a comparison, a steam engine
could attain 8,000–12,000 HP around 1900, while a nuclear plant can reach
2 million HP. The conquest of power meant an incredible advance in the pos-
sibility of harnessing the forces and materials of the environment. To clarify this
central point about the differences between past and modern energy systems, we
must remember that the power of an average car (80 kW) is today equal to the
power of 2,000 people and that the power of a large power station generating
electricity (800 mW) is the same as that of 20 million people. The electric power
of a medium sized nation of 40–60 million inhabitants, some 80,000 mW,
equals the power of 2 billion people. Today, a nuclear plant or a nuclear bomb
can concentrate millions of HP, or the work of many generations of humans and
draft animals, into a small space and a fraction of time. This concentration of
work allows humans to accomplish tasks that were barely imaginable just a few
lifetimes ago.

1.4 Modern Organic Fossil Economies

At the start of modern growth around 1800, on the world scale, energy consumption
was about 8,000–9,000 kcal per capita per day, that is 13 GJ per year.10 The main
sources were those already seen, that is different kinds of biomass (food, firewood
and fodder). Water and wind were the only non organic sources. In 1800,
throughout western Europe, the energy balance per head was 20 GJ per year, that is
13,000 Cal per day, excluding coal, which was then widely used only in England.
On the continent, many differences existed in the levels of energy consumption.
While in Mediterranean countries it was about 15 GJ per year (10,000 Cal per day),
in Scandinavia it was 45 (30,000 Cal per day). In pre-modern Europe, the main
energy carrier was firewood. It represented 50 % in the south and more than 70 % in
the northern regions, followed by fodder for working animals and food for the
population.11
In Europe, energy consumption was higher than in other agricultural civilisa-
tions, both in Asia and southern America, for two reasons:
1. the European civilisation was the most northern agrarian civilisation and, since
temperature was a main determinant of energy consumption, wood consumption
was higher than in coeval agrarian economies;

10
On the relationship Modern Growth—Energy see: Ayres and Warr (2009).
11
See the estimates by Kander (2002) and Malanima (2006).

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12 P. Malanima

2. in the dry European agriculture, the utilisation of animals in agriculture and

transportation was more widespread than elsewhere. In both China and southern
America, the presence of animals in agriculture was far more modest. In pre-
modern centuries, probably only in India was animal power exploited to the
same extent as in Europe.

1.4.1 The Start of the Energy Transition

Modern growth, from about 1820 until today, has marked a sharp rise both in the
sources utilized and in the efficiency of their utilization.12 We could define this
change as an energy transition. It was an important support to the growth in the
capacity to produce. Although not sufficient condition of modern growth, energy
transition was a necessary condition.13 Without this transition, modern growth
could not occur. As has been seen, although some other deep changes occurred in
the use of energy before the modern era, this last transition is often represented, for
its rapidity and intensity, as the “transition” par excellence or the period that marked
a break between past and present.
Fossil sources, coal, oil, natural gas, were also products of photosynthetic
processes, such as food and firewood. Their formation had taken place in the Car-
boniferous era, some 300–350 million years ago. This underground forest had been
mineralized or transformed into liquid fuel and gas in the course of several mil-
lennia.14 In various parts of the world and in England and other northern European
regions, coal was easily extracted. If by the start of the epoch of fossil fuels we refer
to the period when they began to develop, the second half of the 16th century could
be defined as the starting point. It was then that they began to be employed on a large
scale by English manufacturers and for domestic use. If, instead, we want to single
out the epoch when they began to play an important role on the European and non
European economy, this age is the first half of the 19th century.
The existence of fossil fuels had been known in Europe since the times of ancient
Rome. During the late Middle Ages, in those northern European regions where coal
was easily available, its consumption spread, as its price was far lower than that of
firewood. In China coal was also widely used in metallurgy during the late Middle
Ages. From the second half of the 16th century, the use of coal increased in
England, above all. The rising population and particularly that of London repre-
sented a strong stimulus towards the consumption of a much less expensive fuel
than firewood. In the whole of England the production of coal increased 7–8 times
between 1530 and 1630, thanks to the greater depth of the shafts and better drainage

12
On this phase in the history of energy see the still useful article by Bairoch (1983) and
particularly Kander et al. (2013). A brief, useful reconstruction is that provided by Grübler (2004).
13
Malanima (2012).
14
On the transition to fossil sources of energy, it is useful Sieferle (2001).

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1 Energy in History 13

Table 1.2 Share of coal pro- England Rest of Europe

duction in England and the
rest of Europe 1800–1870 (%) 1800 96 4
1830 79 21
1840 73 27
1850 73 27
1860 65 35
1870 58 42
Source Etemad and Luciani (1991, 256)

of the mines and by the 1620s it had become more important than wood as a
provider of thermal energy. For a long period, England was by far the main pro-
ducer of coal. Only at the end of the 19th century, was the rest of Europe able to
compete with England (Table 1.2).
The share of coal on total energy consumed in England was 12 % in 1560, 20 %
in 1600, and 50 % in 1700. Coal consumption from 1560 until 1900 shows an
almost stable rate of growth (Fig. 1.2). In The Netherlands another fossil fuel, peat,
began to be used on a wide scale from the 17th century onwards. It was an
important support of the Dutch Golden Age, but did not cause such fundamental
changes in the economy as coal in England.
One of the reasons for the transition to a new source of energy was the growth in
population throughout the continent from the last decades of the 17th century
onwards. While in 1650 the European population numbered 112 million, in 1800 it
was already 189 million and in 1850 it was 288 million. The main converter of the
organic vegetable energy system, land, was becoming scarcer. Energy consumption
of traditional sources was diminishing in per capita terms, whereas food, fodder and
above all firewood were becoming more expensive. The price of these sources
increased across the whole continent from the second half of the 18th century

10000
0,018x
y = 5,96e
2
R = 0,98
1000

100

10

1
1560

1600

1640

1680

1720

1760

1800

1840

1880

Fig. 1.2 Coal consumption in England and Wales 1560–1900 (in Petajoules; log scale). Source
Warde (2007). Note you see in the diagram the formula of the exponential interpolating curve.
1 PJ = 1,000 billion KJ

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14 P. Malanima

onwards. Land per capita outside Europe was also diminishing.15 The European
population growth was part of the demographic transition taking place worldwide.
World population rose from 600 million in 1650 to 1 billion in 1820.
The shift to new fuels represented one aspect of the energy transition then in act.
It was not, however, the most important. The main technological change was the
new utilisation of fuels, that is, the techniques designed to employ in a different way
the heat of these organic sources. For about one million year, fuels had been utilized
for heating, lighting and melting metals, while work, in economic terms, that is
organized movement in order to produce commodities and services, was only
provided by humans and animals; apart from wind and water (whose mechanical
work, in any case, was not the conversion of a fuel). The only engines able to
provide work were biological machines. The introduction of machines in order to
convert heat into mechanical power was the main change in the energy system,
comparable in importance to the discovery of fire. It was only during the 18th
century, with the invention of the steam engine by Thomas Newcomen and James
Watt, that the Age of the Machines really began. The fundamental technological
obstacle that had for millennia limited the capacity of the economic systems to
perform work, was only then overcome. In 1824, the French physicist Sadi Carnot
clearly pointed out the great novelty represented by what he called the “machines à
feu”, the thermal machines.16 In his opinion they would have replaced soon both
the force of animals and that of water and wind. This is precisely what happened
over the last two centuries. The age of machinery began with the steam engine and
such energy transition resulted in great changes in:
• the volume and trend of energy consumption;
• the process of substitution of energy carriers;
• the geography of energy production;
• the price of energy;
• the relationship energy-economy;
• the relationship energy-environment.
The following sections are devoted to these changes.

1.4.2 The Volume and Trend of Energy Consumption

Energy consumption per head diminished in Europe during the 18th century, whilst
from 1800 until 2000 it rose considerably: 5.8-fold from 1800 until 2000, that is
from 23 to 134 GJ (Fig. 1.3).17 Since at the same time population increased 3.5

15
On the Malthusian constraints in pre-modern “organic” energy systems: Wrigley (1989). I
examined the start of the energy transition in Malanima (2012). The path towards the modern
economy.
16
Carnot (1824).
17
On energy consumption in Europe, see Bartoletto (2012).

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1 Energy in History 15

150

120

90

Gj 60

30

0
1500

1550

1600

1650

1700

1750

1800

1850

1900

1950

2000
Fig. 1.3 Per capita energy consumption of traditional and modern carriers in western Europe
1500–2005 (GJ). Source Kander et al. (2013). Note 1 GJ = 1 million KJ = 0.0239 Toe

times, total energy consumption registered a 20-fold increase (Table 1.3). The global
crisis of the first decade of the 21st century resulted in a fall of energy consumption.
Until about 1840, energy consumption per head did not increase in Europe, since
the input of fossil fuels rose at the same rate as the population. From 1840 onwards
until the First World War, growth was instead remarkable. After a period of stability
between the two World Wars, a significant increase took place from the 1950s until
the 1970s, followed by a slower rise. In the long run the growth witnesses an almost
constant rate with brief deviations due to wars or epochs of fast economic rise
(Fig. 1.4).
On the World scale, the rise of per capita consumption has been 5.7 times
between 1850 and 2000. Since population growth was 5.8-fold, the aggregate rise

Table 1.3 Energy consumption in western Europe from 1800 until 2000 in kcal per capita per
day, in Toe per capita per year, population and total energy consumption in Mtoe
kcal per Toe per Traditional Rate of Population Total
capita capita per sources (%) growth (000) Mtoe
per day year (%)
1800 15,300 0.56 77 96,950 54
1830 16,700 0.61 62 0.29 118,800 72
1900 42,000 1.53 20 1.32 194,800 299
1950 46,500 1.70 13 0.20 254,500 432
1970 82,200 3.00 7 2.85 293,700 880
1990 86,800 3.17 7 0.27 316,900 1,004
2000 90,700 3.31 8 0.44 327,400 1,084
2010 88,000 3.21 8 −0.30 336,000 1,079
Source Kander et al. (2013)
Note data refer to western Europe: Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal,
Italy. 1 Megatoe = 1 million Toe

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16 P. Malanima

180 1000

y = 20,65e 0,01x
150 2
R = 0,97

120 100

90
Gj

Gj
60 10

30

0 1
1800

1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000

1800

1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000
Fig. 1.4 Per capita energy consumption in western Europe 1800–2007 (GJ) (on the right log
vertical axis, trend and the equation of the trend). Source Kander et al. (2013)

was 33 times (Table 1.4). We see that modern or commercial sources overcame
traditional sources, or the phytomass, around 1900, or the epoch of the second
industrial revolution.

1.4.3 The Process of Substitution

In organic vegetable economies any discovery of a new source was an addition to

the balance of energy and not a substitution. With fossil sources it was different.
Fossil sources replaced a large part of the traditional carriers, which lost their
importance in relative and sometimes in absolute terms. While food consumption
rose in aggregate and per capita terms, the power of working animals diminished
and, in developed economies, totally disappeared. Firewood continued to represent
an important share of energy consumption only in relatively backward areas. On the
world scale, traditional sources of energy diminished from 98 % in 1800 to 50 in
1900 and only 14 in 2000–2010. In Europe the decline was still higher. England was
the only important consumer of coal at the beginning of the 19th century. Traditional
sources then represented the greater majority throughout the continent, that is almost
90 % of the overall consumption (when England is excluded). Their share decreased
to 25 % in 1900 and was only 5 % in 2000 (always excluding England).
For several millennia changes in the energy system had been very slow. From
1800 transitions and substitutions began to dominate the picture. If we look at the
fuels utilized in Europe from 1800 until 2000, we see that, in terms of Calories,
firewood still dominated in 1800, while coal represented about 30 %. Wood con-
sumption was, in relative terms, already relatively modest in 1900, while coal
equalled about 80 %. Oil began to be used during the last decades of the 19th
century and only in the 1960s exceeded coal. Natural gas spread from the 1970s on
a large scale and only in the 1990s did it overtake coal; although its share was less
than half that of oil. While coal dominated for a long period in the last half century,

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1 Energy in History 17

Table 1.4 World energy consumption from 1800 until 2010 in kcal per capita per day, in Toe per
year, world population and total in Mtoe
kcal per Toe per Traditional Rate of World Total
capita per capita per sources (%) growth population Mtoe
day year (%) (000,000)
1800 8,500 0.31 98 950 295
1850 9,800 0.36 88 0.30 1,180 425
1880 13,000 0.47 65 0.89 1,365 642
1900 18,400 0.67 50 1.77 1,560 1,045
1950 28,200 1.00 33 0.80 2,527 2,527
1970 45,900 1.67 20 2.56 3,691 6,164
1985 48,100 1.76 16 0.35 4,838 8,515
2000 49,000 1.79 14 0.11 6,077 10,878
2010 55,700 2.03 14 1.26 6,850 13,906
Sources on the World scale energy consumption and production can be assumed to be equal. Data
on the production of modern sources of energy are from Etemad and Luciani (1991). The
consumption of traditional energy carriers is based on plausible figures on the relative share of the
modern sources (United Nations 1956) and Fernandes et al. (2007) and also the auxiliary material in
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GB002836/suppinfo on consumption of biofuels
Note 1 Megatoe = 1 million Toe

and although oil holds a central position, the picture is more varied and variety is
ever increasing with the rising exploitation of solar power, wind, biomass and
nuclear power as sources of primary electricity (Fig. 1.5).
Electricity is in any case a secondary energy source, a transformation, that is, of
other sources. Even when electricity is generated by a water turbine, the primary
source of power is represented by falling water, that is, by the change in its potential

x
ln 4,0
1−x
coal

0,0
fuelwood
-4,0
oil
-8,0
p. electricity
gas
-12,0

-16,0
1800

1830

1860

1890

1920

1950

1980

Fig. 1.5 Shares of any fuel on the total fuel consumption in Europe 1800–2000 (ln). Sources
Kander et al. (2013). Note x, on the vertical axis, refers to the share of an energy carrier on the total
of the 5 energy carriers minus the energy carrier x. I follow Marchetti (1977); although the results
represented in the graph do not confirm those reached by Marchetti

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18 P. Malanima

energy. The same holds true for nuclear electricity, which began to develop from
the late 1950s and whose primary source is the change in the atomic structure of
uranium. Often, however, the expression “primary electricity” is used to single out
that part of electricity not produced through fossil fuels. Today it includes solar,
wind and geothermal electricity. Its share, in the form of hydroelectricity, has
developed since the last decades of the 19th century. Nuclear power has been a
remarkable addition since the 1970s. In 1971 it represented only 1 % of energy in
Europe. In 2005 it was 13.6 %, thanks especially to the nuclearisation of the French
energy system. Since the share of primary electricity in the continent was 17.2 % of
primary electricity, the other sources were then negligible.
On the world scale, we find the same transition from coal to oil, to natural gas
and to nuclear electricity, while photovoltaic, hydro and wind power progressed
remarkably in the 1990s and the first decade of the third millennium (Table 1.5).

Table 1.5 World consumption of primary commercial energy (in Mtoe per year)
Coal Oil Natural gas Primary electricity Total
(MToe)
1700 3 3
1750 5 5
1800 11 11
1850 48 48
1900 506 20 7 1 534
1950 971 497 156 29 1,653
1973 1,563 2,688 989 131 5,371
1987 2,249 2,968 1,550 332 7,099
2010 3,532 4,032 2,843 1,405 11,812
(%)
1700 100 100
1750 100 100
1800 100 100
1850 100 100
1900 94.8 3.7 1.3 0.2 100
1950 58.7 30.1 9.4 1.8 100
1973 29.1 50.0 18.4 2.4 100
1987 31.7 41.8 21.8 4.7 100
2010 29.9 34.1 24.1 11.9 100
Sources Martin (1990) and BP (2012)
Note 1 Megatoe = 1 million Toe. Here consumption refers only to commercial sources of energy,
while in Table 1.4 total consumption includes the traditional carriers as well

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1 Energy in History 19

1.4.4 The Geography of Energy Production

At the beginning of the 19th century, commercial, that is fossil, energy production
was still entirely localised in Europe and especially in the north and centre. Eco-
nomic growth and availability of fossil sources of energy more or less coincided. At
the middle of the century, 90 % of fossil energy was still produced in Europe and
10 % in the United States (Table 1.6). Things changed during the 20th century, and
especially in the second half, when oil began to play a central role in the energy
systems of the developed countries. After the World War 2, Europe produced
35–40 % of world commercial energy. In particular the European production of oil
has always been negligible, despite an increase of North Sea oil exploitation in the
1980s and 1990s by Great Britain and Norway. If, as a whole, the energy deficit of
developed countries was only 4 % in 1950, in 1973 it had grown to about 50 %. At
the end of the century, a little less than 50 % of oil production was localised, in
order of importance, in Saudi Arabia, the USA, the Russian Federation, Iran and
Mexico. The concentration of oil production, which is the basic source of the
energy system, in specific places, resulted in a higher vulnerability of energy
provisioning of developed countries. This vulnerability clearly appeared in 1973
and 1979, when the oligopoly of the main energy producers, OPEC, limited oil
production and resulted in fast and remarkable price increases.
At the end of the past millennium, considerable differences existed in energy
consumption per country. The geography of energy consumption is similar to the
geography of growth; while the geography of energy production is not. Countries
with higher per capita GDP are higher consumers (Fig. 1.6).
Among rich and poor countries the range of commercial energy consumption per
head is 40 to 1. While in Niger and Mali it is 0.2 toe per capita per year, in the USA
it is 8 toe. In the 1980s, on the world scale, energy consumption of market
developed economies was 50 % of the total; that of centrally planned economies
20 % and that of the developing countries 30 %. At the end of the second mil-
lennium, 25 % of the world population—1.5 billion, the population, that is, of the
developed economies, consumed 7,920 toe, i.e.75 % of the world consumption in
one year, while 75 % of the population—4.5 billion—consumed 2,340 toe, or 25 %
of the whole. With about 4.9 toe per year, an inhabitant of the most advanced

Table 1.6 Total production of commercial energy per continent (%)

1800 1850 1900 1950 1985
Europe 99.09 90.00 61.63 35.66 38.38
America 0.91 10.00 35.71 52.38 30.73
Asia 0.00 0.00 1.72 9.99 23.11
Africa 0.00 0.00 0.12 1.24 5.83
Oceania 0.00 0.00 0.82 0.73 1.95
100 100 100 100 100
Source Etemad and Luciani (1991)

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20 P. Malanima

100.000

10.000
y = 1,336x0,776
2
R = 0,80
Energy 1.000

100

10
100 1.000 10.000 100.000
GDP

Fig. 1.6 Per capita energy consumption per country in 2009 (kg oil equivalent: koe) as a function
of per capita GDP ($2005 PPP). Source World Bank (2011). Note the interpolation is drawn
through a power regression, whose formula is represented in the graph. Ordinates and abscissae in
log. 1 koe = 10,000 kcal

economies consumed on average 9 times more commercial energy than an inhab-

itant of the poorest countries—only 0.54 toe. So strong differences did not exist
before modern growth. Only differences in climate and not in wealth could then
imply remarkable disparities in consumption.

1.4.5 The Price of Energy

The spread of fossil fuels was fostered by their relatively low price in comparison
with organic vegetable sources. During the second half of the 18th century and the
first decades of the 19th, the initial progress of coal coincided with a period of rising
prices of all organic vegetable sources of energy. For the same energetic content,
fossil carriers were 2–3 times cheaper than the vegetable ones. If we take the curve
of oil prices on the international markets, we notice that, after a couple of decades
of high prices at the start of the use of oil, there was a downward curve until the
1973 crisis (Fig. 1.7).
In the 1950s and 1960s oil prices reached their lowest level. Although different
sources have different prices, the trend in oil prices well represents the trend of
energy prices on the whole. Data for the periods both before and after the intro-
duction of the new fossil carriers, suggests that the fastest rate of the modern
growth, occurring in the 1950s and 1960s, coincided with the lowest level of energy
prices ever experienced, at least from when written information exists. On the other
hand, the slower rate of growth of the world economy after 1973 depended, at least
in part, on the higher price of energy and particularly oil.

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1 Energy in History 21

600

500

400

300

200

100

0
1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010
Fig. 1.7 Oil prices on the international market in 2008 euros per barrel 1861–2012. Source my
calculations from data in https://opendata.socrata.com

1.4.6 Energy and Economy

When dealing with energy, we are interested both in the energy input into the
economic system and the share of total energy actually available as mechanical
work and heat. It is well known that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only
transformed (according to the first law of thermodynamics). On the other hand, it is
also known that in any transformation there is a loss of useful energy: a large part of
the energy that is consumed remains unavailable (according to the second law of
thermodynamics). How great this amount is depends on the technical efficiency of
the converter (as already seen in Sect. 1.3.4).
From 1800 on, not only were new fuels introduced on a wide scale, but equally
important was the wider efficiency in their use. The conversion efficiency in dif-
ferent energy systems evolved through the following four main stages:18

(%)
1. Subsistence agriculture 5
2. Advanced agriculture 15
3. Emerging industrial 25
4. Advanced industrial 35

As can be seen, modern growth implied not only a rise in the exploited energy,
but also a rise in the efficiency of its exploitation. After all, machines are more
efficient than animals as converters of energy.

18
From Cook (1976, 135).

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22 P. Malanima

Fig. 1.8 Energy intensity in 25

western Europe between
1820–2005 (per capita GJ 20
(000)/per capita GDP in 1990
dollars PPP). Source Kander 15
et al. (2013)
10

1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000
The advantages of machinery and technological change in terms of energy yield
are easily visible if energy consumption (expressed in some energy measure) is
divided by product (in money). The result of the ratio is the so called energy
intensity (E/Y) (Fig. 1.8). The curve of energy intensity shows that, during the 19th
century, some increase occurred in the energy/GDP ratio, due to the exploitation of
coal by inefficient technologies especially in England, the main producer and
consumer of coal. From 1900 on a remarkable decline took place. In the year 2000,
the production of the same output required half the energy used some 200 years
earlier.
A decline in energy intensity occurred in the second half of the 20th century in
almost all world economies; although the differences were still remarkable
(Table 1.7).
From 1820 until 2000, GDP per capita rose 16 times in western Europe, while
energy input per head rose about 8-fold and efficiency in the use of energy doubled.
A decomposition of per capita GDP proves to be useful in order to specify the
relative importance of the input of energy and the efficiency of its exploitation. Per
capita GDP (Y/P) can be represented as the result of energy consumption per capita
(E/P) divided by the productivity of energy (Y/E):

Table 1.7 Energy intensity in different economies 1950–1990 (in Toe per $1,000 of GDP
constant prices)
OCDE CPE DC OPEC
1950 0.55 1.70 0.23 0.10
1960 0.51 1.97 0.31 0.25
1970 0.52 1.66 0.38 0.22
1980 0.44 1.57 0.44 0.29
1990 0.36 1.39 0.46 0.44
Source elaboration of data from Pireddu (1990)
Note OCDE the organisation for cooperation and economic development; CPE centrally planned
economies; DC developing countries; OPEC the organisation of the oil producer countries

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1 Energy in History 23

Y E Y
¼

P P E

If we assume:
y_ as the rate of growth of Y/P;
e_ as the rate of growth of E/P; and
p_ as the rate of growth of Y/E;
we can specify the relative importance of e and π in the growth of y, during the
period concerned; that is the years from 1820 until 2000. In fact:

y_ ¼ e_ þ p_

Our result is:

1:54 ¼ 1:10 þ 0:44

The conclusion is that, from 1820 until 2000, the annual rate of growth of per
capita GDP was 1.54 %, and that E/P and Y/E grew respectively at the rates of 1.10
and 0.44 per year. The input of energy contributed more than the productivity of
energy in the growth of per capita product. It was 2.5 times more important (1.10/
0.44 = 2.5). Figure 1.9 shows that both per capita GDP and per capita energy
consumption grew, in these last two centuries, with an almost constant and similar
rate of increase. However, GDP per capita, (the higher curve) grew faster than
energy (always per capita); as the interpolating exponential curves shows.
The introduction of new machines and more efficient engines was responsible
for the leap in the productivity of energy. From the last decades of the 19th century,
electricity contributed significantly to efficiency, together with the development of
new devices which entered production plants and homes. Between 1860 and 1914,
the introduction of electricity, steam and water turbines, and the internal

Fig. 1.9 Per capita energy 100,0

consumption (the thick curve)
and GDP per capita in GDP = 0,79e
0,015x

western Europe 1820–2010 R 2 = 0,95 GDP

(1820 = 1) (exponential 10,0

interpolating curves). Source
Kander et al. (2013)
E
1,0
0,0111x
E = 0,95e
R 2 = 0,96

0,1
1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000

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24 P. Malanima

combustion engine (together with inexpensive steel, aluminium, explosives, syn-

thetic fertilizers and electronic components), marked a technical watershed in recent
economic history.

1.4.7 Energy and Environment

Among the different sources of energy, only the exploitation of wind, water and
direct solar energy do not modify the environment since they do not cause a change
in the molecular or atomic composition of matter. Whenever, by contrast, either the
molecular or nuclear composition of matter is modified, even by the mere digestion
of food, some change is introduced in the environment and some waste is produced.
It is known that some environmental effects were produced by humans in past
civilisations and that deforestation was not unknown in ancient economies. Lead in
the atmosphere was notable in Roman antiquity due to melting metals, as the ice of
Antarctica and Greenland has shown.19 In any case, much heavier were the con-
sequences of the environment on energy consumption by the humans than of
human energy consumption on the environment. Both annual changes in temper-
ature and rain, and long-term climatic cycles resulted in changes in the available
energy, and subsequently in the level of the economic activity.
The 45–50-fold growth of energy consumption on the World scale, in the last
200 years, and the higher emissions by fossil fuels resulted in a dramatic rise in the
level of gases in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapour, methane,
nitrous oxide, and a few other gases are defined greenhouse gases. Their presence in
the air has risen fast since the introduction and ever increasing use of coal and the
other fossil carriers. Remarkable differences, however, exist among them: natural
gas is much less polluting than oil, which is less polluting than coal. According to
most paleo-climatologists the rise in temperature during the last century can be
explained only as a consequence of the modern energy system and emissions of
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Although the declining energy intensity from
the 1990s results in a relatively lower impact of energy consumption on the
environment, the fast rising energy consumption in absolute terms more than
counterbalances the positive effect. On one hand, CO2 emissions tend to decrease in
relation with per capita GDP, since in rich countries energy intensity diminishes
(Table 1.8). On the other hand, however, as a consequence of the high production
per capita, per capita emissions in absolute values are much higher in rich than in
poor countries. On the World scale, during the first decade of the third millennium,
emissions averaged 4.5 tons per capita per year.
CO2 emissions increased from 18,500 million of metric tons in 1980 to almost
30,000 million in 2006: a 60 % rise in less than 30 years. On the other hand,
attempts at the reduction of CO2 emissions in order to stabilize or reduce

19
As stated by Rossignol and Durost (2007).

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1 Energy in History 25

Table 1.8 Emissions of CO2 in relation with GDP (kg/$2005 PPP) and population (tons/pop.) in
2005
GDP per capita Level of income CO2 kg/GDP ($2005 PPP) CO2 tons/population
in $2005 PPP per capita 2005 2005
<995 Low 0.28 0.28
996–3,945 Lower middle 0.73 2.79
3,946–12,195 Upper middle 0.48 5.26
12,196 and > High 0.37 12.49
World 0.49 4.63
Source World Bank (2011)

concentration of gases in the atmosphere (as in the Kyoto protocol, enforced on

February 16th 2005) imply heavy consequences for the economy in the short term
(and people are always more interested in the immediate negative effects on the
economy rather than in the long-run positive effects on future mankind). The rise of
new non polluting sources of energy is slower than it was hoped at the end of the
past century.
While in a first phase of the industrialisation the CO2 increased emissions could
have played a positive role in agriculture, contributing to the fertilisation of the
soils, since carbon dioxide makes crops grow faster, there is no doubt that in more
recent decades the negative effects were much heavier than the positive. Although a
precise quantification of the social and economic costs is hard to provide, a likely
estimate for the beginning of the new millennium is in the order of $20 per ton of
carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere.20 This cost would correspond to
something like 0.5–5 % of GDP in advanced economic regions.

1.4.8 The Future of Energy

Forecasts of energy consumption always prove to be inaccurate.21 Some general

remarks on future developments are, however, possible. Humans have lived in
organic economies since the birth of the human species, some 7–5 million years
ago, until today. If humans continue to live and reproduce on the face of the Earth
and enjoy the same levels of wealth we enjoy today or if they aim at increasing this
wealth, our future will no longer be organic. We have seen that in about 2000–2010
per capita consumption on a global scale was around 50,000 Calories per day and
that about 12 % was made up of organic vegetable sources—the old heritage of past
agricultural societies—, while 80 % came from organic fossil sources—the more

20
Nordhaus (2011).
21
As stressed by Smil (2006).

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26 P. Malanima

18000

15000

12000

9000

6000

3000

0
1800

1830

1860

1890

1920

1950

1980

2010

2040
Fig. 1.10 World energy consumption (only modern sources) in Mtoe from 1800 until 2010 and
prediction of future energy consumption until 2060 (logistic curve). Source see text. Note the
coefficients of the logistic curve have been estimated through linear regression. The resulting
equation is the following: with y = world consumption of modern sources; a = the lowest value;
K the highest value; b the rate of growth; t time (starting with 1 in 1800)

recent heritage of modern growth. On a global scale, only a relatively narrow

residual amount is represented by photovoltaic, wind, water and nuclear energy.
These are the sources of our non-organic future. Fossil sources are diminishing and
will disappear completely in one or two centuries. It is known that population rise is
stabilizing, but that it will continue to grow for some decades, to reach at least
10 billion in the second half of this century. Per capita product is increasing rapidly
in some countries, once poor, but now fast becoming rich. With a denser and richer
world population, it will not be possible to devote land to the production of organic
fuels or bio-fuels such as ethanol. Neither can we wish for the exploitation of new
organic sources, with the consequences of their use inflicting such damage on the
environment. A plausible trend of energy consumption in the future, drawn in
Fig. 1.10 on the basis of the historical values of energy consumption in the last two
centuries, suggests a relative decline of the rate of growth in the second half of the
21st century.

K 17:000
y¼ ¼
1 þ ae 1 þ 3500e 0;042t
bt
:

Some environmentalists say that a decarbonisation of the economy is necessary.

It will not only be necessary, but also unavoidable, in the future. More and more
humans will have to learn how to deal with the non organic sources of energy, since
an organic future will not be possible (or desirable). An alternative development is
to return to the means of our ancestors of 3–4 centuries ago, when on a global scale,
per capita consumption was one-tenth of that existing today. This means not only
much less Carbon dioxide in the air, but also a smaller population and a much lower
standard of living; which ultimately relies on the capacity to carry out useful work
and then on energy.

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1 Energy in History 27

Table 1.9 Energy systems, their duration, daily consumption (in kcal per capita) and yearly
consumption (in GJ per capita)
Energy systems Duration (years) Per capita energy Per capita energy
per day (kcal) per year (GJ)
Food 7 × 106 2,000 3
Fire 5 × 105 4,000 7
Agriculture 1 × 104 5,000–6,000 8
Fossil Fuels 5 × 102 37,000 56.5
Source see text. See also, with different results, the estimates by Cook (1971)

1.5 Conclusion

The long history of energy consumption until today can be thus summarized
(Table 1.9)22:
• the age when food was the only energy input extended over 5–7 million years
and energy consumption per day could average about 2,000 Cal (that is 3 GJ per
year);
• the age of fire (that is the epoch when fire was the only carrier except food)
lasted some 1,000,000 years. Consumption can be established around
4,000–5,000 Cal per day or 6–8 GJ per year;
• the age of agriculture lasted some 10,000 years and World daily energy con-
sumption per capita was about 5,000–6,000 Cal or 7–9 GJ per year;
• the age of fossil fuels lasted about 500 years and will finish this century or the
next. Daily World consumption has been around 37,000 Cal or 56.5 GJ per year
(according to a weighed average, based on population in the last two centuries).
The following data on energy consumption, although speculative, are not
implausible.
Calculations of the number of humans since the origins are naturally uncertain
and tentative depending on several assumptions; among which the epoch of the
beginning of our species is of particular importance. If we accept that the hypothesis
of 100 billion humans from 1 million years ago until today (an estimate proposed in
the 1990s), is low and that our species was born 7–10 million years ago (such as the
paleologists are nowadays inclined to believe), we must add at least 20–30 billion
people. If the amount of people ever born from the origins numbers some 120–-
130 billion, today 5 % of our species is alive, and 18 % of the total World
population has lived in the age of fossil fuels, beginning around 1600. This neg-
ligible part of the population, during the 0.01 % of time since the beginning of the
species, consumed about 80 % of the energy ever consumed by humans. If the more
recent period between 1700 and 2000 is observed, humans consumed 32 % of the
whole wealth in fossil fuels. Consumption of coal was negligible in the 18th century

22
Both on past and future energy consumption see the useful reconstruction by Beretta (2007).

[email protected]
28 P. Malanima

Table 1.10 Energy Toe (millions) (%)

consumption of fossil
fuels from 1700 until Consumption 1700–2000 350,000 32
2000 and estimate of the Estimated reserves in 2000 750,000 68
still existing commercial
energy (millions Toe) Total 1,100,000 100
Source see text

and described an exponential curve in the following two. According to recent

estimates on the future availability of fossil fuels, around the year 2000 about 70 %
was remaining (although these estimates are ordinarily speculative) (Table 1.10). In
any case, this considerable wealth will not last long time (100–200 years according
to different estimates), seen the high and rising levels of fuel consumption.
In an important article published in 1922, Alfred Lotka established a correlation
between natural selection and energy consumption. “In the struggle for existence”,
he stated “the advantage must go to those organism whose energy-capturing devices
are most efficient in directing available energy into channels favourable to the
preservation of the species”.23 Since the organisms and species with superior
capacity to capture energy will increase, the energy crossing the biological system
will also tend to increase. There is a tendency, in natural history, towards a flow of
more and more energy through the biological sphere. In trying to survive and enjoy
better living standards any living being contributes, at the same time, to the rise in
the flow of energy which crosses the biological system. The human beings alive at
the start of the 21st century, and still increasing, will contribute, day by day, to
intensify this passage of energy through the thin biological envelope of the Earth.

References

Ayres RU, Warr B (2009) The economic growth engine. How energy and work drive material
prosperity. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham
Bairoch P (1983) Energy and industrial revolution: new approaches. Revue de l’énergie 34
(356):399–408
Bartoletto S (2012) Energy and economic growth in Europe. The last two centuries. In: Chiarini B,
Malanima P (eds) From Malthus’ stagnation to sustained growth. Palgrave Macmillan,
Basingstoke, pp 52–70
Beretta GP (2007) World energy consumption and resources: an outlook for the rest of the century.
Int J Environ Technol Manage 7:99–112
BP (2012) Statistical review of world energy, June 2012
Carnot S (1824) Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu. Mallet-Bachelier, Paris
Cipolla CM (1962) The economic history of world population. Penguin, Harmondsworth
Cook E (1971) The flow of energy in an industrial society. Sci Am 225:134–147
Cook E (1976) Man, energy, society. Freeman, San Francisco

23
Lotka (1922).

[email protected]
1 Energy in History 29

Cottrell WF (2009) Energy and society: the relation between energy, social change, and economic
development (1st edn 1955). Greenwood Press, Westport
Etemad B, Luciani J (1991) World energy production 1800–1985. Droz, Geneve
Fernandes SD, Trautmann NM, Streets DG, Roden CA, Bond TC (2007) Global biofuel use
1850–2000. Global Biogeochem Cycles, 21
Goudsblom J (1992) Fire and civilization. Penguin, Harmondsworth
Grübler A (2004) Transitions in energy use. In: Encyclopedia of energy, vol 6. Elsevier,
Amsterdam, pp 163–177
Herman IP (2007) Phisics of the human body. Springer, Berlin
Kander A (2002). Economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Sweden
1800–2000. Lund University, Lund
Kander A, Malanima P, Warde P (2013). Power to the people. Energy in Europe over the last five
centuries. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Kostic M (2004). Work, power, and energy. In: Encyclopedia of energy, vol. 6. Elsevier,
Amsterdam, pp 527–538
Kostic M (2007) Energy: global and historical background. Encyclopedia of engineering. Francis
and Taylor, New York
Lotka A (1922). Contribution to the energetics of evolution. In: Proceedings of the national
academy of sciences, vol VII, pp 147–151
Malanima P (1996) Energia e crescita nell’Europa pre-industriale. La Nuova Italia Scientifica,
Roma
Malanima P (2006) Energy consumption in Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries. ISSM-CNR,
Napoli
Malanima P (2012) The path towards the modern economy. The role of energy. In: Chiarini B,
Malanima P (eds) From Malthus’ stagnation to sustained growth. Palgrave Macmillan,
Basingstoke, pp 71–99
Marchetti C (1977) Primary energy substitution models. Technol Forecast Soc Change
10:345–356
Martin J-M (1990) L’économie mondiale de l’énergie. La Découverte, Paris
Mokyr J (1990) The Lever of riches. Technological creativity and economic progress. Oxford
University Press, New York
Nordhaus W (2011) Energy: friend or enemy? In: The New York review of books 27 Oct 2011
Perlès C (1977) Préhistoire du feu. Masson, Paris
Pireddu G (1990) L’energia nell’analisi economica. F. Angeli, Milano
Rossignol B, Durost S (2007) Volcanisme global et variations climatiques de courte durée dans
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Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz, 54(2):395–438
Sieferle RP (2001) The subterranean forest. Energy systems and the industrial revolution. The
White Horse Press, Cambridge (1st German edn 1982)
Smil V (2006) Energy at the crossroads. In: Global science forum conference on scientific
challenges for energy research, Paris, 17–18 May
United Nations (1956) L’utilisation de l’énergie atomique à des fins pacifiques, Conference
internationale de Geneve. United Nations. Publications: 307
Warde P (2007) Energy consumption in England and Wales 1560–2000. ISSM-CNR, Napoli
World Bank (2011) World development indicators. World Bank, Washington
Wrigley EA (1988) Continuity, chance and change. The character of the industrial revolution in
England. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Wrigley EA (1989) The limits to growth. Malthus and the classical economists. In: Teitelbaum
MS, Winter JM (eds) Population and resources in western intellectual traditions. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, pp 30–48
Wrigley EA (2010) Energy and the English industrial revolution. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge

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Chapter 2
Economic History and the Environment:
New Questions, Approaches
and Methodologies

Enric Tello-Aragay and Gabriel Jover-Avellà

Abstract Ecological economics is enabling economic and environmental historians

to enhance their understanding of economic growth, by placing it in a broader
perspective of biophysical interactions between nature and society. In this chapter,
several ongoing researches and historical debates are examined from this standpoint
such as the missing role of energy carriers in GDP growth, the socio-metabolic
profiles of past and present societies, the pre-industrial ‘Smithian’ responses to
‘Malthusian’ traps, the role of efficient land-use in breeding livestock to increase
agricultural yields, the reasons why the Industrial Revolution began in a high wage
and cheap energy economy, the first globalization as a socio-metabolic watershed,
and the question of whether there was a general crisis of biomass energies at the
coming of fossil fuels era. Research discussing long-term socio-metabolic transitions
may contribute to our understanding of how economic growth actually occurred, and
which ecological impacts affected the Earth’s life-support systems. Equally, these
projects leave room for the institutional settings or ruling actors needed to explain
why growth has happened and by whom. Far from naturalising history, the use of
ecology in the explanation of human history historialises ecology.

2.1 Introduction

If all the research done in the well-established scientific field of economic history
had to be summed up in one word it would be ‘growth’. The main subject, if not the
single issue, studied by economic historians is when, where, and why economic
growth has taken place. In doing so, there has been a greater tendency to rely

E. Tello-Aragay (&)
Facultat d’Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
G. Jover-Avellà
Departament d’Economia, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 31

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_2

[email protected]
32 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

mainly or exclusively on mainstream economics as an analytical foundation. One of

the earliest criticisms raised by environmentalists decades ago, and later by envi-
ronmental historians is that mainstream economists, and some economic historians,
have not only set aside the role played by natural resources in past and present
economic growth, but have also ignored the increasingly powerful and global
environmental impacts of economic growth on the planet’s ecological life-support
systems.1
Yet the misunderstanding between mainstream economics and environmental
sciences goes beyond having ignored some “external” inputs and outputs that can
simply be reintegrated into current macroeconomic growth analysis. As many
specialists have recognized, economists have found profound and persistent prob-
lems in the explanation of long-term economic growth. These difficulties originated
at the beginning of the neoclassical analytical approach. Ironically, mainstream
economists intended to become the analytical physicians of the social sciences
precisely as they discarded ‘land’ and other natural resources as relevant factors
within economic theory.2 Interestingly enough, it was also in this period when
history ceased to be a basic background within economics.3 From then onwards the
standard neoclassic growth model assumed that the final value added flows of GDP
are directly produced from labour and capital alone, without specifying a role for
energy flows, which were only considered to be consumable intermediates.4

2.2 The Missing Role of Useful Work from Energy Carriers

in Economic Growth

According to these neoclassical analytical assumptions, technological progress

becomes exogenous and natural resource consumption is seen as a consequence, not
a driver, of economic growth. Perhaps it is not so surprising that the first generation
of macroeconomists who accounted for growth by means of a Cobb-Douglass
production function using capital and labour as the only relevant factors, couldn’t
fully explain no more than a small level of growth in GDP, because the results left a
large, increasing residual (Fig. 2.1). Labelling this unexplained residual “total factor
productivity” (TFP), and considering it to be the contribution of technical progress
to economic growth, has become common practice. However as Robert Solow
stresses, by calling it “the measure of our ignorance”, TFP has become an exog-
enous factor not taken into account by the standard growth theory.

1
Debier et al. (1986), Worster (1988), McNeill (2000a), Krech III et al. (2004), Hornborg et al.
(2007) and Sing et al. (2013).
2
Pasinetti (1981).
3
Hodgson (2007).
4
Ayres and Warr (2005).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 33

GDP Index (1900=1)

25

20
US GDP

15

10
SOLOW RESIDUAL
(TFP)
5
Cobb -Douglas

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

year

Fig. 2.1 Explained share of the actual GDP growth of the United States economy during the 20th
century, and the Solow residual obtained by a conventional Cobb-Douglass production function.
Source Ayres et al. (2009) during 100 years of economic growth, presented to the Q2 session on
Energy, climate change and growth: perspectives from economic history of the 25th World
Economic History Congress, Utrecht, The Netherlands. The following three-factor Cobb-Douglas
production function has been used: Yt = At (Ht Kt)α (Gt Lt)β (Ft Rt)γ, where Yt is output at time t, a
function of Kt, Lt, Rt as inputs of capital, labour and natural resources; At is “total factor
productivity” or the “Solow residual”; Ht, Gt, Ft are the coefficients of factor contribution taken
from its revenue share in the income distribution of GDP—in this case as 0.70 for L, 0.26 for K,
and 0.04 for the rest. According to the constant returns to scale assumption required by this
function, α + β + γ = 1

A second wave of “endogenous growth” theories has attempted to overcome this

analytical cul-de-sac. Nevertheless, instead of reintroducing the material and energy
layers that embody and activate capital assets or enhance labour capacities, the
endogenous growth theorists came from a different angle.5 They looked towards
increasingly symbolic and immaterial dimensions, such as the role played by
‘human capital’ endowment in long-term economic growth, and other social and
cultural aspects. This approach has inspired a wide range of interesting and valuable
historical research on the economic history of education, literacy and numeracy,
book printing, skill premiums in the labour markets, the long-term effects of the
European Marriage Pattern characterized by late weddings resulting in independent
households based on a single nuclear family, and “a million of mutinies” in the
everyday life of a large fraction of people which, according to Robert Lucas6 is
needed for income growth to occur in any society. These may range from nutri-
tional standards and height increases, to the rise of contractual arrangements on
weddings seen as a direct token of ‘girlpower’ and an indirect indicator of the habit
to negotiate all sorts of business in life.7

5
Ayres (2001).
6
Lucas (2002).
7
van Zanden (2009).

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34 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

There has also been a renewed interest in studying the role played by income or
wealth inequality, social public spending, and socio-institutional settings in the
long-term economic performance of nations.8 When income inequality approached
the maximum permitted by available wealth and the need to reproduce the labour
force at a subsistence level, societies often get caught in a ‘worlds apart’ lock-in
state: the great majority of people could not change the situation, and the privileged
minority did not want to. This explains why the agrarian class structure, the social
conflicts that arise within it, and the kind of institutional changes fostered by social
and political struggles are so important for historical processes of economic
development.9
All these socio-institutional settings and human capabilities raise important
questions that deserve to be studied in their own right. They have more than likely
played a key role, considering them as results as well as crucial factors, that help
explain why economic growth has taken certain directions in only some places and
in only certain periods, and by whom. Also, if we apply here the distinction put
forward by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum between economic growth and
human development, taking into consideration all these important questions may
significantly help explain historical human development as an individual and col-
lective increase in freedom of choice and ‘empowerment’.10 Nevertheless, it is
doubtful that this can ever fill the Solow residual gap to explain how economic
growth takes place. After several decades of endogenous growth analyses, the
growth engine remains a black box.11
Although the historical process of human development has always included
many social, institutional and symbolic dimensions, we should wonder if the
empowerment of human capabilities, and the enhancement of individual and social
choices, could ever be attained without relying on a greater amount of energy power
able to move an increasing amounts of physical flows in a wider global scope.12
According to both qualitative and quantitative historical evidence, physical and
energy resource flows have always been a major factor in increasing the aggregated
production of goods and services. A recent contribution to a never-ending debate,
the Bob Allen book on The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, has
again stressed the role played by the supply of cheap coal as a driving force for the
beginning of modern economic growth in England.13
Several economic and environmental historians have studied this link between
coal and the British Industrial Revolution, or underlined the role played by the
increasing access to fossil fuels for other regions of the world to industrialize and

8
Lindert (2004), Acemoglu (2004, 2009), Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) and Aghion and
Williamson (1998).
9
Aston and Philpin (1985), Hoppenbrouwers and van Zanden (2001) and Milanovic (2005).
10
Sen (1993, 1999).
11
Easterly (2002) and Helpman (2004).
12
Ayres and Warr (2005).
13
Allen (2009).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 35

converge with developed nations. All these studies reaffirm what Nicholas
Georgescu-Roegen wrote many years ago in Energy and Economic Myths: “Now
Economic history confirms a rather elementary fact—the fact that great strides in
technological progress have generally been touched off by a discovery of how
to use a new kind of accessible energy. On the other hand, a great stride in tech-
nological progress cannot materialize unless the corresponding innovation is
followed by a great mineralogical expansion. […] This sort of expansion is what
has happened during the last one hundred years”.14
The failure to explain how the growth engine actually works is relevant from an
environmental standpoint because the energy flows or material throughputs moved
by the economy all over the planet are put aside. The principal ways through which
the economy affects the ecosystems are exactly these same energy and material
flows. Moreover some recent developments made by Robert Ayres and Benjamin
Warr seem to open a promising new way to address the unsolved problem of the
long-term growth accounts, without encountering the Solow residual.15 This
approach considers economic growth as an open multi-sector processing system of
materials, energy and information, which moves forward in a perpetual disequi-
librium, beginning with the extraction of natural resources and ending with the
consumption and disposal of wastes. Since the Industrial Revolution, radical
innovations in energy conversion technology have been among the most potent
drivers of growth and structural change, which have put in motion much positive
feedback by means of reducing energy costs. The substitution of increasingly cheap
mechanical, thermal and chemical useful work (or ‘exergy’) for increasingly
expensive human labour and capital has played a key role as a driver of economic
growth (Fig. 2.2).
Considering that this evidence strongly suggests that ‘exergy’ (or the useful work
actually performed by all energy converters which empower human labour and
capital goods at its disposal) should be taken as a factor of production, Ayres et al.
have been able to almost fit the empirical GDP historical series of the United States,
Japan and other countries during the 20th century by including the useful work
performed by all energy converters after discounting energy loses, together with the
standard labour and capital factors, either in a conventional Cobb-Douglass or in a
linear-exponential (LINEX) production function where all factors become mutually
dependent, and where empirical elasticities do not equal cost share (Fig. 2.3).

14
Georgescu-Roegen (1976).
15
Ayres and Warr (2005).

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36 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Product
R&D Substitution of
Improvement
Knowledge for Labour;
Capital; and Exergy
Process
Improvement
Substitution of
Exergy for Labour
Lower Limits to
and Capital
Costs of
INCREASED REVENUES Production
Increased Demand for
Final Goods and Services

Economies of Lower Prices of

Scale Materials &
Energy

Fig. 2.2 The substitution of exergy for labour and capital seen as the key factor of lowering costs
and increasing revenues in the virtuous cycle driving historical economic growth. Source Ayres
and Warr (2005)

US GDP (1900=1) GDP Japan (1900=1)

25 50
GDP estimate LINEX GDP estimate LINEX

20 GDP estimate Cobb-Douglas

40 GDP estimate Cobb-Douglas
Empirical GDP Empirical GDP

15 30

10 PRE-WAR COBB DOUGLAS POST-WAR COBB DOUGLAS

20 PRE-WAR COBB DOUGLAS POST-WAR COBB DOUGLAS
alpha=0.37 alpha=0.51 alpha=0.33 alpha=0.78
beta=0.44 beta=0.34 beta=0.31 beta=0.03
gamma=0.19 gamma=0.15 gamma=0.35 gamma=0.25
5 10

0 0
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
year year

Fig. 2.3 The explanatory capacity of a LINEX or Cobb-Douglass production function which
includes useful work together with labour and capital, confronted with the historical GDP series of
the United States and Japan (1900–2000). Source Ayres (2008). Besides the standard Cobb-
Douglass function, the following LINEX production function has also been used: Yt ¼



U exp a 2 LþU K þ ab UL 1 which includes capital (K), labour (L) and useful work (U).
Considering that there is an apparent inconsistency between very small factor payments directly
attributable to physical resources—especially fossil fuels—and the obvious importance of final
useful energy (or exergy) as a factor of production, this approach abandons the neoclassical
assumption that the productivity of a factor of production must be proportional to the share of that
factor in the national income. Alternatively, it considers that available useful work, either
mechanical, chemical or thermal, multiplies the joint productivity of any combination of capital
and labour throughout all value-added stages of the whole set of production chains (Ayres 2001,
pp. 817–838; Ayres and Warr 2005, pp. 181–209 and Ayres et al. 2009). Therefore, the
neoclassical identification of marginal productivities with factor shares is here replaced by a
statistical assessment of the equation parameters

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 37

For the United States and Japan, a = 0.12. For the United States b = 3.4, and for
Japan b = 2.7. It corresponds to Y = K0.36 L0.08 U0.56 (i.e., useful work performed by
energy sources could explain as much as 56 % of actual GDP growth experienced
during the 20th century, while growth of capital stock would account for 36 and
8 % would come from the increase in labour capabilities).
It is too early to tell if this new way to account for the long-term economic growth,
just now being opened from an ecological economics standpoint, will consolidate and
gain acceptance among the majority of mainstream economists and economic his-
torians. For the moment, even admitting the increasing relevance of environmental
global concerns, mainstream developing economists and economic historians con-
tinue to consider primary energy as only another input or intermediate good that can
always be substituted in the market. All of this explains why there is a growing
suspicion among ecological economists and environmental historians that ignoring
the environmental impacts of economic growth comes from the same analytical
foundation that has forgotten the role played by natural resources in human economy
and ecology, and both seem to be tightly related to the persistent inability by main-
stream economists to fully explain how economic growth actually works.

2.3 From Economic History to Social Metabolism

and Beyond

The rise of ecological economics is enabling economic and environmental histo-

rians alike to share and, at the same time, enhance their respective long-term
understanding of economic growth by placing it in a broader perspective of
biophysical interactions between human economies and natural systems in the
biosphere. This socio-metabolic approach has been summarized by the Institute of
Social Ecology in Vienna as follows: “The central theme underlying this research is
the notion that most, if not all, global sustainability issues have to do with the fact
that about two-thirds, if not three-quarters of the world population are currently in
the midst of a rapid transition from agrarian society to the industrial regime. This
transition is fundamentally changing societal organization, economic structures,
patterns of resource use and so on, thereby probing the limitations of the planet
Earth in many ways, among others by using up exhaustible resources, altering
global biogeochemical cycles, depleting diversity and degrading Earth’s ecosys-
tems”.16 A new set of questions, methods and accounts arise from this, focus on the
main socio-ecological transitions experienced in the interplay between nature and
societies:
1. Was there a ‘characteristic metabolic profile’ of agrarian societies? Was such a
metabolic profile connected to, and dependent on, certain land-use patterns?

16
Fischer-Kowalski et al. (2007).

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38 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

2. What happened when these socio-ecological agrarian regimes started to change?

Which were the major drivers of change? Which pressures upon the environ-
ment gained momentum with industrialization and urbanization based on
burning cheap fossil fuels, and which pressures receded? Which changes within
natural systems could be observed during the socio-ecological transitions?
3. How much did the course of the socio-ecological transitions depend on the
historical context, either local, regional or worldwide? Do common patterns
exist?
4. How does the interplay between different spatial scales and levels of society
work and interact with nature? Does globalization matter?
This approach has led to detailed quantitative studies of the energy and bio-
physical flows that link human economic activities with their ecological founda-
tions, opening new ways of accounting: Material and Energy Flow Analysis
(MEFA), the reconstruction of energy balances of economic systems and sectors,
the estimation of energy returns on energy inputs (EROI), the study of nutrient and
water cycles, the extent of the human appropriation of the ecological net primary
production (HANPP) or the historical evolution of ecological footprints. These have
established themselves as leading lines in current research.17 There have also been
attempts within the European Union to standardize these methods of ecological-
economic accounting in established systems of National Accounts (EUROSTAT
2001).
As Fridolin Krausmann, Heinz Shandl and Rolf Peter Sieferle have written, “In
this way, industrialization appears as a process of continuous increases in labour
productivity and energy efficiency as well as growing industrial output resulting in
continuous economic growth. Besides impelling social change and creating material
wealth it has fundamentally changed the human domination of the Earth’s eco-
systems and brought along a plethora of environmental problems. A major claim of
ecological economics is to broaden our understanding of economic processes and
how they are embedded in nature by taking a biophysical perspective which con-
ceptualizes economic processes also as natural processes in the sense that they can
be seen as biological, physical and chemical processes. […] In this context, a
historical understanding of the long-term development of society-nature interac-
tions is of vital importance. […] We understand the industrialization process as a
qualitative transition which transforms the agrarian socio-ecological regime into an
industrial regime thereby establishing a distinct and fundamentally new pattern of
society-nature interaction and material and energy use”.18
The following scheme (Fig. 2.4) summarizes the key features of the two last main
socio-ecological transitions from a solar land-based socio-metabolic regime (a)
towards the coal stage of industrialization, combined with a set of ‘advanced organic
agricultures’ which optimised traditional low-input agrarian systems (b); and then to
a new stage of the oil and electricity driven technologies of the second Industrial

17
Martinez-Alier (2011) and Krausmann et al. (2012).
18
Krausmann et al. (2008), pp. 187–188.

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 39

Revolution that fuelled mass production and consumption, together with a reversal
in the traditional relationship between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors
(c), by means of massive fossil energy subsidies for all economic activities and
transport which fostered a boom in worldwide trade.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of this socio-metabolic approach is that it
establishes a clear and accountable link between local and regional environmental
problems with regards to the input side of nature-society interaction, based on
resource-use together with related land-use changes; and from the output side, with
local and global environmental problems derived from polluting emissions along
the economic throughput chains. As Krausmann, Schandl and Sieferle have put it,
“Taking a biophysical view it becomes evident that it will not be possible to
accomplish global industrialization without an alternative pathway for the meta-
bolic transition. Scarcity of oil and gas will increasingly become an issue and
declining energy prices, a major precondition for the industrialization of the
industrial core, are unlikely to prevail for latecomers. Before energy scarcity and
rising energy prices become a major problem, the world is faced with rising
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contributing to global warming and destabi-
lization of the world climatic system to a large and unknown extent. […] In the light
of the historical process, the need for a new, sustainable, industrial socio-ecological
regime with lower per capita material and energy turnover and a lower share of non-
renewable energy and materials becomes a vital need for the global system”.19
One of the aims of this broader ecological-economic perspective is to explore the
connections, on all levels, between value-added flows in the market sphere, and
the biophysical and energy flows or climatic suitability that sustain them from their
ecological base. Measuring the energy and material dimensions of what GDP
growth actually means for natural systems can provide us with new answers to
previous questions regarding what triggers economic growth, what growth in fact
involves, and what consequences it has for both social and natural environments.
This standpoint connects the understanding of economic growth with the new
studies on Global Warming and Climate Change which, during the last thirty years,
have enhanced the focus on climate history. The IPCC concern about Global
Warming has led to a development of new indicators and methodologies that have
had a dramatic impact on all areas of knowledge, especially in a long-term historical
perspective. Many recent studies have broadened the methodological possibilities
open to climate historians, aimed at understanding the evolution of climate and its
impacts on past and present times.20
Moreover, the analysis of biophysical flows linking economic performance with
the carrying capacity of ecosystems necessarily leads to the study of changes in
terrestrial land covers by human land-uses. Together with pollution and bio-invasions,
this changing face of the Earth by human landscapes is precisely the main origin of
the crisis of biodiversity at present. Putting together biophysical flows moved by

19
Krausmann et al. (2008), p. 199.
20
Brázdil et al. (2005) and Costanza et al. (2007a).

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40 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Fig. 2.4 The changing relation of energy, land and labour during the stages of the socio-
ecological transitions. Source Krausmann et al. (2008)

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 41

human societies with the land-use changes made by them leads to the study of Global
Change, a crucial meeting point for all scientific disciplines interested in the sus-
tainability of human-nature interaction.21
This emerging socio-metabolic perspective does not entail prior assumptions
concerning the causal direction in the ecological-economic interaction or phe-
nomena.22 The common attitude among practitioners of the emerging ‘sustainability
science’ is a cautious, multidimensional and transdisciplinary approach which, from
a co-evolutionary background, can admit that sometimes the driving forces origi-
nate from within the economic sphere and leave their ecological footprint on the
surrounding environment; whereas in other cases researchers highlight the role
played by the availability of energy, water, raw materials or climatic conditions and
variability, either as a limiting factor or as a source for economic growth. Neither
does such an approach entail the making of any deterministic presumptions; rather
it is dependent on the type of enquiry being undertaken and on its historical or
geographical scope.23
When environmental historians seek to discover the ecological impact of eco-
nomic growth, usually from a short or medium-term perspective, they typically
adopt market or state economic forces as the main driving force. But by adopting a
long-term, comparative historical perspective, they also raise questions about the
role played by the availability of energy, land, water and raw materials in
accounting for historical economic growth processes or catching-up paths. On
occasion, both approaches can be adopted simultaneously within the same research
strategy, as Astrid Kander demonstrates in her study of the long-term relationship
between energy, economic growth and greenhouse emissions in Sweden since the
beginning of the 19th century—a research strategy that has been adopted within a
broader comparative analysis between different countries and regions of the world
undertaken by the members of the Energy-Growth and Pollution Network and the
Institute of Social Ecology.24
Whereas it is true that all these new perspectives and methods provided by
ecological economics and environmental history are greatly expanding the toolbox
of economic historians, it is no less true than among scholars devoted to the study of
past organic economies there was already a long tradition of taking bio-geographic,
agro-ecological, energetic and landscape factors into account. However, their
explanatory relevance has tended to decrease with the shortening of the time
perspective from which economic historians seek to understand the present. The
practitioners of prehistory and ancient, medieval or early modern history have never

21
Cronon (1983, 1991), Crosby (1986), Cuff and Goudie (2009) and Hornborg and Crumley
(2007).
22
Costanzaet al. (2007b), pp. 522–527.
23
Kates et al. (2001) and Haberl et al. (2006).
24
Kander (2002).

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42 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

failed to analyze changing environmental conditions as a key dimension to under-

standing the evolution of any human society.25 Nevertheless, until recently, their
presence has tended to vanish between the historians devoted to modern and con-
temporary times.
This growing lack of interest cannot be attributed to the loss of relevance of such
environmental factors, as it is from mid-twentieth century onwards when the impact
of human societies on the face of the Earth has become more intense, global and
dangerous. The reason is ideological, and derives from a way of seeing reality that
has characterized the two major socio-economic visions of the 20th century.26
Within the mainstream approach to these two great visions, natural environments
were considered as a set of restrictions and limitations that development would
overcome. By seeing economic growth as a “liberation” of environmental con-
straints, the relevance of their study was considered inversely proportional to the
degree of technological progress. Hence the explanatory weight of environmental
factors was seen to decrease with the time-distance to the present covered by the
analysis, in open contradiction with the degree of human degradation of Earth’s
ecosystems. Thus, this long-lasting Faustian vision of the modern Unbound Pro-
metheus has paid a learned ignorance to the environmental dimension, until the
obvious signs of a global ecological crisis have forced many to rethink.27
Since it is impossible to summarize within this text all lines of research which
are currently changing the old visions of economic growth that formerly remained
disconnected from environmental constraints and effects, we will take only a few
relevant issues and ongoing debates as examples to illustrate the new emerging
trends.

2.4 The Socio-metabolic Profiles of Past Organic

and Present Industrial Economies

Until the mid 1980s a tradition of historical studies of pre-industrial agrarian

economies was highly skewed by a pessimistic reading of the classical economists,
especially Malthus and Ricardo. The work of B.H. Slicher van Bath, Michael
Postan, Wilhelm Abel or David Grigg emphasized the difficulties experienced by
traditional societies to increase agricultural output per capita because of the limits
imposed by technological backwardness, and the inevitable arrival of diminishing
returns spurred by population growth.28 This tradition has been revisited and

25
Bloch (1955–1956), Slicher van Bath (1963), Campbell and Overton (1991), Overton (1996)
and Allen (2008).
26
Thompson (1991) and Scott (1998).
27
Landes (1969) and Landes (1998).
28
Postan (1973), Abel (1980) and Grigg (1982).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 43

revised by E. Anthony Wrigley by means of a fruitful dialogue with the classical

texts which, along with limits, also noted the advances in productivity that could be
achieved within the pre-industrial economies—particularly through trade special-
ization and urbanization.29 Taking into account the approach of Adam Smith, and
the range of changes or adaptations in demographic patterns studied by the Cam-
bridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Wrigley’s work
has contributed to better identify the actual limits and feasible possibilities to
remove them ahead.
While Anthony Wrigley has never been directly interested in the interaction
between society and nature as such, his most important contribution has opened a
very important bridge between economic and environmental history by placing the
emphasis on the characteristics of energy supply based on capturing solar energy
through photosynthesis. In order to stress its relevance, he has coined the term
‘organic economy’ to highlight the fact that when any economic activity had to rely
on the tiny fraction of solar energy that is being stored in the form of biomass
through photosynthesis: “[…] neither the process of modernization nor the presence
of a capitalist economic system was capable of guaranteeing sustained growth
[…]”; though he adds, “[…] both could help to ensure that the possibilities for
growth offered by such economies were exploited effectively”.30
The results found by reconstructing the long-term historical series of energy
intensities of Sweden, Italy, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain,31 seem to
confirm the view forwarded by Anthony Wrigley. From a long-term perspective,
and when animal work and human labour are included together with fossil fuels and
other modern energy carriers, there is no apparent single inverted-U Kuznets curve
in the historical trend of the energy consumption per unit of GDP. What appears is
rather something that resembles a downward staircase, or a winding path following
an N-shape form (Fig. 2.5). This outcome clearly shows that in earlier pre-industrial
times the energy cost per GDP unit was higher than that in the subsequent industrial
period. The reason for this seems very simple: before the arrival of large amounts of
fossil fuels, considerable amounts of primary energy were needed to obtain a single
unit of value added into the market by means of the energy conversion of biomass.
This is exactly what Wrigley hypothesised.
Long-term historical series of energy intensity per unit of GDP also show an
increasing convergence between countries. While in a biomass-based energy sys-
tem climatic conditions and natural resource endowment entailed big regional
differences in the amount of primary energy consumed, the common adoption of a
new set of coal or oil-based converters and technologies led to greater parity. Yet
convergence in energy intensities might not be complete, because latecomers do not
always use a factor endowment as appropriate as leading countries to the adoption
of new technologies deployed. While the initial delay allowed them to adopt more

29
Wrigley (2010).
30
Wrigley (2004). See also Kander et al. (2013).
31
Kander (2008), Warde (2007) and Gales et al. (2007).

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44 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Fig. 2.5 The long-term fall of energy intensity in Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain from
1800 to 2000, in Mj per dollar (constant 1990 $ at ppp). Source Gales et al. (2007, p. 234)

advanced designs of these technologies, this often encouraged a further innovative

adaptation that may increase efficiency (see below the comparison between the UK
and Austria in Fig. 2.10).
These historical series stress again the role played by mechanical, thermal or
chemical useful work provided by increasingly cheaper fossil energy sources in the
contemporary increase of labour productivity and capital deepening. As long as the
initial high energy costs of production, based on biomass converters, could not be
reduced, the capacity of the economy to grow would have been strictly limited.
Increasing competition between all lines of production for the same resource base,
derived from the solar radiation converted and stored in the soil by vegetal land
covers, would lead to a necessary curtailment of growth in a steady state. Wrigley
was to draw this asymptotic assumption by studying demographic tendencies in
pre-industrial societies, and also through a careful reading of Adam Smith and
Thomas Robert Malthus. From an environmental history standpoint, whose foun-
dations were laid by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Rolf Peter Sieferle has adopted a
similar perspective of what he calls the ‘socio-metabolic regime’ based on an
indirect agrarian control of solar energy.32 Wrigley’s and Sieferle’s approaches do
not deny that trade specialization could have greatly helped to optimize the use of
available organic resources. Nonetheless, only through the substitution of
the renewable solar flow captured in the soil through photosynthesis with the

32
Sieferle (2001).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 45

subterranean stock of fossil fuels, were the energy limits towards modern economic
growth finally removed. A structural change in the whole resource base of a pre-
industrial organic economy was required.
As Joan Martínez Alier and Marina Fisher-Kowalski have reminded us, the
history of these basic ideas on the socio-metabolic foundations of long-term eco-
nomic growth is quite long,33 extending back from Georgescu-Roegen through
Frederick Soddy, Wilhelm Ostwald, Otto Neurath, Stanley Jevons, Leopold
Pfaundler, Edward Sacher and Sergei Podolinski, all the way to Karl Marx who was
the first social scientist to coin the term ‘social metabolism’.34 However, until very
recently these ecological-economic insights have been ignored by a mainstream
approach to either Liberal or Marxian economics which placed all the limits or
stimulus for modern economic growth almost exclusively in institutional settings.
Backwardness became the standard answer to the question as to why some regions
lagged behind the world economic growth race.
The socio-metabolic approach can be very helpful to overcome this backward-
ness paradigm, and also in understanding why economic historians must deal with
three different types of economic growth, labelled by Jan De Vries as ‘Malthusian’,
‘Smithian’ and ‘Schumpeterian’ (in the terminology previously suggested by
William Parker).35 Although Adam Smith shared the same pessimistic outlook as
Malthus and Ricardo for long-term economic growth based on an organic resource
base, the term ‘Smithian’ can be used to describe the type of growth that exploited
all existing possibilities, stimulating growth through a better allocation of available
organic resources, thus temporarily escaping the ‘Malthusian fate’ and giving rise
to different ‘advanced organic economies’. What has been called a ‘consumer
revolution’ or an ‘industrious revolution’ in some European or Asian countries
during the 17th and 18th centuries may be understood from this point of view.36
The term ‘advanced organic economy’ coined by Wrigley could also be used to
characterize the different paths taken by agrarian development in a wider range of
European regions and countries during the 18 and 19th centuries, before the full
industrialization of agriculture under the so-called ‘green revolution’ paradigm
became widespread from the 1950s onwards.37
This approach also seeks to relate ‘Schumpeterian’ growth with the increasing
burning of fossil fuels during the onset of the Industrial Revolution—Sieferle’s
‘hidden forest’.38 This entailed the introduction of a completely new socio-metabolic
regime, with a different energy and material flow exchange with ecosystems based
on other types of land usage. But during this first stage of industrialization, the
agricultural sector remained basically organic, at least until what Jan Luiten van

33
Martínez Alier (1990) and Fisher-Kowalski (1998).
34
Sacristán (1992) and Foster (2000).
35
De Vries (2001).
36
De Vries (2008a) and Sugihara (2003).
37
Kjaergaard (1994) and Krausmann et al. (2008).
38
Sieferle (2001).

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46 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Zanden labelled ‘the first green revolution’—which was initially fostered by inno-
vative responses to the European agrarian crisis experienced between 1870 and
1914,39 when the cheap wheat and corn exported from the United States, Canada,
Australia, Argentina or Russia flooded European markets.40 From then onwards
organic manure started to be supplemented by increasing amounts of external inputs
of mineral and fossil origin. However, up until the 1950s they remained very small,
as long as the diffusion of industrial fertilizers, the adoption of tractors or newly
selected seeds and animal varieties served as a complement rather than as a full
substitute for organic sources, crop rotations and animal work. Therefore, the radical
turnaround in the agrarian sector did not occur until the second half of the 20th
century (see the differences between schemes b and c in Fig. 2.4). Before the massive
use of fossil fuels within the agrarian system, the main means of increasing agrarian
outputs in the various European bioregions still lay in the development of several
types of ‘advanced organic agricultures’.41

2.5 Why the Industrial Revolution Began in a High Wage

and Cheap Energy Economy

How did a Schumpeterian-type of modern economic growth began? A long-lasting

historiographical tradition has been collecting data on agricultural land usages and
yields from medieval times onwards, and has shown two main features: (1) up to
1800, yields and labour productivity remained low but stable in the long run in most
European and Asian regions which had experienced comparatively old agrarian
colonization and attained high population densities; and (2) only a few regions seem
to have been able to overcome the Malthusian-Ricardian constraints, taking
advantage of all existing possibilities to optimise traditional low-input organic
systems in order to achieve higher agrarian yields per unit area without diminishing
agricultural labour productivity at the same time. As far as the ongoing debate on
the Great Divergence between Western Europe and Eastern Asia allows to tell for
the moment, prior to 1800 these upper outlying cases were the Dutch and English
economies, the only ones where wages and standards of living seem to have
increased above the rest of the World at the time.42
Why did these changes develop in some regions whilst not in others? Why did it
take so long to be adopted or emulated by other regions of the World? These
questions raise two sets of issues: (1) which kind of land entitlements and insti-
tutional settings created an incentive structure that encouraged a long run increase

39
Van Zanden (1991).
40
Koning (1994).
41
Leach (1976) and Naredo (2004).
42
Pomeranz. (2000) and Allen et al. (2005).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 47

in labour productivity; and (2) how could yields per unit of land be increased, thus
overcoming the Ricardian-Malthusian fate of long-term growth in an already
organic economy. The first question asks for the agency of change, by looking at
those who made them and what they made them for. The second set of questions
looks at how they did it, taking into account the available choices offered by their
bio-physical and technological context. In order to attain a complete historical
answer, both agency and structure must be combined in a single interpretation
encompassing natural as well as social environments.
Following the interpretive lines proposed by Bob Allen in The British Industrial
Revolution in Global Perspective (2009), the outset of the Industrial Revolution in
England at the end of the 18th century could be summarized as follows. Within
the framework of new institutions that emerged from the defeat of Royalists in the
English Civil War (1641–1651) and the Glorious Revolution (1688), together with
the agrarian changes towards a highly productive ‘advanced agriculture’ mainly
introduced by the yeomanry at the time, the rise of British colonial hegemony and
overseas uncontested power after the defeat of Holland navy in the three wars from
1652 to 1674 enabled the United Kingdom to develop a particularly successful
industrious revolution, which turned the country into a textile export economy—
during the first half of the 18th century 85 % of the value of English exports were
already manufactured goods.43
This commercial expansion and industrious revolution spurred urbanization and
converted London in the single biggest city at the top of the hierarchy in the urban
centre of gravity around the North Sea.44 Up to a point the English agricultural,
commercial, industrious and urban improvements helped to achieve the above
mentioned increase in wages and pre-industrial standards of living, well beyond the
ones existing at the time in the rest of Europe and Eastern Asia, thus sustaining a
distinctive although not exclusive consumer revolution. 45
At the same time the amount of energy needed to heat the homes of Londoners
and other English urbanites in the more and more deforested isle of Great Britain
encouraged the replacement of increasingly expensive firewood or charcoal by
cheaper coal.46 As Paul Warde notes, considering that energy embodied in labour,
capital and transport services required that coal supply remained mainly ‘organic’,
up to a point its primary difference in price with firewood was probably determined
by rents because wood competed for space with other uses: “The changing point at
which coal-use became more economic than wood use was probably thus deter-
mined by the general level of rents, and these in turn were determined by the
necessity of producing by far the least efficient output in energetic terms, food. It is
likely that it was not the scarcity of wood but the relative scarcity of food that made

43
Allen (1992, 2009).
44
De Vries (1984) and Wrigley (1987).
45
McKendrick et al. (1983) and De Vries (2008).
46
Wrigley (1987).

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48 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Fig. 2.6 Long-term trends in labour and energy costs at nominal prices in southern England
(1560–1860, 1700 = 100). Source: Warde (2007, p. 87, 2009). The series has been calculated from
the changing mix of energy carriers shown in graph 7, taking into account the labour, capital and
land required to get a unit of energy (considering that a single woodcutter could prepare about 1.1
tonnes of firewood a day or 3.3 million Kcal, compared with a coal miner who could extract as
much as 2.5 tonnes of coal or 17.5 million Kcal). Until the 1820s, overland travel of firewood as
well as coal mainly depended on ‘organic’ muscle power. This meant that in practice obtaining
coal at some distances from the coalfield was largely determined on the prices of human food and
animal feed. Therefore, fossil fuel did not enjoy a great advantage over firewood until the use of
steam engines, and new transport facilities such as canals or railways become widespread (Warde
2007, pp. 83–86)

coal more attractive fuel”.47 Finally, the combination of higher wages and excep-
tional availability of cheap fossil fuels created exactly the economic context where
relative factor prices led entrepreneurs and financers to invest in the new type of
capital goods able to perform thermal, mechanical or chemical useful work that
opened the road to a new Schumpeterian-type of economic growth (Fig. 2.6).
After 1800 an unprecedented acceleration of technological change powered by
cheap coal ensued, and became a formidable weapon in the hands of new industrial
bosses which enabled them to earn and reinvest considerable profits while keeping
wages well below the contemporary increase in labour productivity. The new
factories powered by steam engines or waterwheels were aimed at centralizing and
mechanizing the production processes, in order to replace comparatively expensive
human labour with capital goods as well as to control and master the fierce

47
Warde (2007).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 49

traditional independence of the English labouring people. This may help to explain
why the previously high British pre-industrial real wages became stagnant, or even
temporarily decreased, during the first phase of the Industrial Revolution. Bob
Allen has labelled ‘Engels’ Pause’ (1780–1830/40) this long-lasting gap between
wages and productivity growth, which corresponds to the pessimistic outlook about
the standards of living during the first phase of British industrialization.48 The
pessimistic view has also been reassessed using new biological and social evi-
dence,49 like the fall in the heights of military conscripts’ and the average life
expectancy, or the increase in infant mortality rates, child labour and income
inequality.50
It is interesting to notice that macroeconomic accounts of economic growth
during the British Industrial Revolution have tended to reduce its revolutionary
character, by dismissing that growth rates experienced any sudden acceleration
compared with previous pre-industrial ones.51 However, and at the same time, the
beginning of the new Schumpeterian-type of industrial economic growth meant a
revolutionary turnaround in socio-metabolic terms, as it has been reassessed by the
study of the first energy transition from a biomass solar-based energy system
towards another, based on burning the underground stock of fossil fuels. Moreover,
the historical series on primary energy consumed and the energy intensity per unit
of GDP produced in England and Wales (Fig. 2.7), reconstructed from 1560
onwards by Paul Warde, have again shown the outlying character of the English
economy which had started substituting coal for biomass energy carriers well before
the Industrial Revolution began.
Thus, as Anthony Wrigley pointed out (1988), the continuity of a gradual increase
in economic growth rates combined with the chance of having large accessible coal
deposits in England and Wales and gave rise to the big energy change of the British
Industrial Revolution. Historical comparative analysis has also shown that GDP
convergence kept pace with the energy transition to fossil fuels, and this evidence
opens up the question whether this relationship was a consequence of economic
growth over energy consumption, or rather that the convergence in economic terms
would have to wait until each nation or region could find their own path towards the
new mineral-based energy system.52
While the abovementioned interpretive lines seem to offer an explanation about
as to why the first Industrial Revolution was British, they do not offer a full and
satisfactory outline as to why it did not also take place in other places throughout
Europe and Asia, where convergence with the industrial growth of the United
Kingdom encountered numerous obstacles. Bob Allen’s interpretive outline stresses

48
Allen (2009).
49
Hobsbawm (1964) and Thompson (1968).
50
Williamson (1997), Horrell and Humphries (1995), Crafts. (1997), Feinstein (1998) and
Komlos (1998).
51
Crafts and Harley (1992).
52
Krausmann et al. (2008).

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50 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%
Electricity
Gas
50%
Oil
Brown coal
40% Coal
Water
Wind
30% Peat
Firewood
Human
20%
Livestock

10%

0%
15 1
15 4
16 7
16 0
16 3
16 6
16 9
16 2
16 5
16 8
17 1
17 4
17 7
17 0
17 3
17 6
17 9
17 2
18 5
18 8
18 1
18 4
18 7
18 0
18 3
18 6
19 9
19 2
25

19 8
19 1
19 4
77
90
6
7
8
0
1
2
3
5
6
7
9
0
1
3
4
5
6
8
9
0
2
3
4
6
7
8
9
1

3
5
6
15

19

19
Fig. 2.7 Long-term energy transition in England and Wales, as percentages of each carrier
(1560–2000). Source Warde (2007, p. 74)

from the beginning the role played by mercantilist policies—under colonialism and
imperialism—in fostering British commercial development. Without this com-
mercial empire that followed and undermined the previous Dutch trade expansion,
the population of London could not have grown from approximately 50,000 to
200,000 between 1500 and 1600, then doubled in the next century, and reached
nearly one million by 1800. In the meantime the fraction of the English population
living in settlements of more than 10,000 people increased from 7 to 29 %, whilst
the share of the workforce in agriculture dropped from about 75 to 35 %.53 This, in
turn, raises the question to what extent was the new type of Schumpeterian
industrial growth started by the British Industrial Revolution an actual possibility
for any other nation at the time. Adopting an ecological-economic approach may
help to properly address this question by taking into account the environmental load
displacement or ecological footprint that the Industrial Revolution entailed.54
Following the idea of a ‘ghost acreage’ won by Europe through the colonization
of America, already put forward by Eric Jones and then Kenneth Pomeranz stressed
again, we may wonder about the role of environmental endowments and resource
availability in the Great Divergence between Europe and Asia before 1800.55

53
Omrod (2003).
54
Hornborg et al. (2007).
55
Goody (2004) and Emmer et al. (2006).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 51

Table 2.1 A first rough estimates to some components of ecological footprint entailed by the
British Industrial Revolution (1801–1831)
1801 1811–1815 1827–1831
Coal Millions of tonnes burnt 13.9 n.a. 22.6
Equivalent woodland area as total surface 92.7 % n.a. 150.7 %
of England and Walesa
Sugar Footprint hectares (thousand) 436.3 464.6 604.8
As percentage of contemporary cropland 9.5 % 9.6 % 13.4 %
in England and Walesb
Cotton Footprint hectares (million) n.a. 9 23
As percentage of contemporary cropland n.a. 154.4 % 322.8 %
in England and Walesc
Timber Footprint hectares (thousand) 666.5 n.a. n.a.
As percentage of contemporary cropland 18.5 % n.a. n.a.
in England and Walesd
Source our own, from Sieferle (2001, pp. 14–15), Pomeranz (2000, pp. 313–315) and Grigg (1982,
p. 38)
a
Estimated translating the energy content of coal burnt into cubic meters of firewood, and then
assessing the woodland area needed to annually grow this amount of firewood in England and
Wales
b
Estimated assuming that the average caloric intake with sugar imported from the colonies had to
be replaced by cereal cultivated in England and Wales
c
Estimated assuming that average cotton imports had to be replaced from wool produced by
sheep bred in the pastureland of England and Wales
d
Estimated assuming that average timber imports from America and the Baltic had to be replaced
by woodlands of England and Wales

Table 2.1 shows the approximate ghost acreage of English consumption of coal,
sugar, cotton and timber during the first half of the 19th century:
As can be seen, in spite of the initial tiny amounts of GDP which they might
have represented before 1800,56 the access to these four key natural resources
would have immediately outstripped the biological carrying capacity of any
‘advanced organic economy’—particularly cotton and coal, which together with
iron formed the basic triad of the English Industrial Revolution. The only way out
of these land-related constraints was the unique combination enjoyed by the United
Kingdom of coal mined from the underground with the ‘ghost acreage’ provided
through an exceptional network of worldwide trade flows nucleated into a single
European region. No other nation or region of the world could have had such access
to analogous natural resources, until railroads and steam vessels diminished travel
costs and opened the way to the first globalization from 1870 onwards.57 It is worth
remembering, as William McNeill pointed out,58 that this was a very exceptional

56
Van Zanden (2009).
57
Williamson (2006).
58
Mc Neill (1982).

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52 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

combination of commercial networks and resource availability focused within the

British Isles, which allowed for a high wage and cheap energy economy. And this
combination was assembled also thanks to a persistent and successful pursuit of
military power.
The military aspect of the question leads directly from economic growth towards
the contemporary experience of underdevelopment. The ‘ghost acreage’ of indus-
trialization entailed many different and persistent impacts upon peoples, commu-
nities, nations and landscapes of many non-European countries, usually not taken
into account within the history of growth of the developed regions of the World.
These external impacts of modern economic growth in Western countries deeply
affected the subsequent historical path followed for the rest of Humankind. Not only
were their lands fissured by mines or plantations that spoiled natural resources and
left the burden of heavy pollution everywhere, but their social lives were distorted
as their institutions were submitted to foreign colonial or neo-colonial rules.59 As
Ramachandra Guha and Joan Martínez Alier have pointed out, the popular resis-
tance to the exploitation of their natural resources, destruction of their modes of life,
and externalization of ecological impacts by the rich, has been the true origin of
contemporary environmentalism, often known as the environmentalism of the
poor.60

2.6 Land-Use and Livestock Breeding as a Crucial

Metabolic Hinge for Yield Increase

Precisely because the natural resources required by industrialization in the United

Kingdom soon surpassed the bio-capacities of the British Isles, they exercised an
increasing series of pressures upon the rest of the World. While in many under-
developed regions these mainly entailed a set of difficulties and distortions, in other
parts of the World a combination of pressures and incentives became apparent
which might produce different outcomes, depending on natural and social
endowments, institutional settings and public policies, together with the role
assigned to the region in the global division of labour established by the British
economy.61 The convergence path followed by the small but growing group of
developing nations, and the under-developing divergence of the rest, both ensued
the beginning of a Schumpeterian-type of economic growth under British leader-
ship. What were the reasons behind the enduring fortunes of some, and misfortunes
of many others? Once again, this brings the research back to the Malthusian-
Ricardian constraints that were tightly related to the prevailing land-labour ratios.

59
Gadgil (2000) and Gadgil and Guha (1993).
60
Guha and Martínez Alier (1997).
61
Warde (2009).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 53

Examining one part of the answer within the evolving nature-society interface
may help to understand how yield increases can be achieved in some still basically
agricultural economies and societies, while not in others. This requires the black-
case of the agrarian system to be open in order to look carefully into its agro-
ecological engine to understand how matter, water and energy were processed into
fertile soil allowing plants to grow. When applied to organic agrarian economies,
the quantitative reconstruction of energy and biophysical flows requires that they be
located carefully within the territory. It must be noted that almost all energy or
biophysical flows mobilized by past agrarian societies were highly dependent on
their land-use pattern. Land usage became pivotal, in those organic economies, for
any socio-metabolic exchange with nature.
The importance of an integrated management of the three main components of
any agrarian system, that is, cropland, woodland, pastureland and the key role
played by livestock in linking the three, are readily apparent to all agrarian histo-
rians studying pre-industrial societies. However, until recently, very few attempts
had been made to connect the energy and material flow analysis with land-use
systems. Today the most important research programme seeking to relate socio-
metabolic flow analysis with land usages is that being undertaken by the Institute of
Social Ecology at the University of Vienna (http://www.iff.ac.at/socec/). Many
studies and publications on the changing face of human colonization of terrestrial
ecosystems come from the extensive international research programme Land-Use
Land-Cover Change (http://www.geo.ucl.be/LUCC/lucc.html). The LUCC exam-
ines the transformations undergone by Earth’s vegetal cover over the centuries, in
order to identify the main driving forces behind global socio-environmental change,
and also to assess its socio-ecological impact. Perhaps environmental and economic
historians, working together to understand economic growth in past agrarian
societies and present industrial ones, can help merge these two approaches, i.e. the
accounting of biophysical flows combined with a closer and more analytical
examination of the land-use systems in which they take place.
Thanks to the energy balances calculated by many scholars from the mid 1970s
onwards, we now know that energy returns on energy inputs were higher in earlier
organic agricultures than those attained following the widespread adoption of the
‘green revolution’ after the Second World War—as wee see in schemes b and c in
Fig. 2.4. However, there is an important element to this seemingly paradoxical
discovery which should focus our attention on the land-use system: How were these
pre-industrial societies able to attain such a high energy performance, while being
so heavily dependent on livestock bioconversion which is so inefficient? Why has
industrialized agriculture become so inefficient in processing energy and material
flows, and thus so pollutant, having at its disposal a wider range of more efficient
converters? Some recent results obtained analysing the link between energy-use
performance and land-use management in some Mediterranean local case studies
suggest that a great deal of the answer lies in the loss of landscape efficiency.62

62
Tello et al. (2006) and Marull et al. (2010).

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54 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Many past agrarian societies were able to build up and maintain sound land-use
management which enabled them to attain high energy returns on energy inputs
(EROI), in spite of the then inevitable losses in available bio-converters.63 How-
ever, this was not for the sake of any positive environmental externality that we
might discover now and praise them for. They did so by necessity that is, because of
their own energy poverty in available carriers and sources. Thus, there is no con-
tradiction in the lack of primary energy for economic growth in an ‘organic
economy’ and the typically high energy performance attained by pre-industrial
agrarian systems, as identified by Anthony Wrigley, Rolf Peter Sieferle, Paolo
Malanima or Paul Warde.
We can understand this, following Vaclav Smil, taking into account that under
pre-industrial conditions any final output had to be obtained through a set of energy
production chains that relied on firewood burnt in highly inefficient fireplaces,
animal feed bio-converted inefficiently into power traction and manure, vegetal and
small animal human food consumption, and a small amount of raw materials also
inefficiently transformed into costly industrial goods, and so on.64 With only a few
alternatives available in order to increase end-use efficiency, i.e., through the
adoption of better converters (such as stoves instead of fireplaces), these societies
had to rely on the highest primary energy output they could attain if they wanted to
achieve even a small increase in the amount or the variety of final consumable
goods. The main way of achieving this was to develop and maintain an efficient
land-use pattern. Only through the increasing integration of crop production and
livestock breeding could past organic agricultures hope to achieve even a modest
rise in their agricultural and forestry output, enabling them to diversify and enrich
both household and market economies. Herein lies possibly the most important
reason explaining why, through sound landscape management, past advanced
organic agricultures were more energy efficient than the majority of current agri-
cultural systems (Table 2.2).
The improvement of past organic agricultures became a key condition for any
advance in urbanization, as can be seen when looking at cropland needed to provide
staple food for any growing city. For example, when only 20 % of agricultural
output could be sold and carried to urban centres, a city with 250,000 inhabitants
such as 1820 Vienna, required an agricultural hinterland of around 22,000 km2 (or
nearly 88 km2 of cropland per thousand inhabitants). Thanks to an agrarian surplus
that grew by almost 60 %, in 1910 Vienna could be supplied by 24,000 km2 of
cropland when the city already housed two million people.65 Feeding Paris required
a footprint of around 60,000 km2 with a population of 660,000 in 1784, and a
similar area was needed when the population exceeded two million between 1876
and 1881, and even in 1921 when it reached three million.66 This meant a decrease

63
Agnoletti (2006).
64
Smil (1999, 2001).
65
Krausmann (2013).
66
Billen et al. (2009).

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 Table 2.2 Summary of the energy balances of the agrarian system in a Catalan area near Barcelona (Spain) towards 1860 and in 1999–2004, compared with

2
the contemporary agricultural landscapes

Economic History and the Environment: New Questions …

Towards 1860 In
1999–2004
Primary solar energy fixed in the useful agrarian cover (UAC, 1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) Cropland 146.3 187.3
Pastureland 34.4 –
Woodland 87.2 211.0
Final output by sector (FO, 1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) Crops 38.6 135.9
Livestock 2.9 144.5
Forestry 129.5 69.1
Livestock weight units (LU of 500 kg, Kg/ha) 983 (41) 23.833 (1,021)
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Cattle feed (1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) 68.7 (5.7) 1,095.7 (103)

Manure or fertilizers applied (1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) 23.9 (2) 55.5 (4.7)
Total inputs consumed (TIC, 1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) 102.4 (8.5) 1,625.8 (139.1)
External inputs consumed (EIC, 1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) 6.6 (0.2) 1,574.4 (134.9)
Total final output (TFO, 1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) 171.0 (14.3) 349.5 (29.9)
Energy return on total inputs (EROTI = TFO/TIC, 1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) 1.67 0.21
Energy return on external inputs (EROEI = TFO/EIC, 1,000GJ, GJ/ha/yr) 66.6 0.22
TFO/primary solar energy fixed in the AUC (%) 64 88
EIC/primary solar energy fixed in the AUC (%) 1 395

(continued)

55
 Table 2.2 (continued)

56
Land mosaics Caption Land covers in 1999–2004
towards 1860
FOREST LAND
RIVERBANK WOODS
BRUSHWOODS
PASTURE LAND
CEREAL LAND
CEREAL WITH VINES
ALMOND OR HAZEL TREES
IRRIGATED LAND
VINEYARDS
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OLIVE TREES
URBAN OR DWELLING SOILS

Source our own, from Cussó et al. (2006b, pp. 471–500)

E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 57

from some 92 m2 of cropland, pasture and woodland to only 20 for every thousand
inhabitants, thus illustrating the role played by the advancement of organic agri-
cultures for urban growth.

2.7 Nature-Society Interaction Between a Malthusian Trap

and a Smithian Response

To what extent could the development of global market networks have increased
opportunities to improve prevailing land-use systems? This question involves, of
course, the defining feature in what William Parker and Jan De Vries have labelled
a Smithian-type of growth.67 David Grigg has described the socio-metabolic way of
achieving this improvement, characterizing market specialization as a way of taking
advantage of the ‘ecological optimum’ of different soils or regions according
to their agronomic aptitudes and limiting factors.68 Market diversification and
specialization meant that these regional ‘ecological optimums’ could be exploited,
while simultaneously other local agro-ecological constraints or ‘Liebig minimums’
could be overcome through imports. Economic history provides many examples of
the link between resource endowment and trade patterns pointed out by the
Heckscher-Ohlin model, such as vineyard or olive oil specialization in the Medi-
terranean regions.69
However, if we adopt an ecological-economic perspective we can easily see that
market networks might also become a double-edged sword. For example, in the
abovementioned local west-Mediterranean case study we found a high energy
return on energy inputs of 1.67 attained in mid-19th century Catalonia (Spain);
nonetheless, energy efficiency could only have been maintained if agricultural
landscapes were kept poly-cultural and combined with some amount of woodland
or brushwood. The final energy balance depended on certain key factors, for
example a great deal of branches pruned from the vineyards or olive trees were used
as fuel, thus serving as a substitute when there was a reduction of firewood supplies,
following the loss of woodland due to the growing plantations of wood crops. This
was probably the case while the agrarian system remained poly-cultural and vine-
growing was a partial specialization that coexisted with many other land usages in a
diverse agrarian mosaic. But if increase in demand for wine triggered a complete
regional specialization in a single export cash-crop, as was the case during the
infestation of the French vines by the Phylloxera plague between 1867 and 1890, it
would have led to a shortage in livestock and manure. In such circumstances, the
pruning of vineyards and other wood crops would have been used as a poor

67
Parker and Jones (1975) and De Vries (2001).
68
Grigg (1982).
69
Pamuk and Williamson (2000), Pinilla and Ayuda (2007) and Badia and Tello (2014).

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58 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

substitute for manure, by burning them in the so-called Mediterranean hormigueros

—small charcoal kilns made in fields covered with topsoil.
These Spanish hormigueros were traditionally used as a complementary fertil-
izing method which produced Potassium, and incorporated charcoal into the soil in
order to improve its bacterial populations.70 This was part of the ancient European
Mediterranean culture of fire,71 that took advantage of the summer water stress
which meant that large quantities of dead biomass could not fully decompose and
tended to accumulate in forests or scrubland until ignited by lightning. This
accounts for the fact that Mediterranean woodlands have always coexisted with
natural fires.72 Thus, the removal of this dead biomass from scrub and forests in
order to burn it on cropland was a sound human adaptation to natural conditions. In
order to provide soil nutrients, however, the thermal process was a less efficient way
of decomposing biomass compared to the humid method by means of compost or
manure. Furthermore, it was a very labour-intensive fertilizing system. These fea-
tures would explain why the hormigueros were only practised in the most populated
and cultivated regions of the Iberian Peninsula. In any case, a complete replacement
of the traditional poly-cultural mosaics by a vineyard monoculture would have
entailed a serious bottleneck in nutrient availability, together with a rapid reduction
in the energy return on energy invested (EROI) up to an index of around one or
below. Of course, these local tendencies could have been offset by fertilizer
imports, or by substituting tractors for animal traction but, once again, this would
have meant a higher amount of external inputs and a further decrease of EROI.73
As Martínez Alier reminded us, the theoretical foundations of this double-edged
market sword were forwarded as early as 1902 by Leopold Pfaundler, in his attempts
to assess Earth’s maximum capacity for sustaining human needs. He argued that any
estimate would depend on whether we were to aggregate the maximum local
capacities of each small territory, where limiting factors vary; or whether we were to
consider Earth as one territory, assuming that any local resource would be available
globally from any place without transport restrictions. Pfaundler suggested that a
reasonable answer would lie somewhere between the two extremes, noting that
transport always consumes energy and produces environmental impacts.74 Looking
at the abovementioned Catalan case study, the low energy return on energy inputs of
0.21 that we have found presently, appears to be in keeping with Pfaundler’s
argument.75 The most noticeable feature at present is the fact that current energy
flows are not in proportion to the land area in which the agricultural systems are
placed. The metabolic chains operate in a monoculture pattern or in linear livestock
breeding systems that have become virtually unconnected with the surrounding

70
Tello et al. (2012).
71
Pyne (1997).
72
Grove and Rackham (2001).
73
Cussó et al. (2006a).
74
Martínez Alier (1990).
75
Cussó et al. (2006b).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 59

agro-ecosystem.76 The majority of external inputs–fertilizers, oil, fodder, and the

like—merely pass through a territory that operates as an inert platform. Ironically,
the massive fodder imports and consumption of cheap fossil fuels have turned most
of the woodland area into a derelict space which is increasingly prone to devastating
wildfires. Here again, we see a very close link between low energy performance
and inefficient land-use, both of which give rise to increasing levels of pollution and
landscape degradation—the ecological imprint of what we now know as
globalisation.77
Thus, any discussion on the relationship between markets and agro-ecological
efficiency or environmental impacts cannot be viewed in black and white terms.
Depending on the type and extent of the markets under consideration, trade might
promote more efficient land usage and biophysical flows, or the contrary. A number
of current approaches to the relationship between human development and markets
in developing countries seem to draw similar conclusions, considering both the
social as well as the natural environments.78 While a network of local and regional
markets was, and still remains, an important tool for sustainable human develop-
ment, a direct connection to globalized markets is often little more than a trap.79 To
gain a better understanding of this relevant question, more studies on past agrarian
economies need to be undertaken from this standpoint.
However, it is already apparent that globalization matters, when considering the
relationship between the sort or scope of trade flows and their environmental
effects. Therefore, transport must be taken into account as a key component in the
ecological side that lies beneath any example of ‘Smithian’ growth fostered by
significant increases in urban population, their consumer baskets, and market
development. Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Fridolin Krausmann and Barbara
Smetschka tackle this important issue from a socio-metabolic approach, and con-
clude that “the volume of transport necessarily rises faster than both the size of the
society (in terms of population of urban centres and their hinterland) and its material
wealth, and this not only constrains but limits the possible size of urban popula-
tions. The core mechanism behind these limits is the agrarian energy metabolism: in
order to overcome distances, agrarian societies need more land to feed the human
and animal labour power required for transportation. So they have to enlarge their
territory, thereby again increasing the distances that have to be overcome. Fossil
fuels provide a two-edged benefit: they allow to span larger distances, and to
manage reproduction within a smaller area. So under industrial conditions, size-
constraints for urban centres and for freight transport disappear: transport volumes
‘explode’”.80

76
Goodman and Redclift (1991).
77
Fischer-Kowalski and Amann (2001).
78
Shiva and Gitanjali (2002).
79
Aoki and Hayami (2001) and Chang (2002).
80
Fischer-Kowalski et al. (2004).

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60 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

In an interesting study of the relationships between ecology, economy and state

formation in early modern Germany, Paul Warde has characterized the type of
socio-environmental changes brought about by the dual development of wider
market networks and the political strength of state rule. According to Warde, a
previous ‘territorial ecology’ sustained by local agrarian communities began to be
undermined by a ‘transformational ecology’ triggered by a new set of merchants,
tax-collectors and state-rulers that operated at a wider scale. As Paul Warde says,
“The ‘territorial ecology’ implies a repeatable set of actions happening at a par-
ticular place. It is a process that reinforces the ‘integrity’ of a particular way of
doing things. The ‘transformational ecology’, put bluntly, does not. Eventually it
must result in the disturbance of local processes: it is a problem generator”.81 His
argument implies that “tracing the ‘integrity’ of, and ‘disturbance’ to, systems of
resource flows, is one of the most useful tasks historians can undertake. It is
precisely because the results of ecological interaction can only be determined
empirically that ecology should be historical”.82 Perhaps we could generalize this
approach by saying that, when studying the various paths of economic growth taken
by early pre-industrial societies, we should adopt the working hypothesis put for-
ward by John McNeill: “In any case, human history since the dawn of agriculture is
replete with unsustainable societies, some of which changed not to sustainability
but to some new and different kind of unsustainability.83”

2.8 From One Unsustainable Path to Another: The First

Globalization as a Watershed

Rolf Peter Sieferle, Robert Shiel and other scholars have expressed their suspicions
concerning two major forces that perhaps led past organic agrarian societies away
from sustainability. The first was the lack of manure to sustain crop yields in a
highly intensive organic agriculture, and the second deforestation. According to
Shiel, estimates made for the European Atlantic bioregions, with no water stress,
practising a three-course crop rotation, and where the livestock grazed on pastures
kept separate from cropland, show that the highest level of nitrogen availability
would have been achieved when less than 15 % of useful agrarian area was sown
with grains.84 Higher cropland proportions would lead either to diminishing
returns–after some decades during which the nitrogen reserves stored in the soil
would be exhausted—or to new ‘Boserupian’ innovative responses aimed at
improving seeds or varieties and achieving a closer integration between cropland

81
Warde (2006a), p. 284.
82
Warde (2006a), p. 19.
83
McNeill (2000).
84
Shiel (1991).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 61

and livestock breeding, as took place in England with the well-known Norfolk four-
course rotation.85
Here it would be interesting to apply the synthesis proposed by Ronald Lee, of
Malthus’ and Boserup’s approaches.86 Lee suggests that past technological
advances usually occurred within a ‘Boserupian space’ comprising a limited set of
combinations of population densities and technological capacities, as a response to
‘Malthusian’ tendencies towards diminishing returns. Only from time to time did
some historical discontinuities occur that pushed forward technological capacities
from one ‘Boserupian space’ to another.87 However, this immediately raises the
question: What factors induced these large but unusual technological shifts? As
Bruce Campbell and Mark Overton have stressed, an important side of that issue
lies in knowing how differently pre-industrial societies solved the fertilizing trap,
within several historical contexts and natural endowments.88 Much more research is
needed in the historical reconstruction of nutrient cycles, based on the methodo-
logical tools that agronomists can offer to historians. This long-term agro-ecological
research must be undertaken without forgetting the diverse natural and climatic
conditions in which very different kinds of ‘advanced organic agricultures’ devel-
oped. For example, owing to the summer water stress in Mediterranean regions the
strongest limiting factor was not the nutrients but the soil water content. 89
In order to fill the nutrient gap opened up by population growth, or a higher
amount in trade and taxes, past ‘advanced organic agricultures’ had to rely on a
more intense land-use which, in turn, required a higher labour intensity and a longer
time-span of investment.90 The Chinese way of solving this problem clearly shows
the dilemma usually faced between keeping high yields per unit of land without
diminishing labour productivity at the same time.91 Here again the role played by
European colonization of America in abolishing this land constraint can be seen.
Any ‘ghost acreage’ assessment would be very limited without extending the time
perspective until the beginning of the 20th century, in order to take into account the
American grain exports from the Great Plains where settlers stopped using fertilizer
for nearly 60 years up to the 1930s.92
The overseas exports of cheap cereal coming from the United States and other
‘new Europes’, leading to the well-known European agricultural crisis of the late
19th century, were based on large scale soil mining of nutrients stored in the

85
Shiel (2006).
86
Boserup (1965).
87
Lee (1986).
88
Campbell and Overton (1991).
89
Bevilacqua (2001) and Garrabou (2005).
90
Allen (2008).
91
Elvin (2009).
92
Cunfer (2005) and Cunfer and Krausmann (2009).

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62 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Fig. 2.8 Decline in nitrogen

by percentage of soil and
years of cropping in several
case studies of the Great
Plains (United States,
1870–1930). Source Cunfer
(2004, p. 546)

previously unbroken sod of the Great Plains (Fig. 2.8). In order to compete with
these cereal imports embodied with the unpaid ‘virtual soil’ mined, European
farmers were forced to further increase yields per unit of land. Thus, the first
globalization linked an unsustainable extensive cropping system on one side of the
Atlantic, with an increasingly unsustainable intensive farming on the other.
Eventually, this double-sided process led to an agro-ecological and an economic
final crisis of the two sorts of ‘advanced organic agricultures’. As Geoff Cunfer has
explained, referring to the case of Rooks County in Kansas: “By the late nineteenth
century, farmers had pushed into the upper Midwest, the Great Plains, and the
Pacific Northwest. In the early twentieth century, only California remained to be
tapped for agriculture. The slow wave of westward plowing left behind a secondary
wave of abandoned farms. Farmers adopted the old Indian system of swidden
agriculture to solve the fertility dilemma. Traditional American farming relied on
the existence of an ever-new frontier. Played-out fields eventually grew back to
forest or became low-intensity pasturage. Thus, it is no surprise that when the latest
wave of American farmers rolled into western Kansas in the 1870s, they imple-
mented a farm system that mined soil nutrients. They applied manure as it was
available and occasionally rotated legume crops when convenient, but they had no
strategy to sustain cropping for the long term. By the 1930s, Rooks County’s fields
had been planted, cultivated, and harvested 60 times without rest. Soil nitrogen was
about half what it had been at sod breaking, and crop yields were declining steadily.
Moreover, the western frontier had disappeared. All of the arable land in Rooks

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 63

County—and in the nation for that matter—had been identified and plowed. Soil
nitrogen and organic carbon drifted steadily downward, and with it yields and
profits. Faced with this problem, farmers implemented a dramatic innovation in
soil-nutrient management. Rather than revisiting ancient strategies, farmers (and the
industrial nation behind them) appropriated cheap fossil-fuel energy to import
enormous amounts of synthetically manufactured nitrogen into their fields”.93
Being a non-renewable resource, dependence on these chemical fertilizers syn-
thesized from fossil fuels already entailed problems of sustainability. Besides this,
they became aggravated later on by the impacts of pollution resulting from
excessive and inefficient use of new industrialized cropping systems, that became
territorially disjointed from livestock breeding and forestry.94 Yet before the 1950s
the difficulties found in the acceleration of the nutrient throughput remained a major
issue for European and American farmers, who kept applying manure as a basic
resource and used mineral or chemical fertilizers as a complement.95 During the
spectacular economic growth in the second half of the 20th century, on the contrary,
the application to the soil of higher doses of synthetic fertilizers was not only aimed
at maintaining acceptable levels of yields, but also to continually increase them up
to what was proved feasible. The complete substitution of manure by synthetic
fertilizers put an end to the old integrated management of cropland, livestock
breeding and forestry, thus entirely upsetting the agrarian social metabolism, and
turning farms into an extended network of diffuse pollution and landscape
degradation.96
Once again we found that economic growth and ecological degradation became
the two faces of the same coin. As John McNeill has written, “Environmental
change of the scale, intensity and variety witnessed in the twentieth century
required multiple, mutually reinforcing causes. The most important immediate
cause was the enormous surge of economic activity. Behind that lay the long booms
in energy use and population. The reasons economic growth had the environmental
implications that it had lay in the technological, ideological and political histories of
the twentieth century”.97 The spread of the so-called green revolution added to the
diffusion of electrification and forest industrial mass-production and transport, thus
allowing a further range of Southern and Central European countries to quickly
converge with the United Kingdom and the United States. As the example of
Austria shows, catching up in terms of GDP per capita went hand in hand with the
convergence in energy consumption and global pollution (Fig. 2.9):

93
Cunfer (2004).
94
Galloway et al. (2004).
95
Tisdale and Nelson (1956).
96
Marull et al. (2008).
97
McNeill (2000).

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64 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

(a) (b)
25.000 225
AUT
AUT
Geary Khamis 1990 $

UK
UK
20.000
150

GJ/cap.yr
15.000

10.000
75
5.000

- 0
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000

1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
(c) (d)
500 250

Energy use (DEC) [GJ/ha]

Hydropower/electr. import
Energy use (DEC) [GJ/ha]

Natural gas
400 200 Petroleum
Coal
Wood
300 150 Agr. biomass

200 100

100 50

0 0
1830

1845

1860

1875

1890

1905

1920

1935

1950

1965

1980

1995

1830

1845

1860

1875
1890
1905
1920

1935

1950
1965
1980
1995
Fig. 2.9 Historical divergence and convergence paths followed by the United Kingdom and
Austria in per capita GDP and energy consumption (1830–2000) a GDP per capita in real terms
b Primary energy consumed per capita c Energy transition in the UK (per hectare domestic energy
consumed by sources) d Energy transition in Austria (per hectare domestic energy consumed by
sources). Source Krausmann et al. (2008, p. 191)

2.9 Was There a General Crisis of Biomass Energy

Carriers in Europe?

Looking at deforestation, the second factor that, we can presume, led pre-industrial
societies towards greater unsustainability, Rolf Peter Sieferle is in little doubt that
Europe did suffer an increasing shortage of wood. He claims that “the historically
decisive escape from the wood crisis of the 18th century was the substitution of
wood by coal. In the end this process resulted in such an enormous breakthrough in
energy supply that any other attempts to substitute and conserve appear marginal by
comparison. But for contemporaries it was only one way out among others—they
were unaware of its epoch-making importance”.98 This is a controversial issue that
deserves to be studied further to clarify whether there was a true widespread wood
crisis in Europe or not before the large-scale resort to fossil fuels; and if so, what the
main factors were that brought this about.
Landscape photographs taken between the 1870s and 1920s, and the first aerial
photos made shortly afterwards, show an apparent deforestation and rejuvenation of

98
Sieferle (2001).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 65

the surviving forests throughout Europe. Subsequently, and in parallel with the
massive consumption of fossil fuels, the forests started to grow again during the
second half of the 20th century and today cover a surface area that is perhaps
greater than at any other period in the last millennium. The current research on
LUCC, applying GIS to historical cadastral maps and aerial photographs, might
help historians to confirm the general trend towards a new forest transition.99 The
study on the human appropriation of aboveground net primary production of bio-
mass (HANPP) has demonstrated that in Austria “HANPP decreased continuously
from 60 % in 1830 to 48 % in 1970 and then started to increase again slightly, up to
51 % in 1995. This means that today about 23 % more biomass (i.e., 129 PJ/yr or 7
Mt of biomass) remains in terrestrial ecosystems than in 1830”.100 A more recent
study shows there was, in the United Kingdom, a HANPP decline from 74 % in
1800 down to a level of around 65 % in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
followed by an increase up to the late 1950s and a new decline to a value of 67 % in
the year 2000.101 Although much more research is needed on this issue, it seems
clear that up to a point past ‘advanced organic economies’ could have exerted a
greater direct pressure on European forests than in more recent times, when fossil
fuels consumption has globalized ecological footprints and displaced environmental
load onto the rest of the world or the atmosphere, subject to global warming
emissions.102
Here again the question of which driving forces underlay this trend arises.
Clearly, increasing population densities must have represented a challenge for any
‘organic-based’ economy. Nevertheless, deforestation must also be linked with
market networks and urbanisation, in spite of the fact that many scholars have paid
no direct attention to this. To obtain a final energy unit of charcoal, five times more
firewood had to be burnt in a charcoal-burner with an energy loss of nearly 60 %.
Taking into account that fuel wood extracted from forests could have been consumed
either as firewood or charcoal, any switching in consumption from the latter to the
former would have had considerable impact on the primary energy needed. What
then would have been the use of transforming firewood into charcoal? The main
reason was to allow available terrestrial means of transporting heavy goods to travel
greater distances, without consuming more energy carrying the fuel than the energy
actually carried.103 The rural population could easily obtain enough firewood from
neighbouring forests, coppices, brushwood or wood crops and orchards. Despite the
heavy water content of wood, they could easily carry it home for short distances. But
cities needed to be provided with much greater quantities of fuel wood coming from
quite distant locations. Even the slightest increase in urbanization would have meant

99
Kovář (1999) and Agnoletti (2006).
100
Krausmann (2001).
101
Musel (2008).
102
Haberl et al. (2001).
103
Sieferle (2001).

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66 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

a rapid growing of fuel weights, and of the distances needed to be covered, thus
fostering the shift from firewood to charcoal provision.
We have already seen the close connection that existed between the growth of
London and other British industrial cities, and coal extraction in England and
Wales.104 But how did other European cities cope, since they could not expect to be
supplied with coal in the same way at the time? We know, for example, that in order
to provide Madrid with charcoal during the 18th century the annual output of
almost all woods in an area of 70,000 km2 was required, which represents nearly
15 % of the total area of Spain.105 More than 17,000 tons were transported every
year within a range of 100 km to supply a population of 164,000 inhabitants
in Madrid in 1787, with an average of 154 kg of charcoal per inhabitant a year
(0.4 kg/inhabitant/day). Assuming the usual efficiency in a charcoal burner, this
meant 2 kg of primary firewood per inhabitant a day mainly for domestic purposes.
Adding another half a kilo burnt for different industrial activities, we would reach
2.5 kg/inhabitant/day in the pre-industrial city of Madrid. This figure would have
been 66 % higher than the average consumption of fuel wood estimated by Paolo
Malanima in the pre-industrial Mediterranean Europe, and more than double the
minimum supply recorded in Sicily.106
We must bear in mind, however, that up to a point charcoal, as well as firewood,
could have been kept exploited as a sustainable renewable source, as long as they
were made out of small logs shredded, pollarded or cut from coppice-woods in the
North-Atlantic regions, and lopped from dehesa-types of open forests turned into
wood pastures in the Mediterranean South.107 Even the pruning of vines and olive
or almond tress could have been used that way.108 According to Rolf Peter Sieferle,
“at first sight there was no shortage of fuel. It was always possible, and with little
effort, to produce firewood […] by establishing coppices. In general, it can be said
that the fuel aspect was only part of the wood crisis, and that part most easily open
to a traditional solution”. He concludes that “the wood crisis of the eighteenth
century was in the first place a timber crisis. The enormous consumption of fire-
wood in combination with agricultural uses of woodlands made it increasingly
difficult to find old tree stands that were suitable for construction”.109
The cautious scepticism of A.T. Grove and Oliver Rackham goes even further
when they oppose the ‘Ruined Landscape’ myth with the hypothesis that, instead of
a true deforestation, human impacts over Southern Europe mainly altered different
types of the ever dynamic forest and shrub covers that characterize the Mediter-
ranean environment (open-tall dehesa-type of savannah instead of a thick-short

104
Allen (2009).
105
Bravo (1993).
106
Malanima (2001).
107
Clément (2008).
108
Grove and Rackham (2001).
109
Sieferle (2001).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 67

Fig. 2.10 Long-run trends in real prices of firewood, coal and oil in Italy (1700–1985 in 1911 ITL
per TOE). Source Malanima (2006, pp. 70–71)

forest, maquis, etc.).110 In his overview on world-wide deforestation Michael

Williams suggests that, in Europe, before the coming of the fossil fuel era, timber
and firewood shortages were more of a local or regional feature than a general one,
and he discards charcoal consumption in industrial uses as a relevant factor.111 On
the opposite side, Paolo Malanima bears no doubts when he states that “from the
mid-eighteenth century onward, while Europe’s population was growing faster,
energy availability was decreasing. The result was a sharp per capita decline in
energy consumption”.112 This included both food intake and fuel wood availability,
which seems to fit well with the anthropometric height decrease of Europeans
born between 1770 and 1820. “The decline of forest is borne out—according to
Malanima—by the quick rise of the price of firewood, which was usually faster than
the overall growth of agricultural prices. In Western European cities, between 1700
and 1800, firewood prices increased by more than three times”.113 The long-term
evolution in Italian prices of firewood, compared with prices of coal and oil, clearly
fits with the ‘exergetic’ economic growth theory proposed by Bob Ayres and
Benjamin Warr (Fig. 2.10; see also Fig. 2.2):
In a nuanced and detailed overview of the wood shortage debate in pre-industrial
Europe, Paul Warde assesses that “if the European population in 1500 was around half
that in 1800, and if there were general scarcities in 1500, survival could only have
been possible in 1800 as a consequence either of a radical alteration in the domestic
fuel economy, or a greatly increased woodland area or productivity. As there is very
little evidence for any of these things we must be suspicious of any claims for a general
scarcity at any time before the late eighteenth century. Western Europe had a popu-
lation of around 122 millions by 1820, and if annual domestic demand is set at about
three cubic meters per hectare, a coppiced area of 407,700 km2 would have been
required for a sustainable supply. This approximates to the area of modern Germany
and Switzerland combined, something under a fifth of western Europe (excluding

110
Grove and Rackham (2001).
111
Williams (2003).
112
Malanima (2006), pp. 101–121.
113
Malanima (2006), pp. 116–118.

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68 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Scandinavia). As it is doubtful that many areas of Europe were this well wooded at any
point in the period, the case for a general wood shortage by 1820 appears quite
plausible, but is hardly plausible for any period before 1750”.114
At the same time, however, this plausible wood shortage at the end of the 18th or
the beginning of the 19th century brought about a wide development of ‘scientific
forestry’, aimed at increasing wood yields and its predictability across time. This
shift in woodland management entailed many conflicts between forest engineers,
state-rules and peasant communities, and the apparent landscape changes it brought
about raised deep social unrest all over Europe as well as in colonial regions such as
India under British rule.115 Yet, as Paul Warde concludes, “in dealing with general
scarcity, forestry was fairly successful. […] The nineteenth century augmentation of
wood yields demonstrated that there was plenty of scope for productivity increase
within the economy after the Napoleonic age, but equally, that the ability to raise
consumption per head and indeed income levels was limited. […] When Jevons in
1865 turned to the question of the exhaustion of coal reserves […], most of Europe
still looked to wood as its primary source of thermal energy. That this could still be
the case after a period of enormous population growth is a tribute to the capacities
of the preindustrial ancient regime, and an indicator that Europe, for all its late
eighteenth-century problems, remained distant from any ecological frontier”. 116 It
must be added immediately, though, that it was precisely during the late 19th
century when written sources and the first landscape photographs provided direct
and indirect evidence of a peak in deforestation all over Europe, just before the start
of a fast reforestation wave fostered by rural abandonment.
Was there or was there not a general biomass energy crisis at the beginning of
the fossil fuel era? This remains a significant, open historical question that deserves
to be extensively looked into in the future by reconstructing land-use statistics or
surveys, and making GIS analysis of land-cover changes from aerial photographs
and cadastral maps. The aim should be to extend the land accounts that the EEA
have started to assemble for the last decade of the 20th century as far back in time as
possible,117 similar to the historical series of main land uses in the United Kingdom
and Austria reconstructed from 1830 onwards by Fridolin Krausmann, Heinz
Schandl and Rolf Peter Sieferle (Fig. 2.11):
In the meantime, the available evidence suggests that timber, firewood or char-
coal scarcity might have been more of a regional situation than a general continental
phenomenon. As Paul Warde has suggested for the English case, it is likely that
scarcities became a true economic problem when, together with fuel, they increased
food or feed prices and land rents as well.118 It would have been enough, however,
that these regional scarcities affected general trends of energy prices to become a

114
Warde (2006b), pp. 38–39.
115
Guha (1991).
116
Warde (2006b), p. 52.
117
European Environment Agency (2006).
118
Warde (2007).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 69

(a) (b)
100% 100%

80% 80%
as % of total area

as % of total area
60% 60%

40% 40%

20% 20%

0% 0%
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990

1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
Arable land Grasland Arable land Grassland
Rough Grazing Forests Alpine pasture Forests
Other Areas (built up, water, alpine) Other areas (built up, water, alpine)

(c) (d)
1,0 1,0
0,9 0,9
0,8 0,8
Arable land Arable land
0,7 0,7
Grasland Grassland
0,6 0,6
Rough Grazing Alpine pasture
0,5 0,5
0,4 Forests 0,4 Forests
0,3 Other Areas (built up, 0,3 Other areas (built up,
water, alpine) water, alpine)
0,2 0,2
0,1 0,1
0,0 0,0
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990

1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990

Fig. 2.11 Land-use changes in The United Kingdom and Austria (1830–2000 as % of total area)
a As % of total area in the United Kingdom b As % of total area in Austria c Per capita land-uses in the
United Kingdom d Per capita land-uses in Austria. Source Krausmann et al. (2008, pp. 187–201)

driving force that urged the energy transition from land-based biomass energy
carriers to mineral-based fossil fuels (see Figs. 2.6 and 2.2). The same way the Stone
Age did not end because of a shortage of stones, the way out of a biomass-based
energy system had no reason to wait for a devastating deforestation.
Almost all known energy transitions have required a long of time to attain an
overall turnaround of the preceding mix of energy sources (see graphs 7, 11.3 and
11.4 as examples). Over a period of time all energy sources, old and new, can
continue to grow at different and sometimes similar rates. This was the case of
many woodland products whose consumption increased during the 19th and the
first third of the 20th century, despite the contemporary growth in coal burning.
This happened not only in Nordic countries such as Finland, but also in Mediter-
ranean ones such as Spain, due to the maintenance of many traditional uses,
together with the appearance of new applications related to industrialization and
urbanization—railway sleepers, mine roof supports, posts for telegraph and power
lines, furniture, packages of fruit and wood pulp to make paper.119 In several

119
Myllyntaus and Mattila (2002) and Iriarte-Goñi and Ayuda (2008).

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70 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

developed nations a true “liberation” of forests from fuel wood extraction had to
wait for the massive diffusion of gas cylinders during the 1950s, which put a sudden
end to the last boom in charcoal burning for cooking stoves.
The fate of European woodlands may have been closely linked to urbanization.
However, while charcoal production has been mainly studied in relation to tradi-
tional iron smelting, little attention has been paid to this role in relation to the
substitution of fireplaces by stoves in growing towns and cities. Some oral memory
and other anthropological sources suggest that until the 1950s, in many regions
located far away from a cheap coal supply, stoves were usually burnt with charcoal.
Charcoal production seems to have grown hand in hand with the increasing use of
stoves in urban areas, and peaked just before the arrival of gas cylinders. A his-
torical geography of coal-supplied and charcoal-provided cities, and their respective
evolution during the 19th and first half of the 20th century, would help to trace the
changes in woodlands in Europe, so as to identify the main turning points and their
major drivers. Taking into account that developing nations are experiencing a
fast urbanization at present, while simultaneously providing the highest share of
wooden raw materials consumed in developed countries, being better informed
of past European energy and landscape transitions could greatly help to redress the
huge World deforestation.120
A careful accounting of biophysical urban socio-metabolic flows would thus
help a lot in assessing this long-running link between forest landscapes, urbani-
zation and energy transitions. The wood issue seems only to have been one part of
the ever-expanding ‘ecological footprint’ generated by changing consumption
patterns as industrialization and urbanisation processes got underway. In addition to
firewood, charcoal and timber, the historical approach to urban social metabolism
includes the consumption of cereals, meat, milk and other food products, together
with the excretion of wastes, which constitutes another interesting field of research
for human ecology, ecological economics and environmental history.121

2.10 Concluding Remarks

Despite being neither complete nor exhaustive, the examples presented in ongoing
debates and current research show a great interest of a further dialogue and inter-
disciplinary collaboration between environmental and economic history. These
examples also show, however, that the strongest barrier lies in the mainstream
approach to economic growth and macroeconomic theories which neglect the role
of energy and other natural resources. Yet, adopting a common bio-physical and
socio-metabolic approach, linked to land-use and global environmental changes,

120
Williams (2003).
121
Stanhill (1984), Schmid Neset (2005) and Billen et al. (2009).

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2 Economic History and the Environment: New Questions … 71

would help achieve a greater understanding of how economic growth actually

occurs, and the role ecological impacts entail on life-support systems of the Earth.
Neither traditional mistrust nor the suspicion of biased ecological or economic
determinism should prevent the necessary rapprochement between economic and
environmental history, which is being opened up by the development of ecological
economics. In order to put aside any suspicion about causal primacy, it is worth
distinguishing from the beginning those explanations that tell us what growth is or
how it happens from those that explain why growth occurs.122 The socio-metabolic
research on long-term transitions in the interaction between nature and society may
significantly contribute to enhance the understanding of what economic growth is,
and how it takes place. Nevertheless, this would leave space for other dimensions,
such as institutional settings or ruling actors needed to explain why growth
happens, by whom, and for what purpose. Thus, the development of this new
biophysical standpoint does not mean that we can afford to neglect institutional,
social, cultural and political factors.123 On the contrary, as Joan Martinez Alier has
written, “far from naturalising history, the introduction of ecology into the expla-
nation of human history historialises ecology. This is because human ecology, that
is, the relationship between human societies and nature, cannot be comprehended
without an understanding of the history of human beings and their conflicts”.124

Acknowledgments This essay has been written in the framework of the linked research projects
on Sustainable farm systems: long-term socioecological metabolism in western agriculture funded
by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Spanish one
HAR2012-38920-C02-02 directed by Enric Tello at the University of Barcelona. We thank Leah
Temper for her careful revision of the English version.

Glossary

EROI Energy returns on energy inputs

MEFA Material and Energy Flow Analysis
HANPP Human Appropriation of the ecological Net Primary Production
EUROSTAT The Statistical Office of the European Communities located in
Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide statistical
information to the institutions of the European Union (EU) and
to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across its
member states

122
North (1999).
123
Teich et al. (1997) and Sörlin and Warde (2009).
124
Martínez Alier (1998).

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72 E. Tello-Aragay and G. Jover-Avellà

Production It is a function that relates the output to the inputs or factors of

function production used in a production process. The Cobb-Douglass is
the most standard in which the output (Y) is produced with two
factors, labour (L) and capital (K), and the remaining growth
share not explained by the variation of both is explained with
the Total Factor Productivity (A). That is, Y ¼ ALb K / where
bþ /¼ 1 and account for the output elasticities of capital and
labour, respectively
TFP The Total Factor Productivity measures the fraction of eco-
nomic growth that cannot be explained by the contribution
assigned to the increases in capital, labour and land. As it is
commonly considered that it grasps the efficiency gains obtained
through the combination of factors that participate in a pro-
duction process taken together, and it is taken as a measure of an
economy’s long-term technological change
Exergy The useful work actually performed by all energy converters
which empower human labour and capital goods at its disposal
IPCC The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United
Nations Organization (UNO) created the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The IPCC summa-
rizes the technical, biophysical, socio-economical information
to understanding and measure the risk of climate change
LUCC Land-Use Land-Cover Change programme (http://www.geo.ucl.
be/LUCC/lucc.html) examines the transformations undergone
by Earth’s vegetal cover over the centuries, in order to identify
the main driving forces behind global socio-environmental
change, and also to assess its socio-ecological impact

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Chapter 3
Environmental History of Soils

Verena Winiwarter

Abstract Soils are complex ecosystems. They are the basis of human sustenance
and have been changed by humans for millennia. Their environmental history needs
to incorporate pedological, historical and archeological data. A primer on important
concepts of soil science introduces the complexity of soils and their interactions
with humans. Many societies developed soil classification systems, testing methods
for soil quality and a multitude of measures for soil fertility maintenance. They also
developed landscaping techniques such as terracing to enhance the utility of their
soils. In a comparative approach, these three fields of soil knowledge and their
development during pre-industrial times are discussed for the history of China,
Mexico, Mesoamerica and Amazonia as well as for India. Ghana and the Nile
valley serve as two examples from Africa, and finally the situation for the Medi-
terranean and Europe north of the Alps is presented. Human influence on soils has
been both beneficial and detrimental. Anthrosols, soils that have been significantly
changed by humans, are part of the ecological inheritance of societies; they can be
much more fertile than the unchanged land. Salinization through irrigation and
human-induced enhanced erosion are the two most widely known negative influ-
ences of humans on soils, making it much less fertile. Under conditions of industrial
societies, the nitrogen cycle has expanded to encompass the air. Unsustainable soil
use leading to compaction and pollution poses a threat to soils. All soil histories are
local, because soils are so varied. Unlike other fields of environmental history, the
environmental history of soils is still in its infancy. Providing long-term data on
sustainable and unsustainable use of soils in the past is a daunting task for envi-
ronmental historians for the next years and decades.

V. Winiwarter (&)
Institut Für Soziale Ökologie, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 79

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_3

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80 V. Winiwarter

3.1 Introduction

A comprehensive environmental history of world soils has yet to be written. It

would have to combine pedological, historical and archeological perspectives and
encompass a multitude of case studies. In such a story, a set of actors new to history
would play important roles: soil biota are among the main players. Earthworms do
not write history, but they are extremely important in making it, a fact recognized
by Charles Darwin, in a book he considered as one of his most important:
The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man’s inventions; but long
before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus
ploughed by earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which
have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized
creatures.1

Looking at environmental history from a soil perspective reveals several striking

cases of unsustainable soil use, but also by a steady stream of human knowledge
acquisition and technical ingenuity to deal more sustainably with this prime
resource. The biblical proverb that we all come from the soil and shall return to it
holds true in the very literal sense of the word: Our deceased bodies are decom-
posed by specialized soil organisms, releasing nutrients for the growth of vegetation
and hence, all life. Only some human cultures hold soils sacred,2 only some cultures
have learned to produce fertile soils from barren ones,3 but all cultures have
developed some sense of the importance of soils.
Soils are central to the biogeochemical cycles of the world; they interact with the
hydrosphere as well as with the atmosphere, and are themselves part of the bio-
sphere.4 The soil sphere is called the pedosphere, recognizing its unique charac-
teristics. Dirt, although a recent popular book on soils wishes to suggest otherwise,
is different from soils5: Dirt is under fingernails; soil is the living matrix of life on
which we walk.
While concern about soils on the part of scientists has a long history, with
contributions such as Bennet’s and Chapline’s plea to combat erosion of 1928
standing out,6 a self-aware environmental history of soils is a relatively young
phenomenon.7 But readers will find discussions pertaining to the environmental
history of soils in the context of soil science, agricultural history, anthropology and
archaeology. In the following paragraphs, a soil science primer offers the necessary

1
Darwin (1883).
2
Winiwarter and Blum (2009).
3
Lehmann et al. (2003).
4
De Deyn and Van Ruijven (2005).
5
Montgomery (2007).
6
Bennett and Chapline (1928).
7
McNeill and Winiwarter (2004, 2006).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 81

basics. The subsequent chapters trace soils as a material entity and soils in the mind
through historically and geographically distinct cases. The final paragraphs discuss
implications for sustainability.

3.2 A Soil Science Primer

Soils are varied and manifold. According to the most widely accepted attempts at
classifying them, 12 soil orders and a multitude of sub-orders and classes can be
discerned.8 While the air can be viewed as largely homogeneous, and its origin is of
little concern for historians, one must understand the formation of soils, because
their resulting qualities are so different and because cultivation is a major factor
interacting with soil development.
The natural history of soil is called pedogenesis, an evolutionary development of
soils over time which was first described fully by the Russian soil scientist Do-
kuchaev in the late 19th century.9 The human history of soils is the history of their
cultivation. Taken together, natural and human histories create the history of human
interaction with soils, their environmental history.
Hans Jenny first detailed the factors of soil formation: climate, parent rock
material, topography and organisms interact to form soils.10 Soils form the surface
layer of the earth in a range from several meters thickness to a few centimeters.11
There is no single definition of soil that all soil scientists accept, but most would
agree that soils are three-dimensional entities composed of mineral and organic
matter, with their own architecture comprising micro- and macropores through
which water and air circulate, and particles of different sizes and surface textures,
which form a multitude of quite different habitats for microbial and macroscopic
soil organisms. Particle size is an important soil characteristic, with sand, silt and
clay being the three categories most often discerned in order of decreasing particle
size. A typical soil (if such a thing exists) consists of roughly 25 % each of air and
water, 45 % mineral particles, and 5 % soil organic matter (SOM), most of which is
comprised of large organic compounds called humus. The rest of SOM is roots and
soil organisms. Processes in soils can be physical (such as aggregate formation),
chemical (such as nutrient dissolution and leaching) or biological (such as earth-
worm digestive action). Taken together they control a major part of global bio-
geochemical cycles, in particular the cycling of reactive nitrogen, and of carbon and
its compounds.
Soil processes (in all three senses) depend very much on surfaces, and many
involve exchanges at active surfaces such as clay minerals offer. The origin of life

8
Blaser (2004).
9
Evtuhov (2006) for a longer history of pedology see Feller et al. (2006).
10
Jenny (1941) Compare the overview about soils in: Muoghalu (2003).
11
For example, Pidwirny and Heimsath (2008).

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82 V. Winiwarter

itself has been associated with the active surfaces of clay minerals.12 Besides
surfaces, much in soils depends on the organic constituents. The rhizosphere, the
soil region in direct contact with plant roots, is a zone not only of increased
microbiological activity, but its own chemical characteristics. These influence
nutrient uptake and thus, the perceived fertility of the soil. SOM content is decisive
for water uptake and storage ability, influences pore structure and microbial activity
and hence is crucial for the role of soils as sinks or sources of greenhouse gases.
Cultivation lowers SOM content. Agricultural techniques such as manuring or
plowing in stubble are geared at restoring SOM in cultivated soils.

3.2.1 Soils and Their Fertility

Agriculture intervenes into the biodiversity of ecosystems. It transforms them in a

planned way by management of the agro-ecosystem, e.g. by crop selection. It also
influences associated biodiversity, made up from organisms which colonize the
agro-ecosystem after it has been set up by the farmer. The combination of both is
responsible for ecosystem functions in an agro-ecosystem.13 Much of this associ-
ated biodiversity is that of the soil, which only came to be recognized with the
development of soil microbiology in the second half of the 19th century.14 One
cubic centimeter of soil can contain more than 1,000,000 bacteria. A hectare of
pasture land in a humid mid-latitude climate can contain more than a million
earthworms and several million insects.15 Biological and chemical activity is
concentrated in the uppermost 10–15 cm of soil,16 but there is more to soils than the
uppermost layer. Pedogenesis does not create uniform mixtures of particles. Most
soils are multi-layered, ‘soil profiles’ over depth serve as the main discriminator
between soil types. Most existing overviews for a general readership give details
about soil types by profile.17
Questions of soil fertility are more important for the historian, as it is the pro-
ductive relation with the soil that is decisive in human history. Patzel et al. have
shown that the concept of soil fertility itself is not historically stable.18 Nowadays
productive soils are conceptualized as systems governed by both natural and
anthropogenic factors. In Fig. 3.1 factors influencing yield in an agro-ecosystem are
shown. The natural fertility depends on the factors identified by Jenny, of which all
but time are depicted, minerals and morphology being combined into one factor.

12
Orgel (1998).
13
Altieri (1999).
14
Eldor (2007), Berthelin et al. (2006).
15
Pidwirny and Heimsath (2008).
16
Coleman et al. (2004).
17
For example, Beach et al. (2006), Pidwirny and Heimsath (2008) and Nortcliff (2009).
18
Patzel et al. (2000).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 83

Long-lasting interventions by humans change a soil profoundly, so that the

resulting fertility of the cultivated soil can be much greater than the natural one (e.g.
in the case of plaggen soils). While this cultivated fertility can be considered an
acquired long- or at least mid-term characteristic of soils, the yearly yield will
depend on short term influences of both natural and anthropogenic origin. If human
interventions lower fertility, one speaks of anthropogenic soil degradation.
Soil ecosystems are complex in many ways this primer cannot adequately
address. As but one example, Fig. 3.2 shows factors influencing the availability of
nutrients. Not all nutrient pools in the soil, are available to plants, and the soluble
fraction can be quite small, but on the other hand fully mobile ions run the highest
risk of being leached, nutrient management thus tries to create large amounts of
easily exchangeable nutrients which are bound to surfaces.

Minerals and
Climate Organisms
Morphology

Natural Soil Fertility

Long-Term Cultivation
(fertilizing, tillage, crop rotation)

Fertility of Cultivated Soil

Natural Influences Short-Term Cultivation

(weather, pathogens, pests, (tillage, plant protection,
air quality) fertilizer, crop)

YIELD (Production)

Fig. 3.1 Factors influencing yield in an agrosystem (After Gisi et al. 1997)

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84 V. Winiwarter

Fig. 3.2 Nutrient behavior in soils under human influence (Adapted from Kuntze et al. 1994)

Nutrient balances are the sum of several dynamic equilibria, with (1) fertilization
and deposition from the atmosphere as external input parameters, (2) mineralization
as most important factor particular to the soil and (3) nutrient export by harvesting
products and through various kinds of removal such as leaching or wind erosion.
The other factor particular to the soil type is the rate of immobilization. Their
interplay results in the fertility at a given point and place.
The chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) played an epochal role in the
development of soil nutrition. He popularized a “Law of the Minimum”, stating that
if one crop nutrient is missing or deficient, plant growth will be poor, even if the
other elements are abundant. This is not surprising. Just like humans, plants require
a balanced diet. Apart from carbon, the basic building block of life, the main
elements they require are nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium
and calcium. Plants also require a whole array of micro-nutrients. Modern fertilizers
are tuned to different crops by their micro-nutrient content. Just like humans, plants
can get too much of a good thing, too: especially sodium ions are stressful for many
plants, with the exception of salt-tolerant, halophytic species such as date palms or
barley. Salinization, the buildup of high sodium chloride levels, often a conse-
quence of irrigation, therefore threatens yields.

3.2.2 Soil Functions and Threats to Soils

Soils perform several key functions, apart from their role in biomass production.
They are filters and buffers and perform transformations between the atmosphere,
the ground water and the plant cover, strongly influencing the water cycle at the

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3 Environmental History of Soils 85

earth’s surface as well as the gas exchange between terrestrial and atmospheric
systems. Soils are also a biological habitat and gene reserve, supporting a large
variety of organisms. Soils contain more species in number and quantity than all
aboveground ecosystems. Therefore, soils are a main basis of biodiversity. Soils are
also the physical basis for technical, industrial and socio-economic structures and
their development. Independent of all aforementioned functions, soils are a source
of raw materials, e.g. of clay, sand, gravel and minerals in general, as well as a
source of geogenic energy and water. Furthermore, soils are a cultural heritage,
protecting valuable paleontological and archaeological remnants.19 The roles soils
are expected to play for humans often exclude one another, leading to conflicts
about land-use such as those encountered between nature protection and infra-
structure development or quarrying.
Next to human-induced erosion and salinization, nutrient depletion is the most
prevalent damage to soil ecosystems inflicted by humans.20 Commonly, all these
processes are subsumed as ‘soil degradation’.21 In the UNCCD definition, degra-
dation is defined as “reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity
and complexity of rain fed cropland, irrigated cropland, or range, pasture, forest and
woodlands resulting from land uses or from a process or combination of processes,
including processes arising from human activities and habitation patterns, such as:
(i) soil erosion caused by wind and/or water, (ii) deterioration of the physical,
chemical and biological or economic properties of soil; and (iii) long-term loss of
natural vegetation”.22
Land-use resulting in the covering of soils with concrete and other materials to
use them for infrastructural purposes is a further major threat to soils, particularly
close to urban agglomerations. It is important to keep in mind that soils like all
ecosystems, are dynamic entities. Soils can be changed through management-
induced or through natural processes.

3.2.2.1 Erosion

Apart from impairments of soil quality, the mobility of soil as such is an important
issue. A term often used for soil mobility is ‘erosion’. Erosion is a natural process
which shapes the earth in an interplay with other processes such as volcanism and
tectonics. Through the action of water and wind, mountains are reduced to sand,
and within geological times, sediments undergo metamorphosis and uplift and end
as sandstone mountains, beginning the cycle anew. Erosion can benefit agriculture,
as its result, alluvial deposits or aeolian sediments such as loess are prime land for

19
Blum (2008).
20
Compare particulary Sect. 5.2 in Koehler (2005).
21
Lysenko (2004).
22
Section 1.2 in: Juergens (2006).

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cultivation. About 100–200 tons/Km2 of new soils are currently formed annually by
weathering processes.23
Erosion processes can often reach dangerous velocity and extent due to human
intervention. Enhanced erosion is a worldwide problem, but particularly pronounced
in tropical and subtropical climates. Between 1958 and 2001, a terrace in the central
loess plateau of China lost 3,400 m3 km−2 a−1 of soil. A fluvial catchment on clayey
substratum in the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa
displayed erosion of 5,400 T km−2 a−1 between 1949 and 1975. In the loess region of
the Palouse, Washington and Idaho, USA, about 7,600 T km−2 a−1 were eroded
between 1980 and 1998 and on deeply weathered crystalline rocks in Brazil
17,000 m3 or 23,000 T km−2 a−1 were displaced between 1850 and 1979.24 These
measured Brazilian soil destruction rates are more than 100 times higher than the
average rate of regeneration of soil material by weathering25. Erosion processes like
this are potentially able to remove the entire soil cover in a few centuries and would
then prevent agricultural use on the long term. But the upscaling of such results is not
easy. Continent-wide estimations seem to be rather doubtful as they are not based on
representative data, much remains incompletely understood.26
Humans have been aware of soil movement for a long time. In some places (such
as the Andes and central Mexico), soil erosion was stimulated by humans so that
soil could be collected and concentrated to create agricultural surfaces. In other
locations (e.g. Central and West Africa, northern Mexico), soil management sys-
tems were designed to minimize or prevent soil erosion associated with tillage and
vegetation, or to contain soil movement within a field by using vegetative
boundaries.27 Where large scale crop production developed to supply distant
markets, soil erosion was often ignored, went unchecked by human intervention,
and led to large scale soil loss.28,29

3.3 Human Interaction with Soils

3.3.1 Overview

Human interaction with soils predates agriculture. Non-agricultural peoples used

specific soils for medicinal purposes and to make pigments, while clay materials
were formed into containers. Red ochre served in burial rituals since Paleolithic

23
Arnold et al. (1990).
24
All data from Bork (2006).
25
Arnold et al. (1990).
26
Pimentel et al. (1995), Boardman (2006), Cogo and Levien (2006) and Flanagan (2006).
27
Reij et al. (1996).
28
Showers (2006).
29
The preceding chapter 3.2.2.1 Erosion is based on Winiwarter et al. (2012).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 87

times.30 Paleolithic hunters, using fire for hunting, unintentionally influenced soil
ecosystems via vegetation. Human-induced amplification of erosion has accom-
panied human life ever since the advent of a sedentary life-style.
Important origins of agriculture lay in the semi-arid south-west corner of Asia,
the Levant and Fertile Crescent east of the Mediterranean where water scarcity was
a limiting factor. Hence, irrigation techniques, next to the hoe or ard, were the main
early interventions into soils. Short-term and long-term interventions can be dis-
cerned. Dams, irrigation networks and terraces are among the longer-lasting.
Mechanical (such as hoeing, plowing and harrowing), chemical (fertilization and
soil amendments) and biological (weeding, mulching, and irrigating) cultivation
techniques influence soils on a shorter term. Salinization due to irrigation under arid
conditions was a problem for the early civilizations in the Indus and Euphrates/
Tigris valleys: soils there are still impacted. Archaeological excavations have
produced evidence for manuring for Bronze Age European settlements in areas as
far apart as Estonia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The practice seems to have
been widespread.31
From the early civilizations onwards, aside from their main use in agriculture,
soils were the basis of infrastructure. Roads and buildings sealed soils; cisterns,
cellars, sewers and waste pits all needed and changed soils.32
Figure 3.3 shows major types of interaction between humans and soils and their
impact on soil processes. Again, parent material, climate, vegetation and relief are
the natural factors determining which kind of soil is available. Human influences
differ with soil use: grazing animals on rangelands have influences different from
those on either cropland or forest. Infrastructural use leads to a fourth, apparently
different impact. Grazing can lead to changes in micro-relief and to compaction; it
also leads to nutrient input through animal feces. Humans using fire on pastures to
prevent perennial growth exert an influence on plant species, and hence, on soils.
Grazing animals likewise have an effect on vegetation, leaving poisonous or thorny
plants to grow. The impact on soils is widespread, as grazing areas are usually
large. Its details depend on the animal species and grazing patterns and density, but
the overall impact is relatively small. Human influence on the soils of croplands is
much more pronounced. Cultivation techniques such as hoeing, plowing and har-
rowing change the physical characteristics of soils. Fallowing, leaving soils to rest
from cultivation, was a time of intensive plowing at least in Roman antiquity. Wild
plant species growing on the land during fallow periods also influence the soil. Soils
were and are changed also by crop selection (the most striking example are
legumes, with their nitrogen-fixating abilities), by residue management (e.g. by
burning or plowing stubble) and, most importantly, by nutrient inputs through
fertilizing agents. Monoculture of any kind does change soils. Water management
plays a decisive role in irrigation agriculture. Some slow-growing crops leave land

30
Einwögerer (2005).
31
Bakels (1997), Reintam and Lang (1999).
32
This summary is based on Winiwarter (2006a).

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88 V. Winiwarter

bare for elongated periods, and thus can enhance erosion. From a soil standpoint,
harvest is a removal of nutrients, and hence, plays an important role in balances.
Soil ecosystems are nowadays influenced by agrochemicals, most of which can and
do enter the soil.

Fig. 3.3 Major types of interaction between humans and soils and their impact on soil processes.
(Adapted from Coleman et al. 2004)

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3 Environmental History of Soils 89

Forests have been used in a multifunctional form prior to the 18th and 19th
century in Europe. Grazing animals in forests, particularly pigs, led to an over-
turning of the uppermost soil layer as well as to nutrient inputs. Tree species are
inadvertently selected by grazing animals. Those saplings animals like eat are
disadvantaged. Later on, in Europe starting with the late Middle Ages, forests
would be seeded and planted with desirable species; in particular a change from
deciduous trees to conifers took place, which changed soil characteristics
profoundly.
Sealing of soils is the most profound change, a complete sealing means the end
of subterranean ecosystems, with solely the mineral matrix being left, but changes
to the water regime by partial sealing also change soil ecosystems. Infrastructural
use of soils can lead to soil pollution, and so often does mining. Soil remediation
techniques using plants which concentrate pollutants and a variety of chemical
treatments are used to restore such soils.
The lower part of Fig. 3.3 lists the processes in soils which are changed by the
various impacts of humans. Among the most important are influences on nutrient
status and nutrient cycling, weathering, texture and organic matter content.
Over the millennia, humans did change soils profoundly, on purpose and
inadvertently. We know of many examples where interventions did not have the
desired effect, or had massive side effects. Procuring food from the soil was always
a challenge, and societies responded to it by acquisition of knowledge and by
development of sophisticated cultivation techniques.

3.3.2 Soils in Agricultural Societies

Procuring a surplus from agricultural operations was never an easy task. Being a
successful farmer depended on good decisions as to crops, timing of operations,
diligent use of different fields according to their soil type, success in breeding, as
well as treatment of human and animal ailments, and yet was always at the mercy of
weather and pests such as locust swarms or animal maladies. The body of
knowledge necessary to be a good farmer is vast. Therefore, all major agricultural
societies collected and systematized knowledge about the management of agricul-
tural operations, and hence about soils, which will be discussed in the following
overview. These collections are one of the main sources for the reconstruction of
agricultural systems of the past, in addition to archeology or, in some cases, eth-
nological studies (‘ethnopedology’).
All humans living in agricultural societies possess knowledge about how to
produce harvests. Knowledge about soils falls into three broad categories: Without
a stable vocabulary about the phenomenon one wishes to transmit knowledge
about, transmission is not possible. Hence, systematic nomenclature and classifi-
cation, that is, observing characteristics of soils and their differences with regard to
agriculture and naming them, is a major part of soil knowledge. The second

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category is knowledge about the testing of soils, basically about ways and means to
distinguish fertile from infertile soils. This was of particular interest if virgin land
was to be put under the plow. The third category comprises all techniques to sustain
or amend soils, be it fertilization, lithic mulching or crop rotation, to name but a
few.
Readers have to be reminded that translation of technical texts requires not only
philological, but also technical expertise. While editors and commentators of
ancient works try to render the contents as well as possible, ambiguities do remain.
A translation is a rendering of an ancient system, which as a whole might be very
different from the current system, into the terminology of this current system. This
never works perfectly. Also, extant texts are almost never originals, historians work
from often distorted and incomplete later copies or collections. Inconsistencies
within texts therefore are rather the norm than the exception. It is difficult to infer
practices from these written texts, but this is still the luckiest case. Despite its
complexity, much agricultural knowledge was orally transmitted, and never doc-
umented in texts. We can only infer such knowledge from its surviving physical
effects. It is with these limitations in mind that readers should consult the following
sections.

3.3.2.1 China

China is one of the oldest agricultural civilization from which written testimony
survives. Chinese agricultural systems comprised few animals in comparison to
Europe, millet, rice and various vegetables such as cabbage being main staples. The
Chinese developed intensive uses of small-scale plots, such as combinations of fish
ponds with mulberry trees and sericulture, and tended to invest into intensive,
horticultural ways of making optimal use of the land, one of them being the ‘pit
cultivation’ system unique to China.
Joseph Needham, the great historian of Chinese science, has devoted part of his
book on botany to the discussion of early soil science, presenting the oldest extant
testimony of human concerns with soils in agricultural societies. The Kuan Tzu Ti
Yuan Phien which was probably written between the 5th and 2nd century BCE, is
probably the oldest extant text which classifies soils systematically. Three pro-
ductivity classes are discerned, and within each, six sub-classes are distinguished,
each with its own name. The author names the tree and plant species which grow
best on each soil, and informs about the yields to be expected. Farmland, literally
‘irrigable land’, is divided in five soil types and then classified by means of the
depth of the water-table—a remarkably systematic approach, and one which is
based on invisible characteristics, hence testifies to a kind of experimental
approach. The descriptions are very detailed. A soil called hsi thu is described as
fertile loess of silty texture, ca. 10 m above the water table, well suited for cereal
crops. After a list of plants growing on such soil, the author denotes people living
on such land as robust. When such land is dry, it gives out a ringing sound
corresponding to the musical note chio when knocked on. Other soils described

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within the category of farmland are given with a list of characteristics: chhi lu is said
to be reddish, crumbly, hard and fertile, particularly suited for hemp cultivation,
huang huang is yellowish, brittle, salty and alkaline soil, occurring on land liable to
flooding, useful only for the cultivation of millet. Chhih chih soils are argillaceous
and rather saline, with a much higher groundwater table of ca. 4 m, but apparently,
the author is convinced that wheat and soybean can be grown there. The hei chih
soils, dark, sticky, saline clay soils with groundwater at 2 m, can support the growth
of rice and wheat. The Kuan Tzu is not a stand-alone contribution. Even earlier than
this work, in the 5th century BCE, the Yü Kung, a geographical treatise, detailed the
soils of the ancient Nine Provinces of China. The Chou Li, a collection of texts
about the administration of the country, probably from the 3rd century BCE, dis-
cussed taxation in relation to soil type and hence, quality.33
Apart from naming soils, one needs also to test them for quality, as looks can be
deceptive. There is only scant evidence on soil testing in that part of the Chinese
literature which is available for the non-specialist. Needham speculates that the
terminology itself, hsi thu soils as opposed to hao thu soils bears witness of Chinese
knowledge about a test of soil quality which has also been described by Roman
agricultural writers (see below). The quality of the soil can be determined by
digging a pit and refilling the pit with the excavated earth. Hsi means ‘much’ or
‘full’, hao means ‘little’ or ‘lacking’. This way, they describe soil quality according
to the pit-test. If the material proved to be too much for the pit (as hsi thu denotes),
the soil would have been fertile, whereas in the opposite case, soil not filling the pit
would be infertile.34
Over five-hundred agricultural works are known for China before the end of
imperial rule (1912), with an outstanding contribution to agricultural science dating
as early as the 6th century CE. The Chhi Min Yao Shu (Essential Techniques for the
Peasantry) starts with a section on clearing and tilling the land, documenting the
importance of soil matters in agriculture. Like some other books of the genre, it was
obviously written by a practitioner who combined his own experience with the
wisdom of the already existing works. It is a main source for details about agri-
culture in the north of China. Together with several extant overviews and con-
centrating on particular topics, the Chhi Min Yao Shu allows us to reconstruct soil
management practices in detail. This 6th century manual is the oldest proof of green
manuring, of the use of the nitrogen fixating power of legumes to boost the growth
of subsequently planted other crops; the manual recommends particularly melons,
mallows and other vegetables. Manures comprised animal droppings collected with
the bedding straw of their stables; nitrogen-rich silkworm excrement was valued
highly, as was human excrement (nightsoil). Diligently prepared hemp waste, oil-
cake, or the cake left over from bean-curd making were added to the Chinese
fertilizer repertoire during the Sung and Ming dynasties (from the 10th century
onwards). The fertilizer repertoire was regionally differentiated, including animal

33
Needham et al. (1984).
34
Needham et al. (1986).

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bones and hoofs, chicken feathers and lime in various places, a total of 80 different
substances has been counted. Seeds were prepared for sowing by mixing them with
manure or compost (for which very detailed and complex recipes exist) and non-
organic soil amendments such as river mud were recommended, the latter for wheat
cultivation. As late as the 1930s, marine fish too small to market as food were dried
and sold as fertilizer, a practice which was certainly unsustainable with regard to the
fisheries, but benefitted the nutrient balance of soils.35 Chinese farmers and writers
knew that the application of the wrong type or amount of fertilizer could do more
harm than good and that some fertilizers could ‘burn’ crops.
Rice paddies needed and had to be treated with special care. Application of fer-
tilizing agents was time-sensitive. One manual gives a detailed prescription involving
four different types of fertilizers. “You should not put down manure too early or its
strength will not last […] Only at sowing time must river mud be applied as a base, and
although its strength is lasting and dissipates slowly, by midsummer you should apply
a little potash or oil-cake, which also dissipates slowly and is long-lasting. Only at the
end of the summer or the beginning of autumn should you apply nightsoil, by which
time it will have the double effect, so that the rice panicles will grow very long”.36
The creation of rice paddies is a long-lasting intervention into soils. Paddy fields
cover large areas of the Chinese south, bearing witness to a technique of human
creation of fertile soil. A hardpan soil layer on the bottom of the paddy is con-
sciously created to prevent water seepage, with a system of ditches, ridges and
dykes to control water flow. Yields are higher in paddies which are several years
old. Other special types of fields known in Chinese history are poldered fields (yü
thien), diligently ridged spaces to reclaim swampy areas such as in the Yangtze
delta, where the lakes had been turned into fields by the 12th century CE. On
marshy lake shores, floating fields were created from wooden frames, filled with
mud and water-weed, enabling the planting of crops on artificial soils.
Terraces are a feature of many agricultural systems. In China, they were con-
sidered beneficial to prevent erosion, conserve soil moisture and nutrients, and
improve yields. Terracing allows the cultivation of slopes otherwise unfit for irri-
gated agriculture and hence, enlarges the cultivable area. The Chinese agricultural
writers distinguish between stone-walled terraces and fields formed from piled-up
soil. Terraces are labor intensive to build and maintain, but the overall improvement
was obviously considered to outweigh the effort.
Chinese agriculture was based on cereals and vegetables, with pig, poultry and
fish as the main sources of animal protein. Interventions into soils were undertaken
consciously, and the extant manuals are proof of intricate and detailed technical
knowledge, based on systematical observations of key features of soils, both their
relation to the water-table and their situation with regard to the relief of the land-
scape. A system of soil classification was the basis for decisions on crops, rotations
and the timing, amount and quality of fertilizer to be applied, but also for the siting

35
Muscolino (2008).
36
Bray and Needham (1984).

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of engineering works for terraces and similarly treated fields. Nutrient recycling
techniques for cereal as well as for specialized types of cultivation such as seri-
culture (by using silkworm excrement as fertilizer) are highly developed in the
manuals. Although we know much less about the practice of the Ancient Chinese,
we do know that in their world-view soils held a special place. The Chinese are the
only agricultural people who worshipped the soil as such, not in the form of fertility
deities, but the material as it was. The soil cult did not prevent erosion, which
occurred time and again over the long course of Chinese history, often as a side-
effect of agricultural expansion. The altar of the Earth and Harvests in Sun Yat-sen
Park in Bejing, however, which was used from the 14th century CE onwards is an
architectural testimony to concern about soils.
There might still be reverence paid to soils on village altars today, but the picture
Lindert37 and others paint of current trends in erosion, pollution and other types of
soil degradation is not positive. As scholars like James Reardon Anderson have
pointed out, many of the trends which were enhanced in communist, industrial
China and are now continuing, have been started in the late 18th and 19th centuries,
when China expanded agriculture to lands that had formerly been pasture or for-
est.38 Due to large-scale interventions China has lost much of its forest cover,
leading to increased runoff and erosion. Industrialization has taken its toll in terms
of heavily polluted soils unfit for cultivation. With changing dietary habits,
increasing population and extremely fast industrialization, the pressure on China’s
soils is likely to increase in the coming decades.

3.3.2.2 Mesoamerica

It is pretty clear from archeological evidence that humid tropical lowlands were the
major settings for the origin and development of agricultural systems in Meso-
america. Maize and manioc cultivation were the drivers for the diffusion of swidden
agriculture from 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, giving the region a long history of
cultivation, and thus, of interaction with soils. Beach, Luzzader-Beach and Dunning
have detailed the history of soils in the area in an overview article.39
Our knowledge in terms of classification, testing and amending is much more
scarce for the Americas than for China. This is due in part to destruction of many
written sources by the conquering Europeans. The few extant sources are not
manuals about agriculture but basically survey texts and maps with glyphs denoting
soil quality. Nevertheless, Barbara Williams has been able to reconstruct Aztec soil
knowledge in some detail, which is the best documented of the entire continent.40
The classification in the Codice de Santa Maria de Asunción shows 104 variants for

37
Lindert (2000a).
38
Reardon-Anderson (2005).
39
Beach et al. (2006).
40
Williams (2006).

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soils over only 200 ha. Peasant farmers today apply four classes, and modern tax-
onomy ascribes five soil phases to the soils of this area. The 104 variants probably
represent 18 taxa and three separate class levels. Classification of soils was done in a
multi-dimensional system. One important denominator was grain size, stony, sandy,
clayey, silty and the volcanic tepetate soil particular to the area were distinguished,
each of them is described in some detail. The distinction between material that could
be crushed in the hand and that which could not, a main difference in the classifi-
cation system, is an experimentally derived denominator for Aztec soil taxa.
Tepetate (best rendered as ‘soft rock’) is a hardened volcanic tuff, which can be
found on the surface only after erosion has taken place. It is considered as marginal
land, but cultivable, if pulverized. A depiction of a man beating up tepetate soil is
preserved in a 16th century description made by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de
Sahagún, one of the main sources for Aztec agriculture. Loess soils, the result of
Pleistocene wind erosion, were denoted by a special glyph, which was described as
“that which swirls up, that which sweeps up”, possibly showing knowledge about
the Aeolian origin of these soils, but definitely about their inclination to wind ero-
sion. Soil classes between sand and clay, commonly called loams in English, are not
distinguished by special names, but rather by combining the names of the two
constituents, at least such conjunctures are used by Nahuatl speakers today. Each of
the main soil classes has several sub-classes, such as sandy clay or gravelly clay,
bother denoted by the combination of glyphs. Color does not play an important role
in the taxonomy of the Aztecs, but topography does, the soil on slopes has its own
name. Woodland and reedy soils are both characterized by their content of organic
matter, showing an understanding of its centrality for cultivation. The soil taxonomy
comprises a specific word for humus, tlazollali. It was understood to come from the
compost pile and to turn into fertile soil. Another term which bears witness to Aztec
understanding of soils as dynamic entities is a specific word for alluvial soils, those
that are the result of fluvial sediment deposition (atoctli), and again, several sub-
classes for this soil type are denoted. Moisture retention by soils, a particularly
important feature in arid or semi-arid lands such as those of the Aztecs, was included
in the nomenclature system, with two names for such soils. Even a notion for
anthrosols, soils which are co-created by humans, has come down to us in Nahuatl:
callalli denotes a soil where a house has been, it is considered to be fertile.
All classification systems found in agricultural societies also include a concept of
infertile soils. The Nahuatl word for them is tequixquitlalli, described as ‘salty,
bitter, corrosive, leached of its salt, unwanted, undesirable, waste and disregarded’,
the latter two could hint at soils which have become infertile by bad agricultural
practices. Tlalzolli is another word for bad soil, which will not support any growth,
because it is worn out.
Unfortunately, we lack information as to soil tests in Aztec agriculture. They
must have had some means of determining e.g. salty and bitter soil, but the extant
sources do not give information on such tests apart from the knowledge of two
grasses as indicator plants for tequixquitlalli and ashen soil (nextlallili), two infertile
soil types to be avoided. While these soils were considered unfit for agriculture,
they played a role in indigenous medicine.

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Aztec farmers pulverized tepetate soils to make them fit for planting, a strenuous
task, after which organic matter was added to increase fertility. Planting was
sometimes done in holes, which served as sediment traps and collected rain or
irrigation water, as Barbara Williams suggests. Glyphs exist also to describe fal-
lowing and fertilizing the soil with a substance which could probably be nightsoil.
The fertilizing agents comprised ‘refuse’, which cannot be identified, nightsoil, bat
dung, organic ash and alluvium. Irrigation canals filled with mud over time, and this
mud was brought back to the fields as another form of fertilization. One glyph
suggests that soils were mixed; in particular a woodland soil with high organic
matter content was mixed with clay, a procedure that makes agricultural sense,
although it is not fertilization in the strict sense.
Aztex agriculturalists are most famous for the chinampas, ridges constructed in
swampy areas and shallow lakes from the mud on the bottom mixed with aquatic
vegetation, not unlike the Chinese floating fields. These anthrosol garden beds were
highly fertile and supported the population concentrated in the Tenochititlan area
before Europeans conquered their state. Chinampas could be used for continuous
cropping, with seed beds (similar to those used in rice agriculture) saving space and
time. In contrast to these wetlands, drier soils had to be irrigated, and a multitude of
words exist in Nahuatl to describe irrigation related activities, implements and
constructions.
Salinization of soils was a problem in the northern part of the Basin of Mexico,
where salt production took place on the shores of saline lakes. Problems with
salinization increased after conquest. Farmers apparently had figured out that saline
soil is unproductive, but that the salt can be dissolved with freshwater. The farmers
of the early 19th century are reported to have dumped soil which had become saline
due to chinampas cultivation into Lake Texcoco, digging out fresh soil from
another spot. They would come back to the dumping spot after a while, when the
lake water had dissolved the unwanted sodium chloride, again ladling up the
cleaned soil for their gardens.
Taxation seems to have been dependent on soil quality, so soil knowledge was
not confined to farmers, but had to be possessed also by administrators. Like in all
other agricultural societies, soil knowledge was an integral part of everyday life, and
had cultic, medicinal and technical aspects. Only a very small part of this knowledge
system can be reconstructed from the scarce evidence left after conquest.
The Aztecs, like so many other civilizations, built irrigation networks and
agricultural terraces, thereby influencing pedogenesis, erosion and, of course,
fertility.
Terrace building is not confined to the Aztec peoples. In Middle America alone,
three common types of terraces can be distinguished. Firstly, one finds sloping-field
terraces, which span gentle hillsides and do not change much the angle of the slope.
They are built to retain soil behind the terrace wall, making it deeper, and to collect
moisture. These terraces also retain nutrients by retaining topsoil, which might be
washed away by rains. The second type of terraces are bench terraces, which are
made to produce leveled platforms along the contour. In Middle America, these
terraces were usually irrigated. Cross-channel terraces were built by placing check

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dams or weirs across narrow valleys or ephemeral brooks to collect sediments for
cultivation, using erosion to build up new agricultural land.41 Terrace building
entailed a large investment of labor and material, and created long-lasting changes
to landscapes and their soils. Which kind of changes terracing brings to the soil
depends on many factors such as terrace and soil type, cultivation regime and
fertilization techniques. Positive and negative effects on soil quality have been
described in a worldwide survey of terraces by Jonathan Sandor.42 Terracing in the
Americas is an old practice. For Puerto Rico, terraces can be dated to at least 1300
BP (ca. 650 CE). Human induced or enhanced erosion is at least of the same
antiquity in the region. Evidence of soil erosion appears in the sediment record
around the same time on Hispaniola.

3.3.2.3 Amazonia

The lush vegetation of tropical rainforests mislead European conquerors to assume

that the soils underneath the tropical paradise must be very fertile. It soon became
clear that rainforest soils can only be cultivated sustainably by long fallow swidden
techniques, as almost all nutrients are contained in the biomass. The soils are very
poor and prone to degradation and accelerated erosion once the forest is cleared. So
Amazonia became to be considered a vast tract of infertile land, until scientists at
the end of the 19th century discovered patches of dark earth underneath the forests.
Terra Preta de Indio or Amazonian Dark Earth is a local name for the soil of these
patches.43
Nowadays it is known that the dark earths occur in several countries in South
America and probably beyond. They were most likely created by pre-Columbian
Indians between 1000 years BCE and 1500 years CE and abandoned after the
invasion of Europeans. Many questions about their origin, distribution, and prop-
erties remain unanswered, but it is clear that they are a product of indigenous soil
use. Whether they were intentionally created for soil improvement or whether they
are a by-product of habitation is not clear at present. As the notion comprises earths
of varied features throughout the Amazon Basin (terra preta and terra mulata being
frequently distinguished); they might have different histories. Terra mulata is
thought to be the product of intentional anthropogenic activities, based on intensive
swiddens or patch cultivation, with long-lasting agricultural activity, involving
recurrent clearing of vegetation and incomplete combustion of organic material.
Amazonian Dark Earths contain about five times as much carbon as the sur-
rounding soils, and the enriched horizons are twice to three times as thick as the
surrounding soil, most often about half a meter. Carbon is life’s building block, and
usually circulates relatively quickly through soils. But the organic matter in the dark

41
Whitmore and Turner (2001).
42
Sandor (2006).
43
Lehmann et al. (2003).

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earths persists hundreds of years after they were abandoned, because it consists of
black carbon, as in soot or charcoal, coming from burnt biomass. In addition to
carbon they contain more phosphorus, nitrogen and calcium than the surrounding
soils. Fallows on Amazonian Dark Earths can be as short as 6 months, whereas
fallow periods on the surrounding forest soils need to be eight to 10 years long. The
size of the patches varies, ranging from small patches of less than one hectare
scattered within the normal upland soils, to areas of several km2 stretched along
river bluffs and interfluves. Terra preta often contains debris such as animal bone
fragments, turtle carapaces, shells, excrement, potsherds and remains of plants used
for houses, but the reason for their fertility are likely changes in the microbial
community due to the changes in substrate. They are currently investigated by soil
microbiologists.
Looking at the soil, it becomes clear that Amazonia’s rain forest is not a pristine
wilderness, but the location of probably the oldest ceramic finds in the Americas, and
presumably, the world, dating to 5000 BCE–3500 BCE. Nearly continuous habitation
has been proven for a site near the mouth of the Amazon river, which was occupied as
early as 3500 BCE. Occupation of the Amazon, which has been widespread and is
documented in a multitude of known archaeological sites, ended with the European
conquest, or shortly thereafter. Agriculturalists who had by luck discovered how to
transform the infertile forest soils into useful ones, and then probably experimented to
create larger patches of this precious resource, vanished almost without trace. The
record of the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana, of his voyage down the Amazon
in 1542, where he provisioned himself by raiding villages along the river and reported
to have seen very large settlements standing on a slope on the northern shore of the
river near the Rio Madeira, has probably been wrongly dismissed.
The soils of the vanished people persist to date. Terra preta can be mined and is
sold by truckload or pot for gardening and agriculture. Scientists try to create dark,
fertile soils by inoculating rainforest soils with charcoal, with promising results.
The high carbon storage capacity of these soils makes them an interesting experi-
mental field for greenhouse gas policies.

3.3.2.4 Other Regions

The environmental histories of soils in South Asia, Africa, or Australia are less well
researched than those of China or Europe, and are often based solely on archaeo-
logical evidence. Nevertheless, some observations on soil classifications, soil
testing methods and diligent use of soils have been made and are available to the
non-specialist through overviews. Before turning to two such examples, the case of
Easter Island should briefly be mentioned. The remote Pacific island is a place
where phases of sustainable and unsustainable land-use are visible in the archae-
ological and pedological record.44 Easter Island is one of the sites of successful

44
Bork and Mieth (2006).

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cultivation using lithic mulching. This technique—adding a layer of stones on top

of fertile soil—is used to curb erosion and limit evaporation. There are many
instances of lithic mulching documented around the world.45

India

South Asia is the home of some of the most ancient human settlements. The
Harappan Civilization in the Indus valley dates to 3200 BCE and thrived in Mo-
henjodaro from agriculture, grazing and trade until ca 1900 BCE.46 The archaeo-
logical record of terraced fields allows us to assume knowledge about water and soil
retention having been available at that time. In the Ganges valley, the situation is
similar. Archaeological evidence shows that wild rice was being used as early as
9000–8000 BCE at sites near Allahabad, but reliable evidence from pollen of
settled agriculture for most of the valley does not appear until about 6000 BP
(*4000 BCE).
The testimony of the Vedas, religious texts of uncertain age, offers a coarse
terminology for soils. Land was classified as waste (ushara), especially when
saline, pasture (gochara/vraja/ghoshtha) and cultivated (karsha). Cultivated land
could be furrowed (sitya) and plowed (halya). The Vedic texts show that ancient
Indians acknowledged the positive effect of alluvium deposition by rivers, and
distinguished two types of riverbed erosion. One text, the Vishnu Purana (1st
century CE), offers distinctions of soils by color (black, white or yellowish, red or
blue, and golden) and texture or morphology, namely gravelly and hilly or boul-
dery. Soil quality is connected to water quality in another of these texts, the Brihat
Samhita, which also discerns soil and rock type by depth. The Manusmriti, a
compilation of Hindu law composed in its final form in the 2nd or 3rd century CE,
advises against the use of iron-tipped plows because they injure the earth and its
creatures. Another piece of evidence for soil knowledge in India is contained in the
Arthashastra, a treatise on how the well-being of a people should be organized,
plausibly dated to 3000 BCE. In the chapter on the duties of the superintendent of
agriculture (XXIV), the existence of systematic agricultural knowledge is pre-
sumed. The superintendent must either possess such knowledge himself or be
assisted by those who do. The text advises on suitable lands for particular crops,
without giving a classification—it has referred readers to the agricultural knowledge
beforehand—but informs e.g. that lands that are frequently overflown by water
(parivahanta) are good for long pepper, grapes and sugar-cane. The text does also
give some indication of manuring practices, stating that water-pits at the root of
trees are to be manured with the bones and dung of cows on proper occasions.
Likewise, sprouts of seeds are to be manured with a fresh haul of minute fishes and

45
Lightfoot (1997).
46
Wasson (2006).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 99

irrigated with the milk of Euphorbia Antiquorum, a succulent native to parts of

India which has a latex of pungent odor.
A contemporary source (the Krishi) offers a difference between rain-fed and
river-fed land, and discusses the cultivation of fresh alluvium, where vegetables can
be grown with the aid of cow manure, which, the writer suggests, could also be
used dried and pulverized in paddies. The difficulties of cultivation on hard, iron-
black soil are acknowledged, soil was plowed often, as many as five times before
sowing, and remaining clods were to be broken by a harrow. The Kas-
hyapiyakrishisukti was written mostly in the 7th or 8th century CE. It is an agri-
cultural treatise, giving a detailed account of methods of cultivation, the
identification of suitable land and the construction of irrigation works. According to
this text, good land should be devoid of stones and bones; a pliant (plastic) clay,
very unctuous (greasy) with reddish and black hue, and glossy with water; neither
too deep nor too shallow; conducive to speedy seedling emergence; easy to plow
and cultivate; water absorbent, and replete with beneficial organisms such as
earthworms; and devoid of thorns and cow dung, thickly set and compact, and
heavy when it was lifted. There is some evidence of soil testing in the text: A hole is
to be dug and the effects of the digging observed repeatedly. Several characteristics
of the soil are to be observed, among them color and uniformity of color, taste,
fluidity, and stickiness. Cow and goat excrement, compost and tendrils of creepers
are mentioned as manuring substances.
An agricultural text from Mughal India, which was transcribed in 1693, the
Nushka Dar Fanni-Falahat, is of particular interest for the diligence employed in
preparation of planting sites and the wide range of manures mentioned: Pits dug for
olive trees should be left open for a year or burnt, presumably to kill pathogens.
Burnt cow bones and dung are recommended as fertilizers for trees. Apart from
dung and bones, salt and nitre (saltpetre), vine sap, eggs, olive leaf-sap, pig dung,
human urine, night soil and sheep blood are mentioned. The text also offers a
description of suitable soils for a list of cultivars, similar to all other extant agri-
cultural manuals.
The native classification of soils and the uses soils were put to during the
Mughal reign were recorded by an East India Company employee in the 18th
century, rendering four soil types and eight types of land, each was characterized by
its situation with respect to elevation and vicinity to watercourses. Like in other
agricultural civilizations, where revenue depended largely on land taxes, the dis-
tinction between classes of land was made by fertility.
For later times, ‘native’ classifications and methods are known mainly through
the reports of colonial officials or travelers. In one of these accounts, dating to 1820,
the pit-digging soil test which was used both in China and Europe, is described as
being used by the farmers of the Malabar province. By using the test, these farmers
distinguished sandy and clays soils, preferring clays.

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Africa

The huge continent of Africa cannot be subsumed into one story. Its soils are varied
and their distribution very patchy, depending on slope, bedrock, and rainfall. Two
case studies aim at showing the diversity. Places as different as the Nile valley and
the Kalahari desert, to name but two of the iconic landscapes of the continent, do
exhibit very different histories with regard to their soils. Kate Showers has pointed
out how greatly the perception of African soils has been shaped and influenced by
colonial, European, mindsets and expectations. Many African regions offer no
historical sources pre-dating colonial impacts; this scarcity of evidence and lack of
research makes it difficult to compare African agricultural societies with those of
other continents. We have to rely on ethnopedology for case studies except for the
Nile valley.47
Deirdre Birmingham has done ethnological research to investigate the soil
knowledge of the Bété and Senufro peoples in Cote d’Ivoire. The Bété people, who
live in the equatorial forest zone, distinguished from 10 to 12 mutually exclusive
soil types, on the basis of gravel, texture, and color. The Bété used their senses—
touch, sight, smell, and even hearing (for testing soil grittiness)—to determine soil
properties. While the determining characteristic was absolute, other properties
varied. The range for nondetermining properties, such as that of colors, was often
described. Although names for the same soil may vary due to dialectical differences
among villages, descriptions of each soil type were essentially the same. Animals,
earthworms, and termites that carry soils to the surface help the Bété identify soil
types, particularly subsoils. The Senufo, living in the guinea-savanna zone, used an
entirely different system. Land types include land that floods annually (fa’a or
fadoulgou), land that does not flood annually (shopegay or shofigay), and land that
is barren and rocky (yandalga). Each valley bottom may carry its own name,
sometimes given as the soil or land type. While the Senufo know that gravelly soils
are found on the crests and upper slopes, with softer soils on the midslopes to valley
bottoms, they do not classify soils. They know, however, variations in their plots
and prefer certain soil qualities. The features they use to distinguish among soils
(gravel content, texture, and color) influence the soil properties of importance to
them: these are primarily the rates of water infiltration and retention, and soil
workability. The main difference to the Bété system is the integration of the dis-
tinction between soil types into those of land: Each place is characterized by a
specific set of qualities, and soil is not analytically taken apart from these.48
Systems of soil description and sensually aided determination of soil qualities
are widespread among agricultural people. As the two African examples show, the
systems can differ markedly, but all agricultural peoples do possess traditional
ecological soil knowledge acquired through experience and transmitted orally as
part of their life-world knowledge. Oral traditions are often broken due to people

47
Cooper (1977).
48
Birmingham (2003).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 101

removed from their ancestral land, and many of the soil classification and testing
systems of Africa are probably lost with the people who had possessed them.
Written sources, by contrast, allow access to the soil history of peoples long
gone. The Nile Valley is one of the most ancient agricultural landscapes, and the
site of an elaborate civilization. It has been studied in particular by economic
historians, who have also shown some interest in soils.49 The basis of cultivation,
the Nile floods, have been decisive for cultivation since the onset of agriculture in
the valley. While it would be a fallacy to assume that agriculture did not change
substantially from Pharaonic Egypt onwards, the overview of Egyptian agriculture
from 640 to 1800 CE, in which Richard Cooper details how soils were used,
provides a good overall description. The cultivable land is clayey, and of black
color (which gave rise to the Ancient Egyptian name for the Nile valley, Kemet,
meaning black). Like all clays, the land is difficult to plow, and can dry to hardpans,
if worked at the wrong condition. While the annual Nile floods deposited a layer of
mud from weathered sandstone and granite upstream before the Aswan dam was
built, this fertile silt did not contain all necessary nutrients. Potassium and phos-
phorus were supplied, but the low nitrogen content had to be supplanted by the
cultivation of legumes, in particular lucerne, which was used for grazing and then
plowed under.
Ruins and trash-heaps were used to supplant nitrogen in the Islamic period, as
was a nitrate-bearing clay available in some regions. The Egyptian farmers had a
name for salt-contaminated land. They used land in the vicinity of such spots for
manuring flax. The practice of keeping dove-cots was widespread and resulted in
precious dove droppings available as manure. Keeping pigeons meant that fields
needed protection from them after sowing, seeds had to be covered with earth.
Therefore, the land was flattened with a tree trunk pulled across the fields after
plowing and seeding. Cinders and the stalks of harvested plants were used as
fertilizers, and the practice of fallowing was also known. When European imple-
ments were introduced, it turned out that local plows, which did not turn the soil,
proved better adapted to the cultivation of Egyptian lands than the imported
moldboard plows.
Through a fascinating set of sources on a large estate in the Fayum during the
Roman period (30 BCE–640 CE) we can follow the reclamation of land for agri-
cultural purposes by means of an elaborate system of dykes and canals.
The Graeco-Roman town of Philadelphia was situated on the eastern edge of the
oasis of Fayum’s cultivated land, in the north-western part of Egypt. It was a
Roman garrison and its founder Apollonius, had a large estate laid out for him in the
1st century CE. His lands were partially sandy desert, partially marshland over-
grown with brushwood and reeds, only some of which had been previously watered
with irrigation works or drained. This land was transformed into good arable land
for cereals, vineyards and orchards through the well-planned construction of dykes
and the digging of canals and drainage ditches, after cutting wood and reeds.

49
Bowman and Rogan (1999).

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102 V. Winiwarter

The operation of the estate was not an easy task even after the irrigation and
drainage system had been finished. We know of a complaint from a person named
Psentaes, one of the peasants to whom land was given, that his whole plot had never
before been plowed, and therefore was full of gullies.50
Experts were needed to plan irrigation and drainage works. Petechon, an engi-
neer and contractor, was working on the major parts of the irrigation and drainage
system, in particular on the great canal of Kleon, which irrigated sandy land, and on
a complicated drainage system for the recovery of marshy land by means of ditches.
In his correspondence we also find that land which was salty was considered
hopelessly unproductive. The detailed sources we have on the construction of the
irrigation and drainage system testify to the large investments of knowledge and
labor that were undertaken in Antiquity to establish productive agricultural systems.
We can safely assume that the amount of labor, material, knowledge and organi-
zation needed for the Egyptian system were comparable to those of equally com-
plex systems found elsewhere in the world.
Colonial exploitation has scarred African landscapes, whose soils are often
delicate and prone to degradation. A wealth of studies has confirmed the common
pattern of ignorance on the part of the colonizers, coupled with their self-
assuredness of knowing it better and their interest in supporting their own econo-
mies by often recklessly exploiting colonial environments as being destructive to
soils.51 African soils are nowadays part of a global economy based on unequal
distribution which leads to high demands on soils in the poor countries of what used
to be called the Third World. This does not aid to their sustainable use. A ‘Doubly
Green Revolution’ has been proposed by agronomists in the 1990s to counteract the
widespread unsustainable use of soils.

3.3.2.5 The Mediterranean

We possess abundant evidence about soils and their use for a large part of the
human history of the Mediterranean.52 Although landscapes are varied and an array
of cultivation techniques has been developed, there are some common features in
the climatic regime and soil types commonly encountered which allow us to discuss
common features. One contrast to the northern parts of the European continent is
the semi-arid character of its climate. The most important limiting factor for agri-
culture was water, whereas the shortness of the growing season and the danger of
frost were limiting factors further north.
The history of agricultural knowledge in the Mediterranean starts with a work of
which only blurred traces exist, Mago of Carthage’s comprehensive treatise on
agriculture, which is said to have comprised 28 volumes. It was rescued during the

50
Rostovtzeff (1922).
51
Fairhead and Leach (1996), Showers (2005).
52
Winiwarter (2006b, c).

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fall of Carthage (146 BCE) so must be older than that. The Roman Senate com-
missioned its translation. Many other works have been lost and are only known
through references, but we have the works of Hesiod, Theophrast and Xenophon in
Greek, and those of Cato the Elder, Varro, Virgil, Columella, Pliny the Elder and
Palladius in Latin. Taken together they allow a detailed reconstruction of soil
terminology and tests for soil quality. Sources on soil uses are likewise abundant.
All authors represent members of the landed elite, so what we actually have
information about is not peasant agriculture, but for the most part typical of the
system of large estates. A 10th century CE Byzantine collection, the Geoponika, is
the sole surviving manual for the Byzantine empire, itself based on works from the
5th and 6th centuries. As has already been noted for the Chinese tradition,
knowledge in the Mediterranean realm has been compiled, excerpted and combined
with personal observations and experiences over the centuries. Rodgers has pro-
duced a graphical rendering of the connections between texts on Agriculture in
Arab, Latin, and Greek.53
Xenophon’s dialogue Oikonomikos has some information on soil qualities, albeit
not very differentiated: The basic idea is that soil and plant are an interactive
system. To be a successful farmer one must first know the nature of the soil, for if
one does not know what the soil is capable of growing, one cannot know what to
plant or what to sow.54
Soils can be ‘fat’ or ‘lean’, dry or moist, and by means of the plants that grow
(‘indicator plants’) on a piece of ground one can judge the quality of this ground.
Xenophon is concerned about the right timing for plowing and sowing. Manuring is
suggested as a means of bettering the soil. Xenophon’s information on soil quality
is the most basic knowledge one can expect in agriculture, and in this does not differ
from knowledge transmitted from other agrarian civilizations.
The soil classification of the Roman writers is much more elaborate. In contrast
to the Chinese taxonomy, which worked in a holistic way, Latin soil descriptions
are based on an array of adjectives, which comprise all important aspects of soils in
several classes per aspect. Of these aspects, grain size, density and structure,
humidity and color correspond to modern categories, whereas fertility, ‘taste’,
‘temperature’ and some special properties do not. There are important conceptual
differences between the authors. The practically minded, though very learned
agriculturalist Columella set up a simple systematic soil classification system,
which rests on dichotomies: soil can be dry or wet, dense or loose, and fat or lean.
His interest is the overall soil quality for agriculture, for which these three qualities
are surely encompassing and accurate. Varro, less pragmatic than Columella, uses a
theory about soils which holds that the different types are generated by mixing of
eleven kinds of (mineral) substances. Varro explains: “For there are many sub-
stances in the soil, varying in consistency and strength, such as rock, marble,
rubble, sand, loam, clay, read ochre, dust, chalk, ash, carbuncle (that is, when the

53
Rodgers (2002).
54
Xenophon (1992).

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ground becomes so hot from the sun that it chars the roots of plants); and soil if it is
mixed with any part of the said substances, is e.g. called chalky, as well as
according to other differences as mixed.”55
Like all other terminological systems the Ancient Mediterranean ones were
made to aid agricultural practice. They are therefore all concerned with combina-
tions of soils and plants—there is, in fact, no bad soil, only a badly treated one,
writes Columella in one instance, probably slightly overstating his case. Xenophon
was the first to make clear that there are suitable soils, suitable for a specific plant
or, more generally, under specific circumstances of cultivation.56 In the centuries
after him, authors tried to define what makes a soil good and/or suitable. Some
authors refined the determination of soil qualities in order to be able to give suit-
ability descriptions which are inter-subjective. Others took into account that plants
will grow optimally at a particular site, but might still be grown elsewhere, thus
developing a plant-relative quality measure.
The Roman authors are most explicit about the methods needed to test a soil for
its quality. They describe the same test which we have encountered already in
China and India, a test for structural stability of soils. After digging a hole into the
ground, one tries to refill the hole. If the earth has increased in volume, leaving a
small hill, it is fertile. If the volume has not changed and the hole can be filled
evenly, the earth is of middle quality. The soil quality is meager if the soil volume
has decreased due to digging and the earth leaves a trough.57 According to Colu-
mella, this test is not applicable to black soils. Land cover of pristine land has been
important in assessing soil suitability in several of the agricultural civilizations.
Indicator species are named that allow one to distinguish between sweet and saline
grounds, and especially between grounds fit for grain or not. Columella gives a long
list of plants58; Pliny remarks generally on the possibility of plant cover as a soil
quality indicator59 and refers to a list of plants that Cato had already given. Col-
umella, who is generally the most cautious author, warns against relying on plant
cover as the sole indicator.
Like the Bété of Cote d’Ivoire, like Ancient Chinese and probably also like the
Aztecs, Roman agriculturalists relied on their senses to determine soil quality.
Nowadays it is known that the typical smell of earth is due to the activity of fungi,
in particular Actinomyces. Fungi play a crucial role in soil biology, and a soil that
exhibits the typical earthly odor is obviously healthy even by modern standards.
Pliny60 already mentions soil smell as an indicator of overall fecundity, which
according to him is strongest when rain wettens a surface that has dried out, and
also becomes stronger when the soil is worked. Taste was likewise employed. As it

55
Varro (1996–1997).
56
Xenophon (1992).
57
Columella (1982a), Vergilius 5(1987a).
58
Columella (1982b).
59
Plinius Secundus (1995).
60
Plinius Secundus (1994a).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 105

is very unpleasant to taste the soil directly, and as the compounds which make a soil
salty or bitter are water-soluble, soil-impregnated filtrates could be used for testing.
One takes clear, fresh water and mixes it thoroughly with a soil sample. Once the
mixture is filtered, through an unglazed earthenware or a sieve as used in wine-
making (so Virgil)—details vary depending on the author—one can cautiously taste
the water, which will have taken on the taste of the soil.61 This test is said to be
particularly important for wine-growing as the wine will pick up the taste of the
soil. In modern oenology this concept has been resurrected as ‘terroir’.
Water retention capacity and organic matter content are important factors
determining the quality of a soil, in particular under semi-arid conditions. The
Roman writers report a specific test for these qualities, which is still used by soil
scientists in the field. One takes a small clod of soil, adds a few drops of water to
moisturize it and then moulds it in the palm of the hand. If it becomes sticky and
clings to the skin, the soil is of good quality (explained in terms of ‘natural
humidity’ and ‘richness’).62 Pliny remarks that, because potters clay, which is
infertile, also shows this stickyness, the test is inconclusive.63
Interestingly, there was no hiatus or breach in the transmission of agricultural
knowledge between pagan Antiquity and the Christian Middle Ages. A proof of this
is a commentary to the Bible by the church father Jerome who lived ca. 350–420
CE. Jerome was thoroughly a part of late antique Roman culture, but his works
helped transmit some of that to the Middle Ages. He was born in Dalmatia, had
traveled the Middle East, and then lived in Trier and Rome, and spent his last years
in a monastery he had founded. He wrote several commentaries to books of the
bible. In the Commentary to Isaia 14, 22–23 (I will cut off from Babylon her name
and survivors, her offspring and descendants, declares the LORD. I will turn her
into a place for owls and into swampland) Jerome uses vocabulary contrasting
swampland, which is muddy and silty, to a fertile irrigated field, writing: “… where
there is not an irrigated field, which produces diverse fruit from seed, but infertile
swamps, muddy and silty, in which nightly animals enjoy themselves.” The
vocabulary he uses in the commentary (limosus, lutosus, irriguus) is found nowhere
in the Vulgate Bible. Jerome tries to explain what one is to understand by the
biblical ‘swampland’ and its owls using terms he must have known from elsewhere,
namely from the agricultural heritage of pagan Antiquity.
The Byzantine tradition is similar to that of the early Latin west. The beginning of
the Geoponika discusses the quality of land: “The best land is that, the soil of which
is of a black color, recommended above all, for it is proof against wet and drought.
The next is that of a yellowish hue, and that which is thrown up by rivers, on which
they bestow the epithet miry, and that which is sweet, and that which feels warm; for
these kinds are known to be adapted to vines and trees, and to the propagation of
corn. A deep soil is also recommended, especially if it is friable and not hard to work,

61
Palladius (1976a), Vergilius 5(1987b).
62
Vergilius 5(1987c), Columella (1982c), Palladius (1976b).
63
Plinius Secundus (1994b).

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106 V. Winiwarter

and not calculated to the production of trees only; but a red mould is very good for
other things, it is not however fit for the production of trees”.64 This short text
contains the main indicators for soils in an agricultural context: Besides color and
depth, sweetness (that is, the absence of salt and bitterness, both indicators of soils
unfit for cultivation), and warmth are listed. Soil quality is seen as being dependent
on the plants to be cultivated, not just as an intrinsic quality of the soil.
Learned medieval writers read Greek, and Latin remained the language of the
learned in the western Mediterranean, it was even read by authors in Muslim Spain,
who wrote in Arabic. The agricultural knowledge of Antiquity remained available
mainly to monks, who had access to monastic libraries, but was not confined to
them. New soil knowledge was mainly incorporated into encyclopedias in the
Middle Ages. However, a learned North Italian citizen by the name of Petrus de
Crescentiis, or Piero de Crescenzi who had worked as legal adviser to city councils
for three decades before writing his book, wrote an agricultural manual. His Ruralia
Commoda were finished around 1300. They offer a full-scale treatment of all
matters rural. It enjoyed great popularity and was translated into several European
languages, among them Italian, French and Polish. It was also printed at least six
times in three languages before 1500, with a circulation of several hundred books
for each printing. He developed soil terminology further, using 12 new adjectives
not found in the manuals of Antiquity.
Petrus de Crescentiis devotes a chapter of his second book to the question how
the fecundity of soil can be determined. He starts with a detailed list of qualities a
good soil should not have, such as being gravelly, clayey, bitter or salty, and then
goes on to describe indicator plants such as raspberry, cane or clover, which, if they
grow of their own accord on unused land, can be taken as indicative of good soil.
The color of the soil is not of high value in determining its quality; its fatness and
sweetness are most important. The fatness can be tested by sprinkling a clod with
water and kneading it, if it gets gluey and sticky, it is fat. The sweetness can be
tested by placing a sample from the part of the field which looks least desirable into
fresh water and taste it.65 With the exception of the advice that sampling should
take place at the worst looking part of the field, Petrus de Crescentiis offers old
wisdom here: all his tests and considerations are already described in texts from
Antiquity. But the practical advice to choose the sampling place well is a welcome
addition to knowledge. Specific indicator plants are also given in the book on
viticulture (IV, 6). His treatment of soils in the general chapter is not very detailed,
but he names the suitable soil for many of the tree and herb species he lists in the
compendium.
About a century earlier, Ibn al-’Awwâm’s Kitab al-filaha, written in Muslim
Spain, offered a complete treatment of all aspects of agriculture. We know next to
nothing about the author, who lived probably in Seville and wrote his elaborate

64
Owen (1806a).
65
Petrus de (1995–2000).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 107

treatise in the middle of the 12th century. He used Arabic, Greek and Latin sources
and wrote in Arabic.
Ibn al-’Awwâm’s book offers a very detailed treatment of soils, which is com-
piled in the first chapter. The main determinants of quality to him are the capacity of
a soil to warm up and to hold water. Black soils (here color is used in indicator
function) are usually able to absorb heat. Red and yellow soils have a smaller heat
absorbing capacity. White soil is cold and has no affinity to warmth. But Ibn al-
’Awwâm knows that color can be deceptive, and he gives other qualities as well.
The most desirable texture of a soil is that which looks similar to old and ready-to-
use manure (probably compost), a soil which is not at all compact. Alluvial soil, a
mixture of alluvium and sand, is second to the compost-lookalike in humidity and
freshness (coolness). The coarser a soil, the drier it is, and a soil which is composed
of gravelly sand without any clay or alluvium hence is the driest. Cohesion and
hardness of the clod are main indicators for the dryness of a soil; hardness can reach
that of stone. Soils containing a lot of alluvium are good soils for growing vege-
tables, unless the texture of the soil surface is gummy and viscous.
Experiments to determine soil quality, of which Ibn al-’Awwâm offers several,
are best conducted at the onset of winter. Smell and taste, as well as the visual
indicators given above, are the main criteria. Indicator plants, although they
sometimes can be misleading, play an important role, too. The lushness of natural
vegetation indicates water holding capacity, a main criterion for quality. Soil testing
is done by mixing soil with water and tasting the liquid. If it is salty, it can only be
used for palm plantations. Smelling the water can add to the information, as a badly
smelling earth is not fertile. Quoting a writer named Sidagos, Ibn al-’Awwâm even
presents a parallel experimental setting for the tasting. The most astounding and
unique experiment prescribed by the author is a test aimed at soil biota. A sample of
soil is placed in a tightly sealed clay pot and reburied where it was taken. After
1 week and again after 2 weeks, if the pot is not yet covered with humidity after the
first period, the soil is inspected. If the insects in the pot are black, purple or green,
the soil quality is mediocre. If they are yellow, red or grey, or of a brownish or light
green or white color, the soil is of good quality. The smell of the sample is also
taken into consideration: foul smell indicates bad soil.
Soils were treated elaborately in the Mediterranean, terracing, irrigation, crop
rotation and green manuring were known and practiced. Columella even measures
the quality of a farmer by his ability to procure a given amount of manure from his
stables.66 The prescriptions on manuring are manifold and comprise not only
organic manures but also mineral soil amendments, in particular, marl.67 Like
medicine and astrology in Antiquity, agricultural knowledge was rooted in the
system of four humors (humorism). The theory, systematized by Ancient Greek
thinkers around 400 BC, is based on analogies between the four body fluids black

66
Columella (1983) While this is the best edition and commentary, for quick reference of an
English translation: Columella (1941/1948).
67
Winiwarter and Blum (2008).

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108 V. Winiwarter

bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood, the four elements water, fire, earth and air, but
also seasons, organs, celestial bodies and more. Paired qualities (cold/hot and wet/
dry) were associated with each humor. Imbalances between the qualities were
conceived as the reason for illnesses and moodiness in humans, but also for the lack
of fertility of a soil leading to dietary recommendations, cures of ailments and to
prescriptions of manures aimed at re-establishing the balance in the soil. Therefore,
many agricultural recipes talk about situations where something is too cold, too hot,
or too dry or wet. While some of these qualities correspond with physically mea-
sureable parameters of soils, not all do. While this theory has long been discarded, it
lead to an astoundingly systematic discussion of soils in the agricultural literature.
The lesser-known Geoponika can serve as an example of the typical knowledge
about manures: Its twenty-first chapter concerns manure: “Manure makes good land
better, and it will be of greater service to that which is bad; but that which is
naturally good does not want much manure; that which is of a middling quality, a
little more; and that which is thin and weak, a great deal”.68 We further read that
manure should be dispersed, as an over-abundance causes scorching. Unmanured
land becomes stiff. Compost should not be thrown directly on the roots, but packed
between two layers of earth. This will prevent the burning of the roots and, by
covering the compost, prevent its heat from evaporating. Heat, one of the qualities
discerned in humor theory, can be interpreted in modern terms as the energy
contained in the molecules of fertilizing agents such as nitrates, which would indeed
be better preserved under a protective layer of earth. Bird droppings, with the
exception of that of water birds, are useful, because of their moisture. Pigeon dung
is superior; therefore it is sometimes mixed with the seed when planted, without
further preparation. In addition to rendering an impotent soil more powerful, pigeon
dung can also eradicate agrostis, a grassy weed, which is mentioned throughout the
work. The high appreciation of pigeon dung is shared by Latin writers and the
Ancient Egyptians, but without the explanation that its value is in the moisture it
brings. In fact, bird droppings are a good fertilizer because of their relatively high
phosphorus content.
Like most other agricultural manuals, the Geoponika ranks manures according to
their quality. Next to pigeons, human feces is listed, because it is destructive to
weeds. Human feces, so we are told, is prepared in Arabia by drying it, then
macerating it in water, and drying it again. This manure is used particularly for
vines. Third best is donkey’s dung, very fertile and of good use for any plant. Goat
dung, ranked thereafter, is more pungent than sheep’s dung, which comes next,
followed by ox dung. Hogs dung is superior in quality, but by its instant heat burns
grain fields, and hence is of no use for them. Horse and mule dung is inferior, but
can be made useful by mixing it with other sorts. The ranking differs from that of
Columella in valuing goat’s and sheep’s droppings higher than cattle excreta.
Compost (that is, manure made from dung) should never be used fresh, as this will
create many noxious animals (worms). The author(s) think that 3–4 year old

68
Owen (1806b).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 109

compost is best. Finally, the Geoponika links the moon’s cycle to agricultural
operations, again in accordance with Latin writers: manure should never be spread
during the waxing of the moon, as this would lead to more weeds.
From the literature as well as from the archaeological record it is quite evident
that techniques like terracing, irrigation or manuring were developed to a high
standard in the Mediterranean world of Antiquity and that much of this knowledge
and practice was carried on into the Middle Ages. Erosion did happen and was a
problem, a problem to which solutions were not abundant. Terracing was wide-
spread, but was costly and did not solve all erosion problems. While soil could be
collected downhill and carried back up, there was no way to prevent massive
erosion of cultivated landscapes which could come with only very few, but very
effective catastrophic torrential rainfalls spread over the centuries. The histories of
climate and soils are linked.

3.3.2.6 Europe North of the Alps

The practice of marling was, as Pliny the Elder reports in his encyclopedia, brought
to the Roman Empire from the north of Europe. Peasant societies had evolved to
some standard of fertilization techniques by the 1st century CE, manuring was, as
detailed above, common from the Bronze age onwards, and so was the generation
of anthrosols from adding grass sods to sandy soils, a technique leading to fertile
‘Plaggen’ soils. For a long period, until the 14th century, knowledge about soil
management was not collected into the kind of manuals we know from Antiquity.
One has to turn to the various medieval encyclopedias about nature to find such
information. But besides orally transmitted local experiences the manuals of
antiquity, in particular Palladius, were relatively widespread, and translations of the
Latin texts began to appear as soon as the vernaculars became more important.
Agricultural manuals exist in all major European languages. One of the best was
written in German in the late 16th century, and it shall serve as the sole example of
a library’s worth of books on the subject. Johannes Coler, son of a Lutheran
minister and a minister himself, was one of many churchmen who engaged in the
development of agriculture. He was born in Silesia, brought up in Berlin and later
had his own parish in Parchim in Brandenburg, in north-easter Germany. A learned
man, well versed in the languages of the Mediterranean agricultural treatises, Coler
was one of many early modern writers who adapted the knowledge produced for
condition of the Mediterranean to the different soils and climates of Europe north of
the Alps.69
The first part of Coler’s Oeconomia (an agricultural calendar) was published in
1591, and its last parts were printed in 1606. During the 17th century alone this
multi-volume compendium enjoyed 14 reprints. Coler often notes differences

69
McDonald (1908/1968).

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110 V. Winiwarter

between his sources and his own observations due to different climate and natural
conditions.
Coler talks about the suitability of land for grain and vines, referring to Colu-
mella and Virgil, and he recounts the entire list of soil quality tests already known
in Antiquity: smell, digging of a hole and refilling it, mixing soil with water to test
its stickiness, and taste by filtering a suspension. Clover and the existence of strong
trees are Coler’s vegetation indicators. As to color, he suggests to differentiate:
Although color has been dismissed by authorities (he quotes Palladius, the most
popular work from Antiquity), black color does indicate a fertile soil, unless it is
boggy. A boggy soil is cold and tenacious, but the addition of horse-dung can
improve it.70
The entire book seven is devoted to the cultivation of fields. There he gives
several remedies for fields of a ‘bad complexion’, as he puts it, rooting him firmly in
Galenic humoral pathology derived from the four-quality concept. But a growing
variety of refuse from proto-industrial operations, workshops of button- and
combmakers, tanners, spinners of wool, and soap boilers was added to the reper-
toire of soil amendments over time. To give but one example, in Coler’s 7th book,
the 29th chapter is devoted to the treatment of cold and wet fields. Marl, horse
dung, fine sand, pulverized limestone, quicklime, saw mill waste, and coal-dust as
found on places where charcoal piles are made, added and plowed under, make the
field mellow and fat (geil). Workshops, waters, forests, meadows, waste- and other
marginal lands were connected by way of animal excreta and the animal’s draft
power with the arable, whose sustained fertility was the prime concern. All agri-
culture was adapted to specific circumstances: fertilizers such as seaweed, small fish
and shells added marine resources to the repertoire where the situation allowed and/
or demanded.
Experts from the Netherlands travelled through late medieval and early modern
Europe whenever large drainage works were planned, such as in the Oderbruch,
near Berlin, to turn large marshes into fertile soils for peasants. The inhabitants of
the Netherlands had learned to drain peats by the 11th century and had created
fertile soils for agriculture. Crisscrossing the landscape with drainage ditches and
draining peats with their high amount of organic matter had unintended side-effects.
With waterlogging ceased, the organic parts of the soil would oxidize and miner-
alize and consequentially, shrink. Sinking peat bogs in a flat country close to the sea
meant a growing danger of inundation, and dykes had to be built. As the land
surface sank further below the level of the sea, needing constant pumping to stay
useful, poldered landscapes with their drainage fuelled by the wind and later, fossil
energy resulted. A second, very important use of peats was as fuel for a region with
few woodlands (and those now cut down) and a growing economy with more and
more urban population. This meant a new demand on soils. As everywhere in
Europe, urban populations disconnected the nutrient flows which had in the agri-
cultural countryside remained fairly tightly knit. Human excrement was often lost to

70
Coler (1591).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 111

soil cycling in urban areas. This was not only a profound intervention into nutrient
cycles, but created a hygienic menace as well. Human feces, when discarded into
open water used for drinking, can lead to transmission of several diseases such as
typhoid fever. In Japan or China, nightsoil collection worked also in urbanized
areas, leading to better hygiene and less nutrient loss. But with much more livestock
on the land in Europe, human feces were commonly less economical there.
Concern about lost nutrients accompanied urbanization and predates soil science.
The alchemist Johann Rudolf Glauber (1704) had already described a nitrate cycle.
He based his reasoning on observations that saltpeter (nitre) could be obtained from
the clearing of cattle sheds, and hence had to be the product of the digestion of
vegetable matter, as it could not be a product of the animals themselves.
While in a process of trial and error, guesswork and experiment, with many
wrong alleys taken but many advances, too, an understanding of chemical elements,
their cycles and the intricacies of nutrient uptake by plants developed from the 17th
century onwards, having a first culmination in Liebig’s agricultural chemistry.
Land-use, however, stayed traditional: Cultivation practices had to be adapted to the
soil, in an agro-economy which was at the same time an agro-ecology.71
Erosion and measures against it were a concern on slopes and valleys in
Northern Europe, too. Terracing, especially for vineyards, continues to shape some
of the most renowned cultural landscapes. But when one third of the total erosion of
the past 1500 years in the middle part of Germany happened within one week in
July, 1342, due to excessive rainfall and subsequent floods, when gullies were cut
into landscapes, roads and infrastructure buried under precious topsoil washed away
by the current, medieval Germans had no remedies.72 Subsequent centuries brought
an increase in floodwater protection measures, but floods and the erosion they bring
will always be part of human life, which has been concentrated in the rich alluvial
landscapes along rivers and coasts. Humans are, where soil is, and although they do
not appreciate the dynamic of riverine ecosystems, their life does in part depend on
the fresh soils brought by the rivers.

3.3.3 Soils Over the Long Course of Human History:

Sustainability and Ecological Inheritance

Rather than discussing soils in industrialized societies as a series of case studies, a

long-term view will place the role of soils in industrialized societies in perspective.
Whoever visits the rice paddies of China, the terraces of the Rhone valley vine-
yards, the poldered fields of the Netherlands or the ‘Danger, No Entrance’ signs
around a patch of polluted soil, faces an ‘ecological heritage’. This concept has
been elaborated by evolutionary biologists Laland, Odling-Smee, and Feldman in

71
Krausmann (2004).
72
Bork et al. (1998).

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112 V. Winiwarter

1999. The ways of living typical for a species can include lasting changes to the
environment. Such changes are effective longer than the lifespan of the generation
undertaking the changes. An ecological inheritance is the result. Dens and burrows
are a good example for the heritable parts of a niche. Such constructed niches can
be quite permanent structures, used (and changed) by several generations of
inhabitants. Progeny inherit a changed lifeworld, which then acts as a selective
force for future generations. Not only the environmental conditions as such, but also
an ecological inheritance (e.g. the burrow) are a means of natural selection.
Humans construct their ecological niche by building their version of dens,
houses, and by permanently and semi-permanently altering natural systems. The
lasting changes they make act as means of natural selection on them. Soils left from
one generation of humans to the next can also bear lasting, discernible marks of
previous cultivation, leaving a particular ecological inheritance.
The first such change is due to the widespread and extensive use of fire to alter
vegetation, because vegetation cover is one of the main forces relevant in pedo-
genesis. Soil formation was changed when fires in the post-glacial steppes were set
at times when they might not have occurred naturally, and at human-induced
frequencies.
The second and perhaps most outstanding change is the development of agri-
culture, with smaller distinctions to be made for the shift first from hoe to plow, and
then to the moldboard plow. The most important factor changing pedogenesis in
agriculture is again the change of vegetation, in particular the invention of mono-
culture. The uppermost layer of soils was also changed mechanically by plows. In
addition to changing the mechanical properties of soils, influencing root growth and
water holding capacity, plowing changed the micro-habitats of soil organisms. The
use of fallowing is somewhat similar to plowing in its effects. Fallowing in addition
changes the water balance of soils, as does the change from fallowing to a rotation
system, which does also impact soil biota.
Manuring is yet another important intervention into soil ecosystems, bringing in
food for soil organisms. The organisms destroy the larger remains of vegetation and
residues of animal metabolism into smaller organic and inorganic compounds,
ideally into a chemical form (as ions) which can be taken up by plant roots as
nutrients. Soil organism turnover is speeded up by the extra food available, and the
ecological niche of the manured soil is made up by organisms in different relative
abundances.
Marling or liming changes the acidity of soils and therefore again intervenes into
soil biota communities, shifting the balance from bacteria to fungi. Finally, irri-
gation techniques need to be mentioned. Besides the fundamental change in water
availability through irrigation, the chemical balance of the soil is changed. Tradi-
tional surface and ground water sources contain dissolved minerals that remain at
the soil surface when the water evaporates or is transpired by plants, salinization
results. The innovation of flooding irrigated fields to cleanse the soil of accumulated
salts marks an early change, as does the 20th century invention of drip irrigation
which reduces the amount of water needed by placing it directly at the plant.

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3 Environmental History of Soils 113

Vegetation cover change, mechanical changes in the uppermost soil layer,

changes in water retention capacity and changes in soil biota due to practices such
as manuring and marling taken together are the most profound change in soil
architectures which happened in the Holocene. This is linked to reverberations in
human societies: sedentary lifestyle, higher population densities, and the develop-
ment of stratified societies with uneven distribution of surplus all are in one way or
other connected to soil changes.
Interventions into the nitrogen balance of soils are of particular importance,
because they change the linkage between soils and atmosphere. Earlier nitrogen
sources were limited to naturally existing oxidized (as nitrate) or at least chemically
bound (as ammonia) forms. Airborne nitrogen became available only through the
deposition of nitrous oxides produced by lightning in thunderstorms in minute
quantities. The first such intervention was the use of leguminous plants (nitrogen
fixing species) as domesticated plants; their ability to bind nitrogen from the air,
thus greatly enlarges the nitrogen pool for cycling. Legumes provide nutrient-rich
food for humans and their livestock; beans, peas and lentils are common around the
world. A major innovation was the much larger influx of oxidized airborne nitrogen
produced by the deliberate use of nitrogen fixing species as green manure, by
plowing under the entire plant.
To give but one example of the historical significance of this technique, the
cultivation of nitrogen-fixing clover in England dates from the early 17th century.
Although data on the chronology and location of their introduction is patchy we
know for example that by the 1740s about half the farmers in Norfolk and Suffolk
were growing turnips and about a quarter had clover on their farms.73 It seems
likely that it was not until after the mid-eighteenth century that these crops were
having much effect on cereal yields. They were important in enabling some light
lands, like the chalk downlands of southern England and parts of Norfolk, to be
brought under the plow for the first time. A third of the increase in arable pro-
ductivity in northern Europe between 1750 and 1850 has been attributed to legumes
such as clover.74
Nitrates were created in the soil by nitrogen-fixing bacteria living in symbiosis
with leguminous roots. The largest reservoir of nitrogen, the air, could however not be
tapped directly before the invention of the catalytic reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen
gas, developed into an industrial process called the Haber-Bosch-Synthesis, patented
in 1910. If we look at human interventions into the nitrogen balance in soils, the
invention of legumes as domesticated plants, the invention of green manure and the
invention of an air-based synthesis of nitrogen are the main turning points.
As to the two other key nutrients necessary for plant growth, the restoration of
potassium by means of wood or other plant ashes was developed in antiquity,
whereas the mining of potassium-containing minerals as well as the mining of

73
Overton (1984).
74
Chorley (1981).

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114 V. Winiwarter

phosphates is a late 19th–early 20th century invention, only possible by means of

fossil energy.
Anthrosols, termed so for the reason that they bear more than just the mark of
human intervention, because they are essentially man-made, can be found in gar-
dens (hortisols) and fields (e.g. plaggen soils). The most astounding example of an
anthrosol is that of the terra preta and terra mulata patches in the Amazon basin.
Aside from fertilizer, available through mining and the Haber-Bosch synthesis,
the invention of potent pesticides marks a decisive event in the environmental
history of soils. Their massive impact on soil biota long went largely unnoticed
because many soil organisms have never been identified, let alone their changes due
to chemical interventions monitored.
The widespread changes of agricultural practice according to the theory of
mineral plant nutrition as elaborated by Liebig in the 19th century are probably the
most important contribution of chemistry to the use of soils. Plants which do not
respond well to the availability of mineral nutrients in large quantities are no longer
used as cultivars and breeding was and is done to enhance nutrient uptake. One can
argue that agricultural practice was changed in order to match the simplified theory
that inorganic nutrients are the single most important factor in soil fertility.
All the described changes correspond with an increase in the intensity of human
impact on soils, fueled by the abundance of fossil energy. Due to the abundance of
energy, humanity can currently afford not to adapt their cultivation to the soil, but
rather adapt soils to their necessities, with consequences such as farm-machinery
induced compaction, pollution and erosion. Hydroponics, the cultivation of plants
in greenhouses with nutrient solutions rather than on soils, finally detaches plants
from the soil, but at high energy cost. Massive colonizing interventions into plant
life are counterbalanced by a decrease in impact on soils. As so often in environ-
mental history, this is a mixed blessing at best.

3.4 Concluding Remarks

In environmental history and beyond, monocausal explanations are more often

wrong than right. By identifying soil degradation as the culprit for the collapse of
agricultural empires, one tends to oversimplify stories in which sustainable use of
soils plays a very important part. But not all agriculture was sustainable. In par-
ticular colonization of new territories, which brought with it the loss of acquired
knowledge about soils, could bring dramatic consequences. Pioneers were often
harbingers of soil destruction.
The abrupt failure of the control system for the Yellow River in 1855 and
catastrophic displacement of its mouth by 400 km,75 the Dust Bowl phenomenon of
the U.S. Great Plains during the 1930s, with dust storms blackening the skies and

75
Dodgen (1991).

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3 Environmental History of Soils 115

tens of thousands of people as environmental refugees, and the dramatic erosion in

Haiti today are just some examples of recent and ongoing unsustainable use of soils
which has been documented in many soil science and agronomy papers and
monographs over the past decades.
Feeding 9 billion people is a challenge for the soils of the world, although much
of this challenge is politically rather than naturally induced. Poverty and lack of
education are damaging to soils, as is a high-input lifestyle based on the excessive
use of fossil energy.
The recent (2008) attempt to write a blueprint for the development of sustainable
agriculture (International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and
Technology for Development76) calls for sustainable use of agriculture’s natural
resources, most importantly of soils and water, but the ideas how to reach this goal
differ widely, from more implementation of traditional knowledge to increased use
and development of GM crops. Some of the stakeholders left the process because
visions about a sustainable future could not be reconciled. Such a vision would
benefit from inclusion of historical data.
What Peter Lindert wrote about China and Indonesia in 2000 still holds true:
“The study of trends in soil quality needs the kind of quantitative history that has so
enriched climatology and geology. Virtually all estimates of current soil trends, are
in fact, not data. Rather they are expert’s predictions, derived by combining data on
slope, climate, and land use with what happens to such soils under experimental
conditions. Sometimes they are refined into “expert opinion” as in the GLASOD
map, but they are still not based on any observation before the mid-1980s”.77
Unlike other fields of environmental history, the environmental history of soils is
still in its infancy. Providing long-term data on sustainable and unsustainable use of
soils in the past is a daunting task for environmental historians for the next years
and decades.

Acknowledgments The empirical work for this contribution was compiled during an APART
fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2003–2006). Herwig Weigl and Richard
Hoffmann helped improve this text with their critical remarks. Anita Hipfinger assisted with
formatting and references, Andrea Bottanova produced the newly formatted footnotes.

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Chapter 4
Environmental History of Water
Resources

Stéphane Frioux

Abstract Water resources, indispensable to life, are relatively limited with respect
to the Earth surface and unequally distributed in the humanized spaces. They have
been targeted by many different human actions through the centuries, which makes
environmental history of water a well represented approach, among environmental
history in general. In addition to its use for drinking and cleaning, water has
contributed to the development of an increasingly productive agriculture with
irrigation; and for centuries, rivers and canals have also played a major role in
facilitating the traffic of people and merchandise and have structured the economics
of many cities. Historians have emphasized in their researches the changes occurred
during the Industrial Era (ca. 1780–1960 in the West). This period was crucial for
the use of water resources because of the competition between different activities
needing water: washing, factories needing pure water, factories using rivers as a
receptacle for their wastes, professional or leisure fishing, etc. With the decrease of
industrial discharges and boat traffic, in the last decades of the twentieth century
(and mainly in the Western countries), water has been integrated in many urban
development programs as a source of leisure and of aesthetic value. Restoration
projects allowed for the return of salmon and other fish species, but history raises
the question of how to restore. After having played an important role in culture and
leisure, water resources remain an object of public policies that nowadays defend a
very different goal from the post-WW2 modernist ideologies which led to vast dam
and irrigation schemes. Nevertheless, great disparities still exist on a global scale.
Climate change, making “wars for water” a potential threat for the next century, can
be used by environmental historians to find lessons from the past which could be
provided to policy-makers.

S. Frioux (&)
Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA),
Université de Lyon, Lyon, France
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 121

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_4

[email protected]
122 S. Frioux

4.1 Introduction

No water, no life. Nearly every environmental historian encounters water-related

issues, at one stage or another of his or her research. Such issues have even been at
the core of proto-environmental history essays.1 The statistics indeed aim at being
aware that water is almost everywhere on Earth, the “Blue Planet”: 70 % of the
surface of our planet is covered by water, of which 97 % are in oceans and 2 % in
ice (this last proportion has been decreasing for the last few decades). The concept
of “Water resources” implies focusing on the relationships between water and the
human societies and questioning the various uses of the different types of resources
(sea, streams, ponds, groundwater, ice). Of course, one has to keep in mind that
people do not have the same relationships with water, if they live in Greenland, in
the United States or in Sahara. For environmental historians, the relationships
between societies and their “waterscapes” are crucial not only because water is a
necessity for life, but also because the dramatic demographic, cultural, economic,
social, spatial and political changes since the late eighteenth century had many
consequences on water resources.
The uses of water resources throughout history can be classified into five major
categories: humankind vital needs and comfort (including personal hygiene and
cleanliness of the daily environment); agricultural use for cattle and for irrigation;
industrial use as a component of the fabrication process or as a source of energy;
means of transportation of goods and people; lastly, the aesthetic or cultural
dimension of waterscapes. Besides, we need to take into account the potential
hazards carried by water or climate (epidemics, flooding, landslides, and drought).
Even if, during the last century, humankind has altered the biosphere as never
before, it is quite evident that the great water manipulation efforts pursued by
various societies, engineers and political leaders have produced significant imbal-
ances in the relationships between local societies and their waterscapes. These
production of new socio-technical environments, reshaped by vital, political, eco-
nomic is at the core of water resources’ environmental history.
Water has always been a topic of interest in environmental history, whether
approached by the disappearance of fish in rivers, the history of resources con-
servation or the pollution by urban wastewater and industrial effluents.2 It is now
recognized as a major research subject, as illustrated by the founding of an Inter-
national Water History Association (2001),3 and very recently by a new scientific
and interdisciplinary journal, Water History (July 2009).
The present essay has no claim to be exhaustive about such a broad topic, around
which many fields of study meet. Rather than trying to cover all aspects of water

1
Reclus (1869). About the “The Rivers of America” series: see Mink (2006).
2
See respectively: Carson (1962), Hays (1959) and Tarr (1996). For reviews about the urban
environment: Dieter (2004). A case-study about Italy: Neri Serneri (2007).
3
Review articles of one of its international conferences can be found in a special issue of
Environment and History, May 2010.

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 123

environmental history, it will provide some elements of synthesis, and some

highlights carefully chosen to exemplify a number of issues. I will explore the
various facets of the humanity/water resources relationships, by studying on a very
long term the main usages of water, even if my attention will be drawn upon the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which a hugely increasing demand and use of
water transformed the daily life and the environment of millions of people.

4.2 Narratives of Water Resources’ “Benefits”

4.2.1 Water Between Environment and Health

Human communities—and especially cities—had always been dependent on basic

vital needs, and the problem of food and water supply is one of the most crucial for
urban authorities. Getting enough water for a growing population was a major
challenge, inspiring sometimes ingenious solutions. For ancient Middle East,
archaeology and environmental sciences discussed the so-called Mesopotamian
model and some case studies emphasized the idea of an initial development of local
hydraulic communities, able to produce a social regulation system of water resources,
even without a centralised state and bureaucracy.4 During the Roman period, cities
acquired most public facilities related to water control and management: the aqueduct/
fountain couple became a standard pattern of the Roman city-planning.5 Water towers
(castella), networks of pipes (fistulae), public taps (salientes) represented expensive
equipment that was firstly financed by public funds, then by rich people like Agrippa,
the son-in-law of Augustus. The Augustean period marks the generalization of a
water management policy: beyond technical progress and the diffusion of hydraulic
monuments, new administrative structures were set up, and the distribution of water
carried by aqueducts to domestic buildings broadened from aristocratic houses to
“middle-class” domus.
For centuries, water was generally not delivered to urban houses (or provided to
a very small percentage of buildings), while the locations of rural settlings were
often chosen because of the existence of a spring, a pond, or the digging of a well,
indispensable to satisfy the vital needs of the human beings as well as domestic
animals and plants. A few cities had aqueducts, the best example being Republican
and Imperial Rome; in other cases, urban dwellers relied upon hundreds of thou-
sands of private wells or sometimes cisterns gathering rainwater, or a combination
of those systems, like in Jerusalem. The richest citizens could afford the service of
water haulers. It is only very recently, compared to the long-standing nature of the
urban phenomenon, that people have been able to turn on a tap to get the precious

4
Wittfogel (1957). For a recent discussion, Special Issue: Ancient Near East and Americas 2010.
Water History 2/2.
5
Bruun (1991).

[email protected]
124 S. Frioux

liquid. Often, it has been possible through a change in the supply system, involving
the use of surface water from lakes or rivers, or groundwater related to the river. In
a country like France, after the Second World War, an inquiry stated that in 38,014
“communes” (the smallest administrative division), only approximately one third
had functioning water supply systems.6 In many rural districts, villages and scat-
tered farms were linked to a public water system only in the late 1960s. Before that
time, each farm relied on harnessed springs or on its own well. When studying the
history of the relationship between humanity and water resources for the last
150 years, it is necessary to deal with issues of scarcity and water allocation. The
modern period, with its demographic increase (from less than 2 billion people by
1910 to approximately 6.8 billion one century later) brought a twofold problem: the
inadequate provision of water and the purification of water once it had been used.
To quench thirst, water has always been in competition with other—tasty—
beverages, since the Ancient times: beer, wine, various types of alcohol, and
nowadays sodas. Was it only a question of taste, or a question of accessibility and/
or conservation of safe water? Waterborne diseases, like cholera or typhoid fever,
struck Western cities until the first half of the twentieth century (for instance, the
population of Hamburg was decimated by a cholera epidemics in 1892; Russian and
Italian cities suffered from the same disease as late as in 1910–1911). Nowadays,
waterborne illnesses are still considered as the second highest cause of mortality.
Thus, the World Health Organization continues to foster the fight against the
consumption of polluted water. Today, approximately two billion people still do not
have any domestic access to public water (and much more cannot drink bacterio-
logical safe water). While some Western suburban neighborhoods consume more
than 400 l per capita per day, millions of African or Asian inhabitants live with less
than 10 l per capita per day. In Latin America, a continent where “Mega-Cities”
have developed since the 1980s, a substantial proportion of the citizens of Mexico
City and São Paulo do not have access to the public water supply network. Some
inter basin water transfers, initially planned to satisfy agricultural irrigation have
now become a vital source of water for agglomerations like Los Angeles and
Phoenix (Colorado watershed) or Johannesburg and its surrounding area in South
Africa.
Water resources are not only useful for the consumption of food and beverages;
at the other end of the domestic cycle, they serve to carry away all wastes produced
by human bodies and by cooking and housekeeping. Environmental history is
concerned with was Joel Tarr has called the “search for the ultimate sink”.7 At least
since the Roman Times, urban authorities had to think about a water-carriage
system to deal with sewage problems. But for centuries, the problem has been
difficult to solve in many cities: either the canalizations were too small, or water
was insufficient to flush the sewers. Sometimes, there were even no underground
pipes, but only small gutters or narrow drains between buildings; wastes stagnated

6
``Distribution d'eau et assainissement'',L’Eau, January 1946, p. 4.
7
Tarr, Joel. The search for the ultimate sink, op.cit.

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 125

until a rainfall flushed them, and in summer time, the accumulation of organic
wastes produced foul smells to which some urban dwellers attributed diseases.
Jorgensen studied sanitation practices in late medieval England.8 Rivers were long
seen as a convenient public good to dump wastes at will; even if some regulations
were established, like the forbidding of throwing wastes during the daytime, nightly
discharges did not suppress water pollution.

4.2.2 Water Resources, Agriculture, and Food

Mapping the first great civilizations rapidly provides an interesting element of their
geography and of their hydraulic environment. They generally correspond to river
basins: Indus River and Ganges in India (Indus Valley Civilization: 2500–1900
BC), Tiger and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, Nile in Egypt. The seasonal floods of
these big rivers offered agriculture the opportunity to take advantage of very fertile
soils, thanks to the thin silt layer dropped on the river banks. In the twentieth
century, human societies, encouraged by their political leaders and by engineers,
have tried to gain independence from natural cycles. Dams—which will be treated
later on—were conceived for this purpose and allowed two or three annual crops.
But their disadvantages consisted in a frequent salinization of soils, enhancing a
loss of productivity. What was gained on the one hand was lost on the other after a
few years or a few decades. Other environmental damages have been produced by
the overexploitation of water resources for agricultural purposes: huge groundwater
aquifers have been pumped—or are still pumped—with much intensity in Midwest
America, in Libya, and in Saudi Arabia.
Through ponds, lakes, streams or coastal areas, water is the natural habitat of
fish, an important component of human food. Professional fishermen were already
active and powerful in Middle Ages. During the same period, fish farming in natural
ponds or artificial basins was an important resource to feed cities and was one of the
many activities developed by monasteries (let us not forget that religious precepts
about food consumption were strictly observed).9 Fish were also present in thou-
sands of natural ponds located next to rivers and in side channels, functioning as
sorts of “hydraulic annexes” regulating water in case of flood or drought. The
surface occupied by those ponds decreased drastically since at least the eighteenth
century. The urban and industrial growth entailed the drainage of many ponds and
subsequent ecological changes, both in terms of species present in the environment
and of water system regulation. In the nineteenth century took place an “aquaculture
revolution”, consisting in the artificial breeding of fish species in basins placed near
streams (or near coasts, when one aimed at reproducing mussels and oysters). In the
Second Empire France, Victor Coste was the man who fostered the development of

8
Jorgensen (2008).
9
Hoffmann (1996).

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what he called aquiculture, with the institutional support of the regime. In southern
Alsace, near the Swiss border, and with the financial aid of Napoleon III, Coste
settled a fish breeding farm, from which thousands of eggs and young fish were
send throughout France and to many countries (as far as Brazil and USA). The
objective of many local fishing societies founded during the late nineteenth century
was to repopulate the streams.10
From the second half of the eighteenth century, an important transformation
simultaneously affected cities and countryside: the increasingly negative view
concerning wet zones. The link between occasional fevers and swamps is very
ancient. However, the drainage effort strengthened and was renewed at the end of
the eighteenth century, for economic reasons as well as medical ones: the hostile
speech against the commons and the agricultural revolution urged elites to look for
new medical justifications in the transformations of the territory. Urban transfor-
mations also contributed to this medical debate. The wet zones were less and less
perceived as defensive or productive areas—which they often were in Northwestern
Europe since the late Middle Ages11—to become places to be cleaned up and to fit
out in the interest of the city-dwellers. In another geographical context, since the
late nineteenth century, European colonization of Asia and Africa led to medical
research about malaria, which was endemic in many areas. But the wetlands were
also places with great biodiversity; human efforts to adapt wetlands to their new
needs and visions led to the disappearance of many species. The last century or so
has experienced a huge movement of land reclamation in coastal wetlands, leading
to profound physical transformations of thousands square kilometers. Because of
these changes, even if public authorities did not always support this environmental
movement as enthusiastically as the goal of reclaiming wetlands, various species
belonging to these ecosystems (birds, flowers, and so forth) became central in
biodiversity conservation programs elaborated by ecologists.
In many large-scale hydraulic projects, integrated water management was not
secured. One famous example lies in the region of the Aral Sea. Located in the
former Soviet Union, the Aral Sea has almost disappeared because of intensive
irrigation from rivers Syr Daria and Amu Daria for cotton growing in Uzbekistan
and Kazakhstan, a non traditional usage planned by Soviet engineers in the 1950s.
Such a large amount of water was diverted that the Sea level started to fall in the
following decade, provoking many environmental changes in the region (including
climatic ones). The major ecological problem touched the social framework of
the former seashore. Fisheries disappeared in less than 30 years. Everything, from
the groundwater to the air and the soil, was salinized. The coastal area is now far
removed from the Aral waters, the seashore receded by many kilometers and
professional fishermen have been forced to abandon their livelihood. Projects are
currently in progress to return the sea water as close as possible to its former
shoreline.

10
Malange (2009).
11
Soens (2011) and Morera (2011).

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Many major water projects have been the occasion of a lot of water waste because
of the lack of ecological knowledge or a will to ignore the regional conditions: in
Egypt like in Central Asia, about half the water of reservoirs and canals evaporated
or seeped into the earth before being usable for people. Some estimations state that
by the 1990s, salinization seriously affected about 10 % of the world’s irrigated
lands. In Southeast Asia, and other places, the drainage of wetlands for rice growing
and shrimp farming went along with the disappearance of the mangrove, and a
subsequent loss of biodiversity.
Integrating social and environmental history leads to studying conflicts provoked
by lack of water resources, or big scale water projects. Various scales of analysis
can be used, from the local one (inside a community, for example), to the catchment
area (between upstream and downstream communities), the State or even the
international level.12 Categories like “public”/“private”, “rights of use” are dis-
cussed by various scholars. Barca has argued that in the Italian Liri Valley the
cultural and political changes from the Enlightenment led to the remaking of a river
as enclosed property, used by a rural bourgeoisie with no consideration of social
and environmental costs.13 In addition this new economy of water disrupted the
river ecosystem; as early as the mid-nineteenth century, fish species were disap-
pearing from the river due to both excessive canalization and industrial pollution.
Riverine environments have been very inspirating for environmental historians,
because of the complex entanglement between social, natural and cultural factors of
change.

4.3 The River’s Attraction to Historiography

Environmental history of water resources has developed, during the past decades, a
particular focus on rivers. Studies have moved from the narrative of the capitalistic
exploitation of nature to the assessment of socio-natural evolutions, showing how
natural forces and human actions are entangled.14 Some scholars have thus pro-
posed to see rivers as “envirotechnical” landscapes.15 Science and technology
studies (STS) on the one hand, interdisciplinary projects on the other hand, inspired
an increasing amount of essays emphasizing the hybridity of rivers—as other
waterscapes. At the local scale, well before the invention of the “white coal”, the
water mills illustrate the human reshaping of rivers for economic and social pur-
pose. Playing the role of mediators between human societies and natural resources,
they were central to the agricultural and industrial economy and also important in

12
For a case study about the USA: Paavola (2006).
13
Barca (2010).
14
To measure the evolution between some past and present environmental history approaches:
Worster (1985), White (1995) and Cioc (2002).
15
Pritchard (2011).

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128 S. Frioux

social and political relationships, in feudal Europe as well as in Muslim world.16

They were indeed instruments of power for their owners (individuals as well as
abbeys or collectivities) who collected taxes by users: peasants had to use them to
transform cereals into flour to produce bread or beer, to grind olives into oil, etc.

4.3.1 Water and Transportation

For hundreds of years, water has been the best way to ship goods. Political powers,
like Louis XIV in France or the Chinese emperors, took into account the economic
importance of digging canals.17 Many cities became prosperous because they
functioned as a harbour (either on riversides or on the seaside). Some of them were
places of off-loading, as a resource for the transportation of goods and people. Since
Ancient Times, water has been a crucial factor of economic development and of
employment. Water-related activities shaped the urban space, by creating specific
areas: in Imperial Rome, near the Tiber River, the emporium produced a hill (the
“Testaccio”) just with broken amphorae and terra cotta utensils. When its harbour
silted up, Bruges lost its predominance among Flemish cities at the end of Middle
Ages. Rivers and canals were major transportation arteries until the development of
roads and the railway. In the early Middle Ages, Vikings penetrated into many
kingdoms thanks to their ships, well-fitted for shallow rivers.
The shape of many European and North American rivers has changed dramat-
ically over the past two centuries because of the rise of their use for transportation
in the nineteenth century and the construction of roads, houses and factories along
the river banks. In the first decades of the Industrial Revolution, canals demon-
strated their importance, such as the Erie Canal, linking New York harbor to the
Great Lakes region: hundreds of kilometers of canals were constructed in France,
the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.18 In this country, even at the
end of the nineteenth century, waterways were still considered as useful means of
shipping by merchants and businessmen, for instance in the Midwest. After the
increase of railroad shipping prices, they turned to the hope of a new development
of the Mississippi valley, in order to facilitate trade with the southern States and
even with Latin America. The artificialization of waterways has often revealed itself
as hazardous, as the flooding in New Orleans, consecutive to the hurricane Katrina
(2005), dramatically recalled. In 1927, the city had been preserved from a huge
flooding only by dynamiting levees upstream, a decision which led to the spread out
of the Mississippi river over rural areas. If the channelization of many rivers by the
Army Corps of Engineers eased navigation, it also permitted the settlement of more
people near the banks, in former wetlands, and hence increase the human and

16
The tide mill was taken as a symbol by the first issue of Water History (Tempelhoff et al. 2009).
17
Mukerji (2009).
18
Jones (2010).

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 129

economic damages of exceptional floodings. Since the second half of the nineteenth
century, various specialists and practitioners, who joined in the “conservationist
movement”, in the United States as well as in other countries—like France—
inquired into the relation of forest cover to stream flow and even landslide.
Because of their role in promoting traffic and trade, rivers often provided the
foundation for urban growth and its spatial expression. Progressively, especially
from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century,
rivers have been the subject of various plans, designed by local authorities or by
central States, to overcome obstacles to navigation (fluctuations in river flow
throughout the seasons, exceptional droughts and floods, sandbars, rapids, etc.).
Because canals came to be seen as the ideal means of transporting goods, rivers
were increasingly engineered, e.g. standardized in width and depth, to resemble
these artificial waterways. At that time, canals were indeed the key means to
transport coal. As early as 1815, the Rhine Commission, an international body, was
created to oversee the river and mold it into what would amount to a commercial
canal. In the 1830s, the United States federal government began to reshape the
Mississippi river, viewed as “nature’s highway to market”.
The rise of railroad sealed the decline of waterways. In the second half of the
20th century, only big channels (deep enough to allow the transit of several
thousand-ton barges and boats) remained in activity. From this time onward, some
of the smaller channels were converted into recreational boating facilities. The seas
remain the biggest waterway for shipping. They are regularly hit by environmental
catastrophes, such as the major oil slicks consecutive to the tanker spills of the
Torrey (1967), Amoco (1978) and the Exxon (1989). As early as 1969 a conference
was held in London on the subject of sea pollution by hydrocarbons. Environmental
history has perhaps a little less explored history of seas than history of inland water,
except for history of fishing and marine animal populations which is still a very
active field.19

4.3.2 The Dam Building: An Ambiguous Balance

Environmental historians have paid attention to the controversies surrounding some

domestic water improvement schemes, leading to dam buildings to set up reservoirs
for instance. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Hetch Hetchy Valley project,
to furnish water to San Francisco was a famous case. It entailed national protests
from the preservationist movement and its prominent figures, like John Muir. A
more positive aspect in the same Bay Area region was that thanks to their land
reserves around the springs and pumpings, some water districts and companies

19
Danish environmental historians are very engaged in Marine Environmental History and
belong to various transdisciplinary networks, such as the International Council for the Exploration
of the Sea.

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130 S. Frioux

provided open spaces available for hiking.20 Throughout this century, reservoirs
became popular for outdoor recreation, swimming and boating, for example. The
multiplication of dams and the grand change of scale in water manipulation
schemes count among the landmarks of the last century’s environmental history,
embodying the self-confidence in technical progress and the human mastership of
art wilderness, after several millennia of traditional modes of dam building (with
earth and rocks). In 2000, the World Commission on Dams counted more than
45,000 large dams on the globe; the scope and scale of dam building in the
twentieth century was unprecedented.
Two purposes mainly motivated the physical reorganization of the environment
they embody: firstly, the need to provide more water than the natural supply of
streams and rivers could offer, especially when the climate led to great seasonal
variations in rainfall; secondly, in other regions the creation of artificial reservoirs
was linked to power-consuming industrialisation, functioning as a water supply
source for hydroelectricity plants. Both grew dramatically after 1945.21 The world’s
total irrigated surface rose fivefold, from 50 million ha at the eve of the twentieth
century to nearly 250 million in 1995, with the fastest expansion taking place after
the Second World War. At the beginning in the Western world, and then in colonies
becoming newly independent nations, a number of rivers have merely become a
series of slack-water ponds, losing many of the physical and ecological charac-
teristics of a stream.
In most cases, dam building could be related to a certain form of bureaucrati-
zation of water management. The process involved vertical schemes of information
diffusion and deprived local people of their traditional way of life, provoking the
upheaval of water usage in affected environments. For social and political histories,
big dam projects can often be associated with a “top-down” decision making. This
kind of central planning and manipulation of resources often paved the way for
popular protests.
In Spain, the use of water during the first half of the twentieth century was
devoted mainly to agriculture. The Franquist regime set up urban and industrial use
as a priority (1950s–1970s). A centralized governance of water resource imposed
the industrialist development model on the entire territory. During the second half
of the twentieth century, after the boom in dam building launched by the Hoover
Dam, outside Las Vegas, “pharaonic” projects consisted of big dams and inter basin
rural-to-urban water transfers. They were carried out without any compensation to
rural inhabitants. Social and environmental costs were not taken into account. This
was made following a national central planning. These projects also received
financial support and expertise from international agencies like the World Bank and
Western countries such as West Germany or the United States. It is true that
economic development benefited the general standard of quality of life in Spain.
However, the industrial and urban model of water allocation created social and

20
Walker (2007).
21
McNeill (2001).

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 131

environmental inequalities, because this model of centralized and planned eco-

nomic growth was made at the expense of rural livelihoods. For that reason, in the
final period of dictatorship’s regime and after the death of Franco, rural and
peripheral regions and inhabitants protested and called for democratic water gov-
ernance, including participation in decision-making processes.22 In South Africa,
until 1990, most of the projects designed were integrated into the apartheid
framework, and into a process of land appropriation by White people. The envi-
ronmental history of South African rivers cannot be separated from the general
history of this country.23 The last century has proved that any political regime can
be harmful to environmental resources: grass-roots green and “blue” movements
can easily develop in democracies, but “technocratic” management remains pow-
erful and potentially dangerous.
Presented as triumphs of engineering—this view prevailed until late twentieth
century—the dams materialized both the idea of nature’s domination by humankind
and the economic development and modernization goals claimed by governments
of all kinds. Progressively, other voices emerged which tried to be heard: they
stated that these huge concrete works provoked ecological and social problems. For
instance, they underlined that dams were opposed to natural behaviors of animals,
like salmon in rivers. But dams not only constituted an impediment to the life of
ecosystems, they also changed the course of life for millions of people. Dams have
indeed provoked the displacement of people whose towns were inundated as part of
the water projects: sometimes, only a few families in what seemed urban/rural
conflicts in a period of depopulation of rural areas; in other occasions, several
thousands of people in India, or even more than one million in China, for the Three
Gorges Dam (for which structural work was finished in 2006 and which produced a
lake of several-hundred-kilometers length), three decades after a rapid decline in
dam building in the Western countries. It is difficult to keep precise figures, but in
2000, the World Commission on Dams estimated that between 40 million and 80
million people had been displaced by the settling of reservoirs.

4.3.3 Cities and Rivers: Intertwined Histories

Recent monographs (not only in environmental history) have explored the rela-
tionship between rivers and cities, which still stands as a fruitful topic for doctoral
dissertations.24 In the mid-twentieth century, geographers were already aware of the
importance of water resources in the birth and growth of cities. Researchers focused
either on major cities and major rivers,25 or on small rivers which have been used as

22
Swingedouw (2007) and Corral Broto (2012).
23
Blanchon (2009).
24
For a review of some recent theses, Frioux (2012).
25
Dagenais (2011).

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132 S. Frioux

open sewers and then often covered and “forgotten” by urbanites in their everyday
life.26 Rivers, often described through anthropomorphizing discourses, have always
been essential to the life of cities—and indeed, most cities are riverine cities.27 They
could provide drinkable water if there was no available spring and serve the
“sanitary city” ideal.28 They also offered industrial water, as a source of energy or a
component of industrial processes.29 They were indispensable to boat traffic, to float
timber or to ship merchandise to and from the agglomeration.
After the Middle Ages, the diversification of water use increased. At the same
time, in the Western world, a form of expertise about water management was
developed. In the eighteenth century, the French monarchy created the first corps of
engineers partly specialized in waterworks (the “Ponts et Chaussées”). In cities,
scientists assessed water quality based on physical criteria (taste, odor, appear-
ance…). They did not know yet that a great upheaval was about to happen in many
cities, with the huge increase of industries (mining, iron and steel mills, textile
factories…) which materialised the advent of a new age of urban water resources.
In Europe, the purity problem had long been raised (in the Middle Ages, for
instance, some crafts needed clean water for their processes), but only from the
nineteenth century onwards did specific sciences devoted to this issue develop. In
part this was due to the cholera epidemics which struck industrialising nations and
their capital cities (like Paris and London) several times: 1832, 1854, 1884, 1892
and 1910. Providing safe water became a public health issue and a duty for public
authorities after different investigations demonstrated the link between bad water
and outbreaks of these diseases.30
From the early nineteenth century onwards, the problem of supplying city
dwellers with sufficient quantities of water to meet their basic needs (drinking,
washing, cooking) and the issue of meeting the contradictory demands from
industrialists (some of them needing pure water, others using rivers as receptacles
of their wastes), became increasingly acute, throughout Europe and North America.
In most cases, the quest for an expanded water supply system arose indeed, mainly
from industry. Urban environmental historians can establish links, in that case, with
business history. The water-supply service became a real industrial venture: eight
companies shared the water market in London, the most populated city in the world
at that time. In 1852, French capitalists created the Compagnie Générale des Eaux
which took over water-supply of Lyon, the second largest city of the country; a few
years later, it also obtained a contract with the Parisian administration, under the
auspices of its ruler, the Baron Haussmann. This new age of “conquest of water”
used sophisticated devices and breakthrough technological innovations: powerful
steam pumps, big reservoirs, long canals (like the Canal de Provence for

26
Castonguay and Evenden (2012).
27
Blache (1959).
28
Melosi (2000).
29
Steinberg (1991).
30
Hamlin (1990).

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 133

Marseilles), water towers (like in Chicago). Infrastructure which modified the urban
environment and its peripheries had counterparts in the cultural domain (see below).
In the case of London, social and political factors accounted in the late establish-
ment of a publicly operation of water supply. Broich argues that politics and
environment intertwined to drive the physical reorganization of the environment—
of resource collection and delivery—and the changes in the administration of the
environment: in London, at the turn of the twentieth century, the eight companies
competing on the water market were bought by the new Metropolitan Water
Board.31 Studying history of the provision of safe water to urban dwellers from the
end of the nineteenth century also highlights environmental inequities on various
scales, between the haves and have-nots. People receiving purified water and
benefiting from sanitation—above all, people who are able to pay for these services
—suffer less from waterborne diseases than people lacking connections to the
public water supply and sewer system. In 1995, this was the case of more than 80 %
of the residents of important Asian capitals (Manila, Dhaka, Karachi).

4.4 Floodings, Pollution, Depletion: The Dark Side

of Water Resources History

History of water resources during the Industrial Era can neither be reduced to a
series of failures, nor to substantives like “pollution” and “deterioration”. The
setting up of safe water supply systems allowed for the urban expansion and even a
part of the demographic growth of the twentieth century. From the middle of the
nineteenth century onwards, especially in Great Britain where worked a national
Rivers Pollution Commission, riverine dwellers and users became aware of the
damages produced by the rapid expansion of industrialization and urbanization.
British streams experienced first the tremendous increase of chemical waste dis-
posal and pollution by textile industry, and were severely affected because of their
relatively low flow rates. Different responses could be proposed to the challenge of
pollution: legislative answers were not sufficient and had to be completed by more
practical and technical solutions. These technological fixes were offered by the
rapid progress made in microbiological theory and in bacteriological analysis,
which means by the urban science and technology.
Nevertheless, efforts of public health officials and sanitary engineers proved
inefficient to prevent what became the major source of water alteration: industrial
discharges, whose chemical compounds and effects on living organisms remained
hardly known for a long time. In almost every part of the Earth, from the Columbia
River (USA) to the Danube River (Europe), since the late 18th century and
increasingly from around 1850, rivers have been the receptacle for toxic loads from
mining, chemical production or the food-processing industry. For a long time, the

31
Broich (2013).

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134 S. Frioux

chemical pollution of water resources was not considered as a big problem, the fecal
pollution retaining the attention of public health specialists (especially during the
nineteenth century). After the Second World War, the development of scientific
ecology and the rise of modern environmentalist movements highlighted other
forms of water resources degradation.
As illustrated by a French 1829 law, the conservation of water resources
emerged relatively early and not later than policies to preserve drinkable water
quality. But hygienic measures encouraged many people engaged in commercial
and recreational fishing to fight situations they perceived as ongoing “water crises”.
The Izaak Walton League, created in 1922 (named after a famous British writer and
angler of the seventeenth century, author of The Complete Angler), acted to pro-
mote the protection and restoration of American waters, before broadening its range
of interests to topics related to the preservation of “Outdoor America” air pollution,
clean energy, and sustainable agriculture. In 1951 appeared in West Germany the
Vereinigung Deutscher Gewasserschutz to arouse public interest in water resources
issues. Fishers and scientific amateurs were forerunners of ecologists and launched
many operations long before the 1970s and the popularization of environmental
protection topics. During the 1950s, the Amsterdam waterworks played a major role
in forging international links between other waterworks along the Rhine River.32 A
new cause of environmental degradation has been “thermal” pollution from nuclear
reactors, whose wastewater can raise the temperature of rivers high enough to kill
all organisms in the water. In the 1970s for instance, several protests took place in
West Germany to attempt to block nuclear reactor projects along the Rhine. In
1986, the catastrophe provoked by a fire at a chemical site near Basel (Switzerland),
showed how downstream users of river water (and living organisms of the river
ecosystem) have to face upstream pollution. In some cases, a short event can have
consequences for many years on the water resources, hundreds of kilometers
downstream.
Another change upon water resources has been the fantastic increase in chemical
fertilizers and pesticides. As early as 1962, the American ecologist Rachel Carson
wrote that synthetic pesticides “have been recovered from most of the major river
systems and even from streams of groundwater flowing unseen through the earth”
and even found “in fish in remote mountain lakes”. Since her pioneering work,
pesticides have been largely incriminated. However they are not the only threat to
water resources brought by the twentieth century farming modernization. The use of
fertilizers on agricultural lands indirectly produced algal blooms and lakes eutro-
phication, especially in the 1930s–1970s period. This phenomenon also happened
in enclosed seas like the Baltic Sea, the Adriatic, the Red Sea and numerous inland
lakes. The excess nutrients provoked a proliferation of algae, but not the same
expansion for fish stocks.

32
Disco (2007).

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 135

Most of the works analyzed for this chapter deal with the place held by water in
“conquest of nature” (Blackbourn) over time.33 Another trend focuses on rivers as
source of hazards and on the impact of major floods. Some research projects have
been funded in order to apply historical knowledge to current and future flood-risk
management. They can reveal how the social and political processes set up after
flood events already contained measures to reduce vulnerability of flood-threatened
areas. In south-west Germany for instance, after an extreme flood in the Neckar
River catchment in October 1824, a letter from the Royal Government of
Württemberg stated that houses that were destroyed or severely damaged should not
be rebuilt on their original flood-exposed sites but elsewhere, on higher ground
and further away from the river, where risk of repeated flooding was lower.34
Vulnerability can also be historically constructed in an unequal way. During the
nineteenth century, in the outskirts of London, thousands of new homes and hun-
dreds of factories supplanted the marshes of the Lower Lea that once absorbed
floods. They increased the potential for damage when water flowed into these
former wetlands. In 1888, 1897, 1904, and 1928 the poorest people in West Ham,
who lived in the suburb’s oldest wetland neighborhoods, suffered as water rushed
into their homes.35
From events that occurred in the last century, as well as from small-scale, almost
microscopic, changes that anyone can notice during regular visits to the same
waterscape, it is possible to state that both water-related ecosystems and human
societies are dynamic forces rather than static entities clashing with one another.
History and geography have thus much to teach environmental managers and
policy-makers. In Europe, the EU’s Water Framework Directive requires stream
restoration, to ensure that a good ecological status is achieved in all water bodies in
the EU by 2015. In Sweden, the first step before restoration necessitates knowledge
about the history of timber floating and its physical effects on river channels.
Environmental history can work besides natural science, in order to use historical
archives providing data about floatway structures, their purposes, their localizations
and their effectives. Historians are also useful to raise the question of cultural
remnants of the timber floating age (1850s–1980s). Stone piers reflected the
socioeconomic reality at that time and the need for wages for the working people
along the rivers in northern Sweden. For Erik Törnlund, “one important part of
restoration work should be to consider both ecological and cultural aspects”.36

33
Blackbourn (2006).
34
Seidel et al. (2011).
35
Several water-related cases can be found in Massard-Guilbaud and Rodger (2011). Example
from Clifford (2011).
36
Erik Törnlund, “From Natural to Modified Rivers and Back? Timber Floating in Northern
Sweden in 1850–1980 and the Use of Historical Knowledge in Today’s Ecological Stream
Restoration”, in Thinking through the Environment. Green Approaches to Global History, op. cit.,
241–267. About restoration, see Hall (2005).

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136 S. Frioux

4.5 Water Resources, Political Power and Culture

Environmental history cannot ignore the cultural dimension of water resources.

Throughout several millennia, the representations of water drastically changed,
evolving from a vision in which water was like a treasure, or a tool, given by
divinities to men, to an increasingly anxious point of view, conscious of the mul-
tiple risks associated with water pollution and, more recently of the non-renewable
character of many sources of water and of the value of the biodiversity in water
landscapes.
Water has been a decorative element in cities since Ancient Rome: for centuries,
monumental sculpted fountains in the heart of the urban centers were the norm of
local government. The tradition has been prolonged to our times, like in Atlanta near
the Olympic Park. But the combination of decoration and usefulness could also hide
—and still does some time—some political goals.37 Therefore, environmental his-
tory cannot forget the cultural dimension of water: the Roman civilization was
famous for the importance given to the public baths (thermae): water was an object
for evergetism and tourists can still visit Caracalla’s thermae in Rome, as well as
dozens of public baths in the former “Roman world”. The Imperial regime in
Ancient Rome was accompanied by the birth of a “water evergetism”, serving the
hygienic needs of the citizens at the same time as being a means of publicity for
the local aristocrats in charge of the water service at their own expense. Use of water
for cleaning bodies—and souls—remained a core value in other civilizations, like in
the Muslim world; while popular baths in Christian Middle Ages cities were pro-
gressively denounced by clerks as places of immorality. During the Middle Ages,
control of water resources and infrastructures related to water—such as bridges,
mills, water supply systems, was a stake for rival authorities, for instance ecclesi-
astical institutions and communal councils. On crucial rivers for transportation of
people and goods, boatmen developed particular social and cultural characteristics.38
A few centuries later, like the Roman emperors, the French king Louis XIV
demonstrated his absolute power partly thanks to the hydraulic system of his gar-
dens at Versailles. The power was expressed through fountains, ornamental pools,
crisscrossing jets and so forth, themselves created by diverting water from a river
and from the surrounding marshes, by installing a complex network of pipes and
large reservoirs. In the same country, in southern towns of the late nineteenth-
century, the municipal councils showed particular attention to the presence of
republican symbols on monumental public fountains. Water participated both in the
beautification of the city and in the expression of political messages. At the same
time, the control of water resources for domestic usage came into public hands in
many British and German cities: this was the age of the “municipal socialism”.
Western countries were rather an exception at the turn of the twentieth century: few

37
For a collection of case-studies outside the Western World, in an environmental politics
perspective, see Baviskar (2007).
38
See Rossiaud (2007).

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 137

cities in Southern Europe had an efficient water supply and existing systems were
subject to poor operating conditions. Moreover, this public involvement was not
always put in practice in France or in the United States, and nowadays questions of
public management of water supply systems are still a topic of local political
debates. The problem moved, after 1945, in the postcolonial world and in Latin
America. Lastly, water was seen in the twentieth century as a resource which had to
be exploited to provide the human beings a better future: water-diversion projects
appealed to political authorities. Environmental history of former authoritarian
regimes, where archives recently became available (former Communist European
countries) reveal how hydraulic projects, embodied by gigantic dams and reser-
voirs, were used to affirm the prestige of the State. Control of nature was thus an
expression of political power. It also created networks of specialists (engineers,
scientists), who contributed to first environmental criticisms, in the absence of any
grassroots movement.
Legends, storytelling, songs and many other cultural facts were attached to some
waterscapes, mainly wetlands and rivers. The Ganges continues to be important in
Hinduism. In the Book of Genesis, in Greek Mythology, rivers structure the
landscape and many myths and stories explore the healing or evil dimensions of
water. Rivers have often been idealized in literature and the visual arts, for instance
in Russia with references to “Mother Volga” and in the USA to “Old Man River”
(Mississippi).39 The Rhine was also important for German conservationists and
nationalists; a Nazi official referred to it in 1941 as the “pulsating life’s vessel” of
the nation. Water resources protection in the Rhine valley became also a grounding
issue for the modern ecological movement. The folklore surrounding water is
extremely rich, from the huge rivers just mentioned above, to little ponds or
fountains that were linked with faeries, witches or healing waters. In the nineteenth
century, hundreds of artists painted panoramas of rivers, ponds, or seashores.
Riverscapes presented Romantic features such as waterfalls and gorges (especially
the Middle Rhine). What is interesting to be noticed is that in the twentieth century,
stereotypes about water resources, like rivers, were used both by conservationists
and developers: in Germany, each side drew on Romantic imagery of German
rivers and on the tourist potential of the river they had in mind (“natural environ-
ment” vs artificial lakes created for hydroelectricity) to support their respective
positions.
Within the different civilizations, the perception of water evolved across cen-
turies. In the Western world, during the Early Modern Period, cleanliness was
provided by the change of clothing and the whiteness of clothes, rather than by
bathing and using water to clean the body. Then, the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries drastically changed the human relationship to water resources: hygienists
pointed out the necessity to provide pure water to human bodies in order to avoid
diseases; the rise of mandatory schooling, home economics classes and enrollment

39
Some cultural studies can be read in Mauch and Zeller (2009).

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138 S. Frioux

in the army taught young people the importance of showering and washing hands.40
Water resources have indirectly been a factor of the birth of a new culture of leisure
and new places of sociability, first in the West, and now spreading out to the rest of
the world. From the eighteenth century onwards, two sorts of new residential and
seasonal resorts appeared, firstly for the European aristocracy: seaside towns and
spas. The first category is linked with a change of perception towards the coastal
areas: once perceived as dangerous, used only by local populations either for fishing
or shells, kelp or algae picking, they became both aesthetic landscapes and a form
of treatment (cold baths) prescribed by physicians.41 Dozens of seaside resorts
experienced the birth of tourism thanks to their “water resources”. Inland, the
development of hydrotherapy and the progress of transportation (railroad) led to the
same phenomenon in “spas” (from the Belgian town of this name). The proximity
of water, either from sea or coming out of the earth (hot springs), gave rise to a new
type of urbanism and the settling of urban amenities even in very small resorts.
Environmental history of touristic development has yet to be developed. Since the
1930s, with the development of public swimming pools and swimming lessons in
cities, and after the Second World War, the sea—associated with sun—became a
major popular attraction. People also experienced the sand, whereas the elites had
once been separated from it by boardwalk promenades. Environmental history of
beaches is a promising field of research, necessitating cultural history as well as
geographical investigation.42 Islands, once seen as the paradise of mosquitoes and
considered as under-developed areas, are now oriented towards tourism and
activities like boating and diving (particularly in the Mediterranean and Caribbean
Seas, the Indian Ocean). Inland, artificial lakes created upstream from dams and
hydroelectricity plants were also used for bathing, fishing or boating purposes, as
well as for new sports like windsurfing or water skiing bringing seasonal activities
to rural regions confronted with human desertification. Other places with water or
landscapes sculpted by water have attracted millions of tourists: the Niagara Falls
and the Grand Canyon are well-known for this aspect.

4.6 Conclusion

As was written in the first issue of the new environmental history journal Water
History, “water has been and is likely to continue to be one of the most pressing
environmental resource concerns”. Water resources appeal both to archaeology and
to contemporary history, because first settlements, first cities, were developed
thanks to first hydraulic works, and because the struggle towards universal access to
water entailed fierce competition during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: to

40
Goubert (1989).
41
Corbin (1994).
42
Devienne (2011).

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4 Environmental History of Water Resources 139

the traditional requirements of agriculture was added a hugely increased urban

demand. In the case of surface water (streams, rivers, lakes), one can draw a three
phase scheme from many case-studies. Most rivers of the Western world have now
entered the third sequence. During the first period, pre-industrial rivers were
essential to feed the riverine population, thanks to their fish; they also could provide
benefits to agriculture, through the fertile lands in the floodplains; when hydro-
logical conditions were favorable for navigation, they served as cheap and
important means of transportation. After a second phase of intense exploitation of
water resources and multi-scale environmental changes, new reasons have added
value to the place of water in cities, for aesthetic, ecological as well as touristic
purposes. Meanwhile, environmental history of water resources has grown as a
fertile topic, bridging various disciplinary approaches. The numerous case studies
written about the nineteenth and twentieth-century Western world can be useful
both for water managers dealing with restoration projects and for historians working
on water issues outside Europe and North America and globalizing environmental
history.

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Chapter 5
Environmental History of Air Pollution
and Protection

Stephen Mosley

Abstract Concerns about air pollution have a long and complex history. Com-
plaints about its effects on human health and the urban environment were first
voiced by the inhabitants of ancient Athens and Rome. But urban air quality
worsened considerably during the Industrial Revolution, as the widespread use of
coal in factories in Britain, Germany, the United States and other nations ushered in
an ‘age of smoke’. Despite the tangible nature of this form of air pollution, early
laws to control it were generally weak and ineffective—regardless of its high socio-
environmental costs—reflecting the importance of coal-fuelled steam power to
economic growth. Not until the mid-twentieth century, after major air pollution
episodes such as London’s ‘Great Smog’ had demonstrated beyond doubt that
polluted air was as harmful to the public’s health as polluted water supplies, were
stringent national laws to abate smoke finally introduced to clear the skies over the
cities of the first industrial nations. However, while the citizens of the developed
world now breathe cleaner air, smoke pollution is still a significant environmental
problem in many industrial cities of developing countries today. In terms of their
scale, the effects of coal smoke in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were
largely local and regional. But after the Second World War a number of invisible
threats began to emerge—acid rain, photochemical smog, ozone depletion and
climate change—that were transnational and global in character. It often required
the cooperation of scientific experts across academic and political borders, as well
as new techniques such as computer modelling, to make these new threats ‘visible’
to the public. Global environmental problems also required collective political and
legislative action on the part of nations if solutions were to be found. The success of
the Montreal Protocol in phasing out the use of ozone-depleting CFCs stands as a
successful example of international environmental governance. However, it will
need a strong commitment to international cooperation if an effective agreement to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to be reached, particularly as global warming is
a concept that the public (and many politicians) still find difficult to grasp.

S. Mosley (&)
School of Cultural Studies, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 143

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_5

[email protected]
144 S. Mosley

5.1 Introduction

Air pollution is a major environmental problem and it comes in a variety of forms,

from visible particles of soot or smoke to invisible gases such as sulphur dioxide and
carbon monoxide, and it can be created indoors and outdoors. Although some sources
of atmospheric pollution are emitted naturally, from volcanoes or forest fires, most are
the result of human activity in the home or workplace. This chapter aims to provide an
overview of anthropogenic air pollution problems, and attempts to solve them,
focusing in particular on the past two centuries. Atmospheric pollution, however, has
a longer history. It was also a significant issue for pre-modern societies, with the
burning of biomass and fossil fuels damaging both human health and the local
environment. But the rise of modern urban-industrialism—and the shift from fuel-
wood to coal and then to oil—extended the scale and scope of air pollution problems
dramatically. Indeed, some harmful airborne contaminants like chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs), chemicals used in aerosol cans, refrigerators and air-conditioning systems
that deplete the ozone layer, did not exist before the twentieth century.
The chapter is set out in three parts. Firstly, it examines early examples of air
pollution and its effects, especially in northern Europe and the Mediterranean basin
where archaeological records and a variety of written sources provide clear evi-
dence of environmental change. Secondly, it will explore the development of air
pollution problems between 1780 and 1950, as the availability of cheap wood
supplies declined and coal became the chief source of energy in the rapidly in-
dustrialising world. Lastly, it will discuss transboundary pollution caused by acid
rain, high levels of emissions from gasoline-fuelled cars, and the emergence of new
global threats from invisible air pollutants after 1950, such as CFCs and human-
induced climate change, as well as the various international measures put in place to
tackle them.

5.2 Preindustrial Air Pollution

Indoor air pollution caused by cooking and heating with open fires in poorly
ventilated dwellings was a significant cause of ill-health from the earliest times.
Scientific studies of samples of mummified lung tissues from Egypt, Peru, Britain
and elsewhere have revealed that ancient societies suffered from anthracosis,
(blackening of the lungs), from long exposure to the acrid smoke of domestic fires.1
Smoke was most likely tolerated indoors because it helped to keep mosquitoes and
other insect pests at bay. But poor domestic air quality—with concentrations of
harmful particulates high in cramped conditions—undoubtedly increased the risk of
illness and death from chronic respiratory diseases. The testimonies of Aretaeus of
Cappadocia, Aulus Cornelius Celsus, Pliny the elder and other medical writers

1
Brimblecombe (1988, 2008) and Colbeck (2007).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 145

indicate that diseases of the lungs were widespread in the classical civilisations of
the Mediterranean basin. However, deaths from ‘normal’ diseases like bronchitis
have to date attracted little sustained attention from medical historians of the
classical period.2 In the developing world, where heating and cooking with smoky
biomass fuels such as wood and animal dung remains commonplace, in 2013
around 2 million deaths were linked to indoor air pollution.3
Outdoor air pollution only became a major issue with the rise of cities. Early
cities were very different in many respects from their modern counterparts. They
were, for example, compact ‘walking cities’, with the marketplace, religious and
public buildings all being easily accessible on foot. The influential Hippocratic
treatise Airs, Waters, Places, written c.400 BCE, stressed the importance of good
air quality, as well as pure water and a salubrious setting, in choosing settlement
sites. But where large numbers of people crowded into urban centres, smoke and
other noxious fumes from households and small manufacturing works soon became
a cause for concern. Air pollution was an everyday part of life for the inhabitants of
cities like Athens (population c.200,000 in 430 BCE) and Rome (population c.1
million in 150CE), where the emissions from homes, smelting furnaces, potteries
and other preindustrial workshops darkened the skies.4
The residents of ancient Rome referred to their city’s smoke cloud as gravioris
caeli (‘heavy heaven’) and infamis aer (‘infamous air’), and several complaints
about its effects can be found in classical writings.5 The poet Horace (65 BCE–8
CE), for instance, lamented the blackening of Rome’s marble buildings by count-
less wood-burning fires, while the statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE–65
CE) wrote in a letter to a friend:
I expect you’re keen to hear what effect it had on my health, this decision of mine to leave
[Rome]. No sooner had I left behind the oppressive atmosphere of the city and that reek of
smoking cookers which pour out, along with clouds of ashes, all the poisonous fumes
they’ve accumulated in their interiors whenever they’re started up, than I noticed the
change in my condition at once. You can imagine how much stronger I felt after reaching
my vineyards.6

Some 2,000 years ago civil claims over smoke pollution were heard before
Roman courts, and in 535CE the emperor Justinian promulgated the Institutes
which included a section that acknowledged the importance of clean air to breathe
(and pure water to drink) as a birthright: ‘By the law of nature these things are
common to mankind—the air, running water, [and] the sea’. Earlier Babylonian and
Assyrian laws dealt with similar issues, and around 200CE the Hebrew Mishnah
sought to control sources of air pollution in Jerusalem.7 Atmospheric pollution in

2
Shaw (1996), Sallares (1991) and Schiedel (2001).
3
World Health Organisation (2013).
4
Hughes (1996) and Mosley (2010).
5
Hughes (1996).
6
Colbeck (2007) p. 375.
7
Brimblecombe (2008), Colbeck (2007) and Mamane (1987).

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146 S. Mosley

the ancient world, then, was recognised as damaging to both human health and the
built environment, and it was in early cities that the first legislative steps were taken
to abate it—and to protect the air as common property—albeit with limited success.
Domestic smoke problems from wood and charcoal burning were mainly con-
fined to a limited area in and around urban centres. The noxious emissions from
smelting and mining metals, however, had more serious and far-reaching conse-
quences. The leading sources of metallic pollutants were lead and copper produc-
tion, which had environmental impacts on a regional and hemispheric level long
before the Industrial Revolution. First smelted in Anatolia and Mesopotamia around
5000 BCE, the production of lead increased sharply during the Greco-Roman
period (peaking at around 80,000 tons per annum). Indeed, it was central to the
Roman’s daily lives, and they used it extensively for everything from domestic
water pipes and roofing to kitchen utensils and coinage—and even as a sweetener of
wine (lead arsenate). The adverse health effects of long-term exposure to lead
(impaired fertility and neurological damage), which disproportionately affected the
Roman aristocracy and upper classes, have been linked to the end of empire. Lead
extraction and smelting also posed a serious health hazard for workers (often forced
labour) in Roman mining operations in the Iberian Peninsula, England, Gaul,
Greece and elsewhere, as well as leaving behind hill-sized mounds of black slag
that transformed the landscape. The Greek geographer and historian Strabo (c.64
BCE–c.23 CE) described how toxic metallic emissions from smelter furnaces were
discharged into the air from ‘high chimneys’; and small-sized particles were
transported on the prevailing winds to pollute large regions of the northern hemi-
sphere. Analysis of Arctic ice-core studies has shown that imperial Rome increased
the release of lead into the environment by a factor of ten, mainly due to inefficient
smelting in open furnaces.8
The Roman period also saw a marked rise in copper production, which—often
alloyed with tin to form the harder metal bronze—was utilised to make tools,
weapons and coins. Reaching a peak of over 15,000 tons per annum approximately
2,000 years ago, Roman copper supplies were sourced mainly from Spain, Cyprus
and central Europe. The widespread use of copper coinage in medieval China under
the Sung Dynasty contributed to a second preindustrial boom in production (rising
to about 13,000 tons per annum at its peak; a scale comparable to that of Roman
times). But the primitive technologies and techniques employed by Roman and
Chinese metallurgists resulted in around 15 % of all smelted copper being expelled
into the atmosphere. The data from Arctic ice-cores shows that the cumulative
deposition of copper pollution in the northern hemisphere was much greater before
the Industrial Revolution than afterwards, when smelting technologies had
improved.9 It is important to note that because smelters and other smoky trades
(such as brick-making) made disagreeable neighbours, they were often situated well
beyond the boundaries of a city. Pragmatically, they were generally located in the

8
Hong et al. (1994), Hughes (1996) and McMichael (2001).
9
Hong et al. (1996) and Colbeck (2007).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 147

countryside close to forest and woodland areas where fuel was abundant, its
transportation costs were low, and where few people would be troubled by air
pollution problems.
A shortage of fuelwood and charcoal in sixteenth-century London, as its growing
population placed unsustainable demands on surrounding woodlands, led to the
increasing use of coal as a substitute—a harbinger of things to come. One of the
largest cities in Europe, London’s population is estimated to have more than
doubled from 75,000 in 1550 to 200,000 in 1600, with an almost threefold increase
to 575,000 in 1700. As wood became scarce its price increased dramatically, by
some 780 % between 1540 and 1640, forcing large numbers of Londoners to switch
to cheaper supplies of ‘sea-coal’ as an alternative source of fuel for their homes and
businesses. Imported into London via coastal shipping routes and the Thames,
mainly from north-eastern England, the growing consumption of ‘sea-coal’—up
from c.10,000 tons in 1580 to c.360,000 tons in 1680—brought increasing com-
plaints about smoke emissions.10
Coal had been shipped to London since medieval times, where it was burned
mainly by tradesmen in small workshops during fuelwood shortages. The dense
smoke billowing from smiths’ forges, breweries and lime kilns soon attracted
criticism from its citizens, who were worried about deteriorating air quality in the
city. In the late thirteenth century, for example, two royal commissions were
appointed to inquire into complaints about pollution caused by coal-fired lime kilns
operating in London. And Edward I issued a royal proclamation in 1307 to prohibit
the use of smoky ‘sea-coal’ in the city’s kilns because of the ‘annoyance’ caused to
its inhabitants and concern over ‘the injury of their bodily health’. In 1578 Queen
Elizabeth I objected to the ‘taste and smoke’ of sea-coal issuing from brewing
houses sited near the Palace of Westminster. By the seventeenth century the city’s
smoke-cloud had thickened, as more and more Londoners made the transition from
wood and charcoal to fossil fuel consumption.11 This provoked some influential
figures of the day to protest about the state of London’s atmosphere, best exem-
plified by the publication of John Evelyn’s pamphlet Fumifugium in 1661, in which
he spoke indignantly of:
… that Hellish and dismall Cloud of SEA-COAL …perpetually imminent over her head …
mixed with the otherwise wholesome and excellent Aer, that her Inhabitants breathe
nothing but an impure and thick Mist accompanied with a fuliginous and filthy vapour,
which renders them obnoxious to a thousand inconveniences, corrupting the Lungs, and
disordering the entire habits of their Bodies; so that Catharrs, Phthisicks, Coughs and
Consumptions rage more in this one City than in the whole Earth besides.12

In addition, he described how the smoke-cloud damaged the city’s architecture

and green spaces, as well as Londoner’s clothes and possessions. Smoke emissions
on such a scale would not be tolerated in the other great cities of Europe, Evelyn

10
Te Brake (1975), Brimblecombe (1988) and Jenner (1995).
11
Te Brake (1975), Brimblecombe (1988) and Sieferle (2001).
12
Evelyn (1976) p. 5.

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148 S. Mosley

argued, and he recommended that polluting industries be relocated outside of

London. But from the end of the eighteenth century, rapid urban-industrial growth
would see air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels become a major environ-
mental problem throughout Europe and the wider world.

5.3 The Age of Smoke, c.1780–1950

Coal was essential to the rise of industrial towns and cities, first in Britain, followed
by northern Europe, the United States and other parts of the world. World coal output
was around 10 million tons in 1800, with about 80 % of the total mined in Britain. By
1900, global coal output had increased enormously to about 780 million tons, with
both Germany and the United States now major producers. There were few big cities
before coal was used to power machines (in 1800 just six cities in the world had over
500,000 inhabitants), their size and number held in check by the low productivity of
their hinterlands. The shift from a solar to a fossil energy system removed old
constraints on urban and economic expansion (by 1900 there were 43 cities that
exceeded half a million in population, including 16 of more than one million); but at
a high socio-environmental cost.13 Air pollution rose to unprecedented levels as coal
replaced wood and charcoal for industrial and home energy uses, impacting nega-
tively on nature and human health in new manufacturing centres like Birmingham,
Leeds, Manchester, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Germany’s Ruhrgebiet.
The concentration of industry was made possible by improved transport infra-
structure—canals and railways—that could get massive volumes of coal into towns
and cities quickly and cheaply. While each place had its own experience, due to
differences in topography, climate, population density and economic base (such as
textiles, steel or chemicals), the spread of coal-fired industrialisation also brought
air pollution problems that were common to all. The tall smokestacks of factories
and furnaces dominated nineteenth and early-twentieth century cityscapes, and their
emissions permanently filled the air. On arrival, visitors to new industrial towns
found that the acrid smoke stung their eyes and inhibited their breathing, while the
falling soot soiled their clothes and skin. Smoke pollution, denser in winter than in
summer, seriously damaged architecture in urban-industrial areas. As early as 1854
Charles Dickens, in his lesser-known role as journalist, complained that many of
Britain’s grand public edifices appeared to be ‘built of coal’ rather than of brick or
stone. Monumental public buildings, such as new town halls that expressed civic
pride, were soon defaced by soot and grime. In addition, the stonework of historic
buildings, such as the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral and York Minster,
began to erode under the effects of acid rain.14 Writing on ‘The Air of Towns’ in
1859, the Manchester-based scientist Robert Angus Smith first coined the term:

13
Smil (1994), Nye (1998) and Sieferle (2001).
14
Mosley (2008).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 149

It has often been observed that the stones and bricks of buildings, especially under pro-
jecting parts, crumble more readily in large towns where much coal is burnt than else-
where… I was led to attribute this effect to the slow but constant action of the acid rain… it
is not to be expected that calcareous substances will resist it long, and one of the greatest
evils in old buildings in Manchester is the deterioration of the mortar. It generally swells
out, becomes very porous, and falls to pieces on the slightest touch.15

Using Smith’s extensive chemical analyses of free acids in Manchester’s rain-

water, Dietrich Schwela has converted his figures to estimate that the pH value of
the city’s rainfall over a century ago was a very low 3.5.16 This is a far more acidic
value than today’s measurements for acid rain in Europe and the United States. In
the USA and Germany smoke, soot and acid rain had similar deleterious effects on
the built environment. Chicago’s dazzling ‘White City’, an exhibit of elegant
buildings created for the 1893 World’s Fair by some of America’s best architects,
quickly darkened and decayed. While in industrialising Germany famous buildings
such as Cologne Cathedral were seriously corroded by air pollution.17
The omnipresent smoke that blanketed fast-growing industrial areas was also
linked to the destruction of urban nature. Green spaces and blue skies had largely
become ‘meaningless terms’ for poor city-dwellers during what some contempo-
raries called ‘the age of smoke’. In Manchester, the world’s first real industrial city,
damage to local vegetation was devastating, as Robert Holland, consulting botanist
to the North Lancashire Agricultural Society, noted:
Some years ago I had the honour of making an inspection of all the public parks of
Manchester on behalf of the Corporation… I scarcely need say that, going as I did from the
fresh green country, I was horrified to see the havoc that was being made. Fine open
spaces… which ought to have been beautiful, and would have been picturesque if well
covered with trees, and which should have supplied pleasant recreation grounds for a
population that sees far too little of country life and breathes far too little of fresh country air
– rendered hideous by the blackness of everything with[in] them – trees stunted, dying,
flowers struggling to bloom and sometimes their species scarcely recognisable. It is no
exaggeration; and as long as the surrounding chimneys send out volumes of sulphurous
acid and of carbon there can be no improvement …18

The effects of smoke on flora in Manchester’s parks were representative of the

conditions in and around coal-fuelled industrial cities more generally. In the 1920s,
for example, the authorities of Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, Brooklyn
Botanical Gardens and New York’s Central Park all lamented the loss of trees,
shrubs and plants from smoke-related problems. At roughly the same time, official
reports into air pollution emanating from the Ruhr in Germany revealed damage to
cropland and woodland on a regional scale.19 While some vegetation could with-
stand the unrelenting assault from air pollution (such as ash, elder, hawthorn, poplar

15
Smith (1859) p. 232.
16
Schwela (1983).
17
Stradling (1999) and Frenzel (1985).
18
Mosley (2008) p. 41.
19
Obermeyer (1933) and Brüggemeier (1994).

[email protected]
150 S. Mosley

trees, privet hedges, rhododendrons and willows), there was a considerable loss of
diversity in urban-industrial areas.
Smoke pollution—by absorbing and scattering light—was recognised to lower
sunshine levels significantly for city-dwellers. Early scientific investigations in
Leeds and Manchester suggest that they lost as much as 50 % of available sunlight
and daylight. Fogs formed readily in industrial towns and cities as the particulate
pollution (smoke and soot) provided in abundance the necessary nuclei for con-
densation and the formation of water droplets, especially at low temperatures. As a
result of the presence of the ‘smoke nuisance’, fogs grew denser and became more
frequent, particularly during the winter months. An investigation undertaken on
behalf of the Meteorological Council in 1901–1903 concluded that 20 % of Lon-
don’s fogs were smoke induced. In cold, calm atmospheric conditions fog often
went hand-in-hand with a temperature inversion; when the air overhead was war-
mer than at ground level it acted like a lid, trapping polluted air in the streets for
long periods. Moreover, coal smoke formed a sticky film around the water droplets,
which meant that town fogs evaporated far less easily than country fogs. When
thick fogs occurred it was not unusual for the inhabitants of British and American
industrial cities to experience ‘night at noon’, which seriously disrupted business,
transport and urban life as visibility diminished to just a few metres.20 Reduced
sunlight, dirty air and the increase in the frequency and persistence of urban fogs
were also a threat to human health on both sides of the Atlantic.
Rickets, a disease of childhood which resulted in softened, calcium-deficient
bones, was caused by poor diet and insufficient exposure to sunlight. It was
endemic in the gloomy manufacturing towns and mining areas of northern Europe
and the United States until the 1940s. Respiratory diseases were rife where air
quality was poor, and by the turn of the twentieth century bronchitis was the biggest
single killer in Britain’s factory towns. Smoky industrial centres in Germany and
the United States also suffered inflated death rates from diseases of the lungs. The
doors and windows of people’s homes were routinely kept closed to exclude soot
and smoke, which meant that urban populations—who spent a good deal of their
time indoors—were overexposed to tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
Contemporary observers also noted that the same factors that influenced the high
incidence of rickets and respiratory diseases in large towns and cities could also
have serious psychological effects on their inhabitants. In 1913, for example,
research conducted by Dr. J.E. Wallace Wallin, as part of an investigation under-
taken by the Mellon Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, linked smoke pollution
to a wide variety of psychological problems, including: ‘chronic ennui’; ‘morbid
emotions’; ‘instability of attention’; ‘irritability’; and ‘lessened self-control’. And as
well as affecting the physical and mental well-being of city-dwellers, air pollution
was also closely connected to a perceived decline in moral standards. Drunkenness
and criminal activity were both thought to increase beneath the thickening smoke-
cloud, while many housewives simply gave up the arduous struggle to keep their

20
Luckin (2003), Mosley (2007, 2008), Tarr (1996) and Stradling (1999).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 151

homes and children clean. In Britain, the middle classes relocated to semi-rural
suburbs beyond the reach of the smoke, leaving the working classes behind with
few appropriate ‘role models’ to emulate.21
Common concerns about the detrimental effects of air pollution on industrial
cities and their communities led to the establishment of numerous smoke abatement
societies in Britain and the United States, but not in Germany where citizen’s
associations generally played less of a role in municipal politics.22 Britain’s first
anti-smoke groups were founded in 1842, including a Committee for the Con-
sumption of Smoke at Leeds and the Manchester Association for the Prevention of
Smoke. Eager to secure clean air for the ‘health, comfort and well-being’ of city-
dwellers, these early reformers tended to focus on technical solutions to the smoke
problem. For example, meetings of the Manchester Association for the Prevention
of Smoke were held in the lecture room of the Royal Victoria Gallery for the
Encouragement of Practical Science, and they were attended by some of the city’s
foremost scientists, technologists, and industrialists, including William Sturgeon,
Peter Clare, William Fairbairn, and Henry Houldsworth. Its main goal was to
persuade manufacturers that preventing pollution was good business, as the
installation of the latest abatement devices and efficient boiler-furnaces would
reduce fuel bills as well as smoke emissions. Education was thought to be the key to
making progress in smoke abatement, and later societies such as the London-based
Smoke Abatement Committee and the National Smoke Abatement Society organ-
ised major exhibitions of smoke abatement technologies to encourage large num-
bers of industrialists and householders to adopt cleaner, fuel-efficient appliances
(such as automatic stokers and closed stoves).23 Anti-smoke activism did not begin
in earnest in the United States until the late 1880s and early 1890s, when reformers
in Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis and Pittsburgh organised to address the problem.24
Unlike Britain, middle-class women, rather than professional men, were in the
vanguard of the smoke abatement movement in the United States. Reflecting the
fact that women, as housewives and mothers, bore a heavy burden in keeping
homes clean and healthy in the face of a constant barrage of soot and grime,
influential women’s groups such as the Ladies Health Protection Association in
Pittsburgh and the Wednesday Club in St. Louis spearheaded the anti-smoke
campaign. But as questions of technology, economy and efficiency began to come
to the fore, by the early 1910s male engineering experts were playing a central role
in the American smoke abatement movement. There was increasing cooperation
between British and American anti-smoke activists with, for example, delegates
from Chicago, Pittsburgh and other US cities attending the 1912 International
Smoke Abatement Exhibition in London. However, as bituminous coal was both
plentiful and inexpensive, and smoke-consuming appliances were expensive to buy

21
Mosley (2003, 2008), Andersen (1994) and Stradling (1999).
22
Mosley (2008), Stradling and Thorsheim (1999) and Uekötter (1999).
23
Mosley (2007, 2008) and Ranlett (1981).
24
Stradling (1999).

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152 S. Mosley

and often unreliable to run, at this time many industrialists and most householders
chose to ignore calls to burn fuel more efficiently. Anti-smoke activists often spoke
of the ‘curse of cheap coal’. Although the educational approach had reduced the
amount of smoke in some places, air pollution remained a serious cause for concern
in most industrial towns and cities.25 By the turn of the twentieth century, frustrated
reformers—especially those campaigning in Britain—believed that tougher anti-
smoke legislation needed to be introduced by national governments if the move-
ment for clean air was to be successful.
Despite economic and cultural differences, a number of detailed studies have
clearly shown that the British, American and German legislatures all embarked on a
‘process of compromise’ with the Industrial Revolution so as not to unduly hinder
urban-industrial growth. As the first industrial nation, Britain was a pioneer where
legislation to control smoke pollution was concerned. Up until the end of the
eighteenth century, its Common Law courts had accepted that there was a natural
right for an individual to enjoy clean air (and pure water) on their own property. It
was no defence for a businessman causing nuisances to claim that his operations
brought jobs and prosperity. Thereafter, a growing reliance on coal-fuelled steam
power in new industrial towns provided the impetus for a shift in the focus of
traditional nuisance law. As smoke and other forms of industrial pollution worsened
in the manufacturing districts of Britain, the dilemma faced by nuisance law judges
was, ‘How best to reconcile the often conflicting goals of environmental quality and
economic development’?26 The increasing use of the doctrine of ‘social-cost bal-
ancing’ by early nineteenth century judges weakened the plaintiff’s right to pro-
tection, and a rigid interpretation of liability was abandoned in industrial areas.
Indeed, Victorian judges often stated that ‘life in factory towns required more
forbearance than life elsewhere’.27 The utilitarian concept of ‘social-cost balancing’
allowed the courts to weigh the costs of imposing sanctions on a polluter against the
benefits of abating the pollution. In new factory towns like Manchester the benefits
of abating smoke were thought to be more than outweighed by the possible negative
repercussions for the economy of obtaining injunctions to stop polluting businesses.
Thus, traditional restrictions on economic enterprise that had previously shielded
people and the environment from the injurious emissions of industry were relaxed.
The Common Law became ineffectual because the new industrial society had made
a pragmatic trade-off: dirty air in return for economic success, employment, and
consumer goods. As the number of smoking chimneys rapidly multiplied in Brit-
ain’s industrial towns, relatively few air pollution cases were brought before the
Common Law courts. In the 90-year period after 1770 there were, on average, only
one or two actions in England every 10 years.28

25
Gugliotta (2000), Stradling (1999), Stradling and Thorsheim (1999), Mosley (2008) and
Thorsheim (2006).
26
Rosen (1993).
27
Brenner (1974).
28
Rosen (1993), Brenner (1974) and McLaren (1983).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 153

Parliament appointed several committees in the nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries to investigate the ‘nuisances’ arising from smoke pollution, including: the
Taylor Committee on Steam Engines and Furnaces, 1819–1820; the Mackinnon
Committees on Smoke Prevention, 1843 and 1845; the Select Committee on Smoke
Nuisance Abatement, 1887; and the Newton Committee on Smoke and Noxious
Vapours, 1914 and 1920–1921. And both municipal and national government
enacted a raft of legislation to deal with the ‘smoke nuisance’, such as: the anti-
smoke clauses in Local Acts, passed in Derby 1825, Leeds 1842, Manchester 1844,
and elsewhere from the 1840s onwards; the Smoke Nuisance Abatement
(Metropolis) Act, 1853; the anti-smoke clause in the Public Health Act, 1875; and
the Public Health (Smoke Abatement) Act, 1926. However, as smoke was closely
associated with jobs and economic well-being, and because it was not possible for
contemporary physicians to prove conclusively that air pollution caused ill-health,
there was little political or public support for tough action to tackle the problem.
The evidence of anti-smoke ‘experts’ to parliamentary committees largely went
unheeded; and successive anti-smoke laws were poorly drafted and weakly
enforced.29 They all contained the following flaws:
• An ambiguous ‘best practicable means’ clause. The ‘best practicable means’ of
smoke abatement did not mean ‘the best available means’ using the latest
technology. Rather, it meant the abatement apparatus that industrialists felt they
could install at a cost they believed reasonable. Businessmen who argued in
court that they had done their utmost to curtail excessive air pollution from their
plant by employing technological measures that were commensurate with their
financial means, however rudimentary, were usually assured of a sympathetic
hearing.
• Insignificant fines. Legislation introduced to combat smoke—both local and
national measures—only imposed low fines on offenders, effectively providing
Britain’s industrialists with a ‘license to pollute’.
• Exemptions. The failure to regulate emissions from domestic fireplaces, which
were major polluters of city air, when it was possible to reduce smoke signif-
icantly by burning fossil fuels in closed stoves. No government of the day was
willing to incur the public’s displeasure by taking action to interfere with their
freedom to enjoy the warmth of a traditional open coal fire. Metal, brick, glass,
pottery and other trades that used heating power intermittently were also exempt
from early anti-smoke legislation.
Moreover, in Britain’s factory towns many of the magistrates who dealt with
smoke pollution cases were local industrialists, or they had close connections to
local businessmen. Before the Second World War, weak and poorly enforced
legislation had little effect in cutting smoke pollution and improving air quality in
British cities.30

29
Ashby and Anderson (1981) and Mosley (2007, 2008).
30
Mosley (2007, 2008) and Ashby and Anderson (1981).

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154 S. Mosley

Concern for industrial interests also played a significant role in undermining

legislative attempts to control smoke in the United States and Germany. As in
Britain, few US citizens attempted to enforce the Common Law principle that
harmful ‘smoke nuisances’ must be abated, especially as it was so difficult to link
any damage caused to property to a particular polluter. And the commonly accepted
notion that smoke meant employment and prosperity similarly prevented the tough
municipal regulation of polluting businesses. In the United States, the first ‘smoke
ordinances’ were not passed until the early 1880s, with Chicago, Cincinnati,
Cleveland, Pittsburgh and St. Louis leading the way. But these anti-smoke laws
were never rigorously implemented, for fear that ‘over-regulation’ might hamper
economic growth in industrialising America. Despite the calls of some anti-pollu-
tion activists for the authorities to ‘get tough’ regarding smoke control, few lawsuits
were brought against manufacturers. Instead, in the US the emphasis came to be
placed on ‘smoke inspection’ by well-trained engineers, who advised businessmen
about the latest technological advances for reducing air pollution from their
works.31 In Germany, laws to control smoke were passed during the 1870s and
1880s in cities such as Breslau, Nuremburg, Stuttgart and Freiburg. By the early
twentieth century, local laws in Hamburg, Dresden and Munich were even being
used systematically in the fight against smoke. But before the Second World War,
German municipal government overall was unsuccessful in protecting townspeople
and the environment from the deleterious impacts of smoke pollution. Indeed, it has
been argued that the Ruhrgebiet—Germany’s main urban-industrial region—was a
place where fledgling industries were ‘consciously protected’ rather than nature.32
Smoke abatement made little progress until the interwar years, when the tran-
sition to cleaner energy systems, based on gas, oil and electricity, began in earnest.
In the United States, cleaner sources of energy—oil and natural gas—were abun-
dant and inexpensive, and their rapid development challenged the dominance of
coal (although ‘King Coal’ remained sovereign in many northeastern and mid-
western cities until the late 1940s and 1950s). In 1920, coal still accounted for
almost 70 % of American energy production. But it only provided around a quarter
of the nation’s energy in 1955, replaced by oil and natural gas and which by this
time held 41 and 26 % of the market share respectively.33 In Britain, where coal
was used to produce both gas and electricity, rates of growth were slower and
progress disrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War (‘town gas’ was used
extensively in the interwar home for lighting and cooking, but it remained
uncompetitive for heating purposes). Moreover, gas works and power stations soon
became major polluters in their own right.34 But the growing availability of
affordable ‘smokeless’ forms of energy saw anti-pollution campaigners on both
sides of the Atlantic increase the pressure on governments to eradicate smoke,

31
Stradling (1999) and Stradling and Thorsheim (1999).
32
Uekötter (2009) and Brüggemeier (1994).
33
Nye (1998), Stradling (1999) and Tarr (1996).
34
Luckin (1990), Sheail (1991), Thorsheim (2002) and Mosley (2009).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 155

which could no longer be considered as an ‘inevitable’ consequence of urban-

industrial life.
The outbreak of war in 1939, however, and the need for rapid industrial pro-
duction, saw public and political interest in smoke abatement diminish. It was
London’s ‘Great Smog’ of 1952, which according to official figures caused some
4,000 deaths from respiratory and cardiovascular disorders (and perhaps as many as
12,000 deaths according to recent research), that proved to be the catalyst for the
introduction of stringent legislation to control air pollution in Britain. Following
this tragedy, which demonstrated conclusively that polluted air could be just as
deadly as polluted water supplies, the public and the press supported the passage of
the Clean Air Act of 1956, which for the first time regulated both domestic and
industrial smoke emissions. Widely considered by historians to be an important
milestone in environmental protection, the legislation included powers to establish
‘smokeless zones’ in towns and cities, and householders and industrialists were
required to burn cleaner fuel to meet their energy needs.35 Local ordinances in
American cities such as St. Louis and Pittsburgh had given the authorities the right
to control the type of fuel consumed by industry prior to London’s ‘killer smog’,
reducing smoke significantly. Following this well-publicised disaster, and the
Donora smog of October 1948 which had killed 20 people, concerns about health
saw federal air pollution control acts passed in the United States in 1955, 1963 and
1967. But not until the Clean Air Act of 1970 were national air quality standards set
for the first time. In post-war Germany, lacking influential citizen’s associations and
needing to rebuild its shattered industries, the government subsidised Ruhr coal
production in order to boost economic growth. The first national German legislation
to combat air pollution had to wait until the Federal Emissions Control Act of 1974,
which sought reductions in emissions through the use of Stand der Technik or the
‘best practicable means’ of abatement. As was the case in the nineteenth century,
this meant using abatement technology installed at a cost that took the economic
circumstances of a particular firm into account.36 Nonetheless, by the late 1960s
and 1970s, the skies were clearing over the cities of the first industrial nations; but it
had taken more than a century to solve the smoke problem.
In early twentieth-century Japan, the industrial Hanshin region between Kyoto,
Kobe and Osaka experienced roughly the same smoke pollution levels as western
European and American manufacturing centres. But after the passage of national
smoke control legislation in 1962, with regulations being further tightened in 1970,
city air in Japan also improved in quality. But smoke pollution continued to be a
major problem in other parts of the world, particularly in the cities of the Soviet
Union, eastern Europe and China where industrialisation was still heavily depen-
dent on coal. Before the collapse of the USSR (1989–1991), the commitment of
communist countries to economic growth—to match or even out-produce the

35
Davis (2002) and Thorsheim (2004).
36
Tarr and Zimring (1997), Stradling (1999), Davis (2002) and Morag-Levine (2003).

[email protected]
156 S. Mosley

capitalist West—resulted in ‘polluted skies as never before’.37 Monopolistic state

control over heavy industries such as coal mines, chemical works, and iron and steel
foundries meant that there was little pressure to introduce abatement technologies or
environmental protection legislation that might impede economic expansion. While
smoke emissions were coming under control in the West, they were rising rapidly
behind both the Iron and Bamboo Curtains. In Nizhni Tagil, an industrial city 700
miles east of Moscow, urbanites regularly experienced ‘night at noon’ because the
smog was so thick. Chinese industrial cities, such as Shenyang and Lanzhou, were
also characterised by high levels of smoke pollution. China, which now has over
120 cities with more than one million inhabitants, currently burns in excess of two
billion tons of coal per annum (and it is likely to remain its dominant fuel for
decades to come). In 1998, of the ten most polluted cities in the world, nine were to
be found in China. Lanzhou’s inhabitants had to breathe air with average levels of
pollution that were more than 100 times the World Health Organisation’s (WHO)
guidelines. In 2013, the WHO estimated that over 1.3 million people around the
world were killed by respiratory and other diseases associated with outdoor air
pollution, the great majority in developing countries.38
China, which manufactures low-priced goods for export to the West, is now the
world’s biggest producer and consumer of coal (many developed nations have
essentially ‘outsourced’ their pollution). Industrialising India (where smoke emis-
sions were strictly regulated under the British Raj), is also among the top five
nations for coal production, with cities such as Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai all
suffering from severe air pollution. The air quality in many Chinese and Indian
manufacturing centres today is as poor as it was more than a century ago in
Manchester or Pittsburgh (with emissions from car exhausts adding to the problem
—see below). It is worth noting too that while coal now provides less than a third of
the world’s energy, between 1900 and 2000 global production continued to rise
sharply from 780 million tons to 3.5 billion tons per annum.39 And smoke due to
biomass burning and large-scale forest fires as more land is cleared for agriculture
in South Asia, creating the so-called Asian Brown Cloud, is now causing health and
environmental problems across borders.40

5.4 The Era of Invisible Threats, c.1950: Present

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, smoke and winter ‘smog’—a term
coined in 1905 by Dr. Harold Des Voeux of the London-based Coal Smoke
Abatement Society to describe the fusion of smoke and fog—were the most obvious

37
McNeill (2000).
38
Davis (2002), Mosley (2010)and World Health Organisation (2013).
39
McNeill (2000), Anderson (1995) and Dorf (2001).
40
United Nations Environment Programme (2002) and Chakrabarti (2007).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 157

air pollution problems caused by coal-burning and other activities in industrial towns
and cities. The impacts of less visible atmospheric pollutants, however, were also
becoming conspicuous to some contemporaries. Indeed, the British government had
enjoyed some early success in regulating hydrochloric acid gas emissions from the
alkali industry, based mainly in Merseyside, Tyneside and Glasgow, which pro-
duced soda ash and caustic soda for use in soaps, detergents, dyes, bleaches, and
glass and paper making. Landowners living in close proximity to alkali works
complained that the environmental damage they caused was severe, with acid
deposition destroying both agricultural crops and woodland. The Alkali Act of 1863,
overseen by the country’s first Alkali Inspector, the aforementioned Robert Angus
Smith, compelled manufacturers of soda ash to reduce their acidic emissions by
95 % using a simple and inexpensive condensing technique.41 But the act did not
control other gaseous pollutants from factories, most notably the sulphur dioxide—a
key component of acid rain—that was released when fossil fuels were burned.
Acid rain had first been identified as a deleterious influence on the environment in
and around urban-industrial centres during the mid-nineteenth century (see previous
section). But it was not until the 1960s that acid rain began to attract significant
public and political attention. While smoke pollution had declined in the developed
world from the mid-twentieth century, the problem of acid rain persisted and spread.
Legislation designed to control visible coal smoke did little to curb invisible emis-
sions of sulphur dioxide, largely because the economic costs of fitting preventive
flue-gas scrubbing systems were high. In Britain, for example, long-standing ideas
about employing the ‘best practicable means’ of pollution abatement meant that
solutions still had to be both technically and economically feasible. Worried that
low-level concentrations of sulphur dioxide posed a threat to human health, regu-
lators instead insisted on another ‘technical fix’—raising the height of industrial
chimneys—to better disperse and dilute this harmful pollutant. Coal-fired power
stations, providing ‘clean energy’ in the form of electricity to homes and industry,
produced much of the sulphur dioxide that reacted with moisture in the atmosphere
to form acid rain (solving one environmental problem can often exacerbate another).
By 1960, Britain had built more than 60 new power stations and greatly extended the
generating capacity of many older installations, with their chimneys reaching heights
in excess of 135 m. These tall chimneystacks, intended to reduce local air pollution,
transported sulphur emissions over hundreds and even thousands of kilometres. By
the end of the 1960s, Scandinavian scientists had shown that enormous flows of air
pollution from Britain, carried by the prevailing winds, were causing lakes and rivers
to acidify in Norway and Sweden. The ecological consequences also included the
widespread decline of forests (although acid rain is just one of a number of cumu-
lative stresses that can cause die-offs).42 For a long time the impacts of acid rain were
mainly local or regional, but new scientific research gradually revealed that it was
causing environmental damage on an international scale.

41
Ashby and Anderson (1981), Dingle (1982), Hawes (1995) and Garwood (2004).
42
Osborn (2004), Sheail (1991), Brimblecombe (2008) and Lundgren (1998).

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158 S. Mosley

Industrial sulphur dioxide emissions travelled unhindered across national bor-

ders, and this type of transboundary pollution also became an issue elsewhere in
Europe and the wider world. South-westerly winds carried air pollution from
Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland to Scandinavia. In addition, by the mid-
1980s about half of Canada’s annual sulphur deposition was found to originate in
the United States, (although emissions from Ontario also drifted the other side of
the border). And from the 1990s, Japan was regularly showered by acidic rainfall
from China and South Korea, where the demand for electricity had increased
dramatically due to rapid urban-industrial growth.43 International air pollution
problems required international cooperation if solutions were to be found. An early
example of ground-breaking environmental diplomacy over cross-border air pol-
lution is the Trail smelter dispute (1927–1941) between the United States and
Canada, which set an international precedent by establishing the ‘polluter pays’
principle.44 After almost 15 years of wrangling between negotiators, a decision was
reached that stated:
Under the principles of international law, as well as the law of the United States, no state
has the right to use or permit the use of its territory in such a manner as to cause injury by
fumes in or to the territory of another or the properties or persons therein, when the case is
of serious consequence and the injury is established by clear and convincing evidence.45

The Trail smelter tribunal ruled that US farmers should receive compensation for
crops and farmland damaged by sulphurous smoke emissions, and the principle that
the ‘polluter pays’ became one of the fundamental underpinnings of international
environmental law. This precedent clearly influenced later political debates over
acid rain in northern Europe, North America and East Asia.
In June 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment con-
vened in Stockholm, bringing world leaders together for the first time to talk about
the state of the earth. The Swedish government took this opportunity to highlight
how acid rain from Britain and other European countries was damaging Scandina-
vian lakes and forests. Despite most industrial countries having already accepted the
‘polluter pays’ principle, this had previously applied to emissions from easily
identifiable sources such as the Trail smelter, located close to a shared border. As far
as the larger-scale acid rain problem was concerned, with the aggregated emissions
from an industrial region in one country harming the environment of another hun-
dreds or even thousands of kilometres away, coming to an agreement was still to
prove difficult. In this case, it was no easy matter to demonstrate conclusively that
environmental damage in one place was caused by pollution emissions originating in
another.46 But two important principles proclaimed at the Stockholm conference,
which echoed the Trail decision, helped to provide the political impetus necessary to
reach an agreement to tackle acid rain. Principle 21 stated that:

43
McNeill (2000), Schmandt et al. (1988), McCormick (1997) and Brimblecombe (2008).
44
Wirth (2000).
45
Elsom (1992) p. 309.
46
Sheail (1991), McCormick (1997) and Lundgren (1998).

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5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 159

States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of
international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own
environmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their juris-
diction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas
beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

And Principle 22 stated that:

States shall cooperate to develop further the international law regarding liability and
compensation for the victims of pollution and other environmental damage caused by
activities within the jurisdiction or control of such States to areas beyond their
jurisdiction.47

Following the Stockholm conference, pressure began to build for international

political action to be taken to reduce and prevent acid rain.
In 1979, 34 governments and the European Community signed up to the Con-
vention on Long-Range Transboundary Pollution (including the United States and
Canada), which had been drafted by the United Nations Economic Commission for
Europe. Signatories to the Convention set long-term targets to cut sulphur dioxide
emissions, and for the past three decades they have cooperated on various research
and monitoring programmes concerning the movement of pollutants across borders.
The Convention’s initial provisions have been extended eight times since it was
implemented to include the control of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (1988),
volatile organic compounds (1991), heavy metals (1998), and the abatement of
eutrophication and ground level ozone (1999). As a result of this cooperative
approach to pollution control, in Europe the environment is now beginning to
recover from the effects of acid rain.48 In 1980, the National Acid Precipitation
Assessment Program (NAPAP) was authorised in the United States to coordinate
long-term monitoring and research into acid rain. A cooperative federal project, re-
authorised through the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, it also assessed the
effectiveness of an emissions trading system that utilised economic incentives to cut
releases of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. As with Europe, efforts to control
acid rain in the US, especially from coal-fired power stations, have resulted in the
gradual regeneration of some—but not all—of its lakes and forests.49 In 1993, a
meeting organised by the Environment Agency of Japan at Toyama, attended by
senior officials from China, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Russia, saw the establishment of the Acid
Precipitation Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET) to assess the ecological
impacts of transboundary air pollution.50 But despite this cooperative initiative,
which now involves thirteen participating countries, acid rain still remains a serious

47
United Nations Environment Programme (1972).
48
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (2004) and Colbeck (2007).
49
National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (2005) and Brimblecombe (2008).
50
Acid Precipitation Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET) (2013) and Brimblecombe
(2008).

[email protected]
160 S. Mosley

problem in this fast-growing region of the world, with China’s coal-burning power
plants a major source of sulphur dioxide emissions.
After the Second World War, air pollution problems associated with mass car
ownership began to accelerate, first in the developed and then in the developing
world. Emissions of nitrogen oxides from automobile exhausts are a significant
source of acid rain. And until recently, vehicle exhausts spewed millions of tons of
toxic lead into the atmosphere (tetraethyl lead was used as an additive in petrol to
help the engine run smoothly), impairing the normal intellectual development of
children in urban areas. Other vehicle pollutants known to have direct or indirect
adverse effects on human health include carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, fine
airborne particulates and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene,
which contribute to the increase or severity of cardio-respiratory conditions and
even pose a cancer risk to city dwellers.51 Studies have shown that children and the
elderly are particularly at risk from exposure to these pollutants. Somewhat ironi-
cally, from the mid-1950s smoke control initiatives in Western cities allowed more
sunlight to penetrate to the streets, where it reacted with pollutants such as VOCs
and nitrogen oxides emitted from vehicle exhaust pipes to form dangerous ozone-
laden photochemical smog. Excessive ozone in the air can cause breathing prob-
lems and trigger asthma attacks. But laws that controlled smoke in urban areas did
not cover less visible emissions from cars (initially thought to be a minor issue in
comparison with industrial sources of pollution). The rapid rise of automobile-
centred transport systems—with high levels of individual car use—led to an air
pollution problem that was difficult to control.52
Concerns about the effects of air pollution from automobiles on human health
first emerged as early as the 1940s in Los Angeles—a city built for cars—as its
residents began to complain of smarting eyes and a wide range of respiratory
ailments. Suggested measures to limit exhaust emissions proposed during the
1950s, as vehicle ownership in California topped 7 million, included encouraging
car pools, prohibiting car use at certain times in certain places, and imposing a
‘smog’ tax on drivers.53 However, ‘solutions’ that infringed on people’s personal
freedoms, and that increased the cost of motoring, unsurprisingly proved to be
unpopular with the public—then and now. By the 1970s, traffic pollution problems
were emerging elsewhere in the world, with, for example, photochemical smog
episodes in Athens, Greece, (called nephos locally), rivalling those of Los Angeles
and damaging both human health and its historic buildings. At the turn of the
twenty-first century, there were around 600 million cars registered worldwide,
200 million of them in the United States alone. But as car ownership has risen
sharply in the developing world, places like Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Mexico City
and Mumbai now rank among the most heavily polluted ‘smog cities’. Globally,
there has been a tendency for older, more polluting cars to be exported from the

51
Read (1994) and McMichael (2001).
52
Read (1994), Elsom (1992), Dupuis (2004) and McNeill (2000).
53
Elsom (1992) and Rajan (2004).

[email protected]
5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 161

affluent West to developing nations, from the United States to Mexico for instance,
where used vehicles are more affordable.54
Governments in the developed world have begun to include performance and
fuel efficiency standards for automobiles in Clean Air Acts to obtain breathable air
for their citizens, and to monitor air quality in urban centres in an attempt to meet
internationally agreed standards, such as those published by the World Health
Organisation.55 However, there has been a much slower adoption of controls on
exhaust emissions in the highly congested cities of the developing world. During
the early 1990s, for example, national air quality standards were violated in Mexico
City over 300 days every year (despite regular monitoring). Like Los Angeles,
hemmed in by mountains Mexico City’s photochemical smog was difficult to
disperse. A pollution reduction scheme which prohibited cars with odd and even-
numbered licence plates being driven in the city on particular days was ineffective,
as many people switched vehicles or even plates. More recently, vehicle inspections
twice a year and tax incentives to use cleaner fuels and new technologies, such as
catalytic converters, have begun to reduce Mexico City’s ozone levels.56 While a
great deal of progress has been made, its 4 million cars—especially older vehicles
—are still responsible for most of the city’s atmospheric pollution, and peak ozone
levels still regularly exceed recommended limits.
In most parts of the world vehicle pollution has mainly been seen as a scientific
or technological problem, to be solved by the development of cleaner fuels, more
efficient engines and catalytic converters to reduce harmful exhaust emissions,
rather than a social and legal one. The World Health Organisation has recently
warned that vehicle exhausts are a major contributor to more than million premature
deaths worldwide every year from urban outdoor air pollution. At present there are
around 1 billion motor vehicles on the world’s roads, and by 2030 this figure may
double as a result of China’s and India’s rapid economic growth. The benefits of
reducing emissions using cleaner technologies may be greatly diminished by sheer
weight of numbers, as low-cost cars such as the Indian Tata motor company’s Nano
are changing the way millions of people travel in the developing world.57
At ground level, then, ozone is a pollutant that adversely affects human health
and the environment. However, about 90 % of all ozone is found high in the
stratosphere (between 10 and 50 km above the earth’s surface), where it shields life
on the planet from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Since 1930, when the DuPont
company began to manufacture the first of the family of chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) under the trade-name Freon, the stratospheric ozone layer has been under
invisible assault. Chlorofluorocarbons like Freon made the widespread use of

54
Papaioannou and Sapounaki-Drakaki (2001), McNeill (2000) and United Nations Environment
Programme and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (1999).
55
Robinson (2005).
56
Jacobson (2002), Lezema (2004) and United Nations Environment Programme and Organi-
sation for Economic Cooperation and Development (1999).
57
Elsom (1992), World Health Organisation, Health and Environment Linkages Initiative (HELI)
(2013) and Sperling and Gordon (2010).

[email protected]
162 S. Mosley

refrigerators and air-conditioning systems possible, and were later utilised in

industrial solvents, insulated packaging and as propellants in aerosol cans for
deodorants, hairsprays, paints, furniture polishes, and numerous other household
products. Up until the 1920s, most natural refrigerants had been extremely haz-
ardous, such as ammonia (both a flammable and toxic gas). Freon and other CFCs
were stable, nonflammable, nontoxic, and inexpensive to produce. Chemically, they
were stable and unreactive until they reached the stratosphere, a slow journey that
took several years, where UV radiation broke them down and released the ozone
depleting substance chlorine. However, because demand for CFCs was modest
before the Second World War, and the process of ozone depletion was slow, it was
not until the 1970s that concerns about the thinning of the ozone layer emerged.58
As late as 1950, emissions of CFC compounds were still moderate at around
20,000 tons per annum. But by the 1970s, as DuPont’s original patents expired and
the market became crowded with new producers—and consumers, as demand for
refrigerators and air-conditioning units rose—CFC emissions increased sharply to
some 750,000 tons annually.59 During the same decade, scientific studies of CFCs
in the stratosphere indicated that they had the potential to seriously deplete the
ozone layer. In 1985, the depletion of the Earth’s protective ozone layer was finally
confirmed by scientists with the British Antarctic Survey, and was soon made
‘visible’ to the public by the processing and dissemination of data from NASA’s
Nimbus-7 satellite. Numerous studies since then have revealed a global decrease in
what is sometimes called ‘good ozone’. Inert at ambient temperatures, human-made
chlorofluorocarbons reacted very aggressively with ozone in the extreme cold of the
polar stratosphere in the months of early spring, when sunlight returned. The
destruction of ozone by the chlorine in CFCs resulted in ‘ozone holes’ appearing
over both the Antarctic and Arctic regions (the latter being less pronounced). The
ozone layer also thinned significantly above Australia and Chile, and slightly above
much of the Northern Hemisphere (but not over the tropics). The increase in
exposure to ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cancer and eye disorders (especially
cataracts and ‘snow blindness’) in humans, as well as impairing photosynthesis in
plants and reproduction in fish and phytoplankton—adversely affecting terrestrial
and aquatic ecosystems.60 The threats to human health and the environment were
clear and attracted considerable media attention, which led to widespread public
support for action to combat ozone depletion.
Governments lost no time in responding to the threat posed by CFCs, in no small
part because competitively priced substitutes were easy to manufacture, such as
hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) which contain no ozone-depleting chlorine. In 1985,
the United Nations Environment Programme organised the Vienna Convention for
Protection of the Ozone Layer, which encouraged international cooperation on
research into ozone depletion and its effects. It was followed in 1987 by the

58
Jacobson (2002) and McNeill (2000).
59
Ackermann (2002) and McNeill (2000).
60
Lambright (2005), Davis (2002), McMichael (2001) and McNeill (2000).

[email protected]
5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 163

negotiation of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer,
an agreement that aimed to substantially reduce the production and consumption of
CFCs. Since entering into force in January 1989, it has been ratified by 196 states,
including all members of the United Nations (and adjusted and amended on ten
occasions). The first treaty to achieve universal ratification, the Montreal Protocol
stands as the most successful example of international action to tackle a global air
pollution problem, with 95 % of ozone depleting substances now having been
phased out. But because the overall lifetimes of CFCs are between 50 and
100 years, the stratospheric ozone layer is not expected to recover to its original
levels, nor the ‘ozone holes’ to finally close, until well into the second half of the
twenty-first century.61 The replenishment of stratospheric ozone, however, may
exacerbate global warming as it acts as a greenhouse gas—although there is still
some uncertainty about its potency and significance.62 In addition, CFCs and HFCs
are potent greenhouse gases and each contributes to climate change, so in that
respect one harmful chemical has been replaced by another.
If the response to stratospheric ozone depletion by the international community
was relatively swift and effective, progress towards a global agreement to cut
greenhouse gas emissions has been slow in comparison. As early as 1896, the
Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first described how burning coal to fuel the
Industrial Revolution would result in a build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2) with the
potential to raise the average temperature of the planet. An idea echoed in 1938 by
the British engineer and amateur climatologist Guy Stewart Callendar, who warned
members of the Royal Meteorological Society in London that CO2 emissions from
fossil-fuelled human industry were changing the climate. Global warming, how-
ever, was a marginal issue at this time, and Callendar himself thought that a small
rise in global temperature might even be beneficial for humankind by boosting food
production in some regions of the northern hemisphere. It was not until the late
1970s, when the first World Climate Conference met in Geneva, that human-
induced climate change began to emerge as a serious environmental problem.
Organised by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in 1979 more than 300 scientific experts
from 50 countries came together to discuss the possibility that human activities
were causing global warming. They reached a consensus that an increase in
anthropogenic CO2 emissions could cause significant long-term climate change,
although delegates did not agree about how urgent the need was for preventive
measures to be put in place. And overall the meeting attracted very little media or
public attention.63
Record high temperatures in 1988 with, for example, heat waves and droughts
reminiscent of the Dust Bowl era in the United States, saw public awareness of
climate change begin to increase (although no single weather event can be

61
Jacobson (2002) and United Nations Environment Programme (2009).
62
Gao et al. (2010).
63
Weart (2003) and Kessel (2006).

[email protected]
164 S. Mosley

attributed solely to global warming). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC), a scientific body set up by WMO and UNEP in the same year to
advise the world’s governments on the topic, later reported that twentieth-century
temperature increases were unusually rapid when compared with those for the
previous two millennia. Over the last century, average global temperatures have
risen by 0.3–0.6 °C, and they are projected to pass the critical threshold of 2 °C by
2100 (the ‘tipping point’ for ‘dangerous’ changes in climate).64 Left unchecked,
human-induced global warming will result in a whole range of ‘natural disasters’
that include: desertification, droughts, forest fires, species extinctions, sea-level rise,
and a destructive change in weather patterns.
By living off the accumulated energy capital of the past (fossil fuels) instead of
‘current income’ (renewable energies), humankind released huge quantities of CO2
that had been securely locked up underground, profoundly altering the global
carbon cycle. Ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica show conclusively that
atmospheric concentrations of the main ‘greenhouse gas’ CO2 now far exceed
preindustrial values, up from around 280 to more than 390 parts per million, with
most of this increase coming after 1950 (well above the 350 parts per million mark
that many scientists say is the highest ‘safe’ level for carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere). Concentration levels exceeded the symbolic 400 parts per million
threshold at several Arctic monitoring stations for the first time in 2012.65 Other
anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have also increased substantially since
1750, particularly methane from irrigated agriculture, livestock, decomposing
garbage, gas pipelines and coal mining, as well as nitrous oxide from agricultural
fertilisers, car exhausts and industrial smokestacks. In addition, CFCs and HFCs
account for a small percentage of human-generated warming (see above).
According to the World Resources Institute, in the year 2005 agriculture was
responsible for almost 14 % of greenhouse gas emissions; transport (especially
private automobile use) emitted just over 14 %; industry and industrial processes
produced 19 %; changing land use (primarily deforestation) just over 12 %; while
energy consumption for electricity and heating (particularly in residential and
commercial buildings) generated almost 25 % of the total. Because most humans
now live and work in cities, and the world’s urban population will continue to grow
in the future, they are the ‘front lines’ in the battle to halt dangerous climate
change.66
At the global level, between 1850 and 2000 the United States, Britain, Germany,
Japan and other industrialised countries accounted for about 75 % of greenhouse
gas emissions. But industrialising countries like China and India—with their rapidly
growing populations and booming economies—will drive carbon dioxide build-up
in the atmosphere for decades to come. Effective international policies and

64
Weart (2003) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2013).
65
Mosley (2010) and World Meteorological Organization (2013).
66
Penna (2010), World Greenhouse Gas Emissions (2005), Worldwatch Institute (2009) and UN-
HABITAT (2008).

[email protected]
5 Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection 165

substantial investment in clean, renewable technologies are urgently needed to

tackle climate change. However, the globalisation of economic life and consumer
culture, with China and other developing countries manufacturing low-priced goods
for export to the West (as previously mentioned, developed nations have essentially
‘outsourced’ much of their atmospheric pollution), and the great expense of
designing and disseminating environmentally-sound technologies, makes negotia-
tions to radically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases complex. Huge disparities
in average carbon dioxide emissions per person between developed and developing
countries—over 19 tons in the United States, around 5 tons in China, and less than
2 tons in India—also means that a fair and equitable agreement to combat climate
change will be difficult to reach.67 The matter is further complicated by the need to
regulate the activities of large multinational corporations (some more powerful than
small nation states). But the cost of failure, as the former World Bank economist
Nicholas Stern has warned, could be catastrophic. As well as the human suffering
caused by the increased incidence of severe floods, forest fires, droughts and food
shortages, if global warming is left unchecked it could shrink the world’s economy
by up to 20 %. The impacts of climate change, though, will not be evenly dis-
tributed. The poorest people and countries, Stern stressed, will suffer most and
earliest.68
To date, however, progress towards a binding global pact to cut greenhouse gas
emissions has been slow. States and societies still prioritise economic growth over
protecting the environment. A mechanism for discussion, the Framework Con-
vention on Climate Change, was put in place following the 1992 United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development—better known as the Earth Summit
—held in Rio de Janeiro. But the resulting Kyoto Protocol, signed in Japan in 1997,
which committed participating nations to a collective 5.2 % reduction in carbon
dioxide emissions (against 1990 levels) by 2012, was flawed and ineffective, with
no tough penalties for non-compliance. Nonetheless, the United States withdrew
from the process in 2002, worried about damage to its economy. More than half of
the countries that signed are unlikely to meet their modest reduction targets.
Although both China and India were involved, they did not have to curtail their
emissions. In 2013, the fifth IPCC assessment report—prepared by 259 researchers
from 39 countries around the world—reported with 95 % certainty that human
activities since the Industrial Revolution were responsible for climate change. If
current ‘Beyond Kyoto’ negotiations do not produce a more robust international
agreement to considerably reduce greenhouse gases, serious global warming may
become irreversible.69

67
Mosley (2010), Penna (2010) and UN-HABITAT (2008).
68
Stern (2007).
69
Weart (2003), Giddens (2009) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2013).

[email protected]
166 S. Mosley

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Wirth JD (2000) Smelter smoke in North America: the politics of transborder pollution. University
Press of Kansas, Lawrence
World Greenhouse Gas Emissions (2005). http://www.wri.org/resources/charts-graphs/world-
greenhouse-gas-emissions-2005. Accessed 18 Oct 2013
World Health Organisation (2013) Air Pollution. http://www.who.int/ceh/risks/cehair/en/. Acces-
sed 18 Oct 2013c
World Health Organisation, Health and Environment Linkages Initiative (HELI) (2013) http://
www.who.int/heli/risks/urban/urbanenv/en/index.html. Accessed 18 Oct 2013
World Meteorological Organization (2013) Observed concentrations of CO2 cross 400 parts per
million threshold at several global atmospheric watch stations. http://www.wmo.int/pages/
mediacentre/news/documents/400ppm.final.pdf. Accessed 18 Oct 2013
Worldwatch Institute (2009) State of the world 2009: into a warming world. Norton, New York

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Chapter 6
Urban Development and Environment

Dieter Schott

6.1 Introduction

Current environmental policy aiming for sustainable development postulates that

cities and urban dwellers reduce their ecological footprint,1 their use of non-
renewable resources, above all of carbon-dioxide emitting fuels in order to comply
with global targets of reduction of Carbon-dioxide emission to mitigate climate
change. Cities with a share of world population of just over 50 % are responsible for
over 75 % of global resource use. The fact that many cities not only in the most
developed countries of North America, Europe and East Asia but also the mega-
cities of developing countries have a huge ecological footprint raises in historical
perspective the question, how the environmental impact of urban civilization has
been in pre-industrial cultures and how cities have been able to sustain themselves,
to procure the necessary resources for their reproduction without threatening the
ecological stability of their hinterlands. This chapter will provide an overview of
the relationship between urban development and the environment with a specific
focus on Europe since the High Middle ages (160).

6.2 Urban Metabolism

In order to analyze the relationships between cities and their environment in

a systematic way and with a long-term perspective, the concept of ‘social metab-
olism’ linked with ‘colonization of nature’2 has proven to provide a useful
1
Rees and Wackernagel (1997).
2
Fischer-Kowalski et al. (1997).

D. Schott (&)
History Department, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 171

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_6

[email protected]
172 D. Schott

Fig. 6.1 Social metabolism

of a city. Adapted from Schott
(2011)

framework for a differentiated understanding of all kinds of environmental inter-

ventions (Fig. 6.1).
‘Metabolism’ of a society is defined as, ‘the sum of all input and output between
the biosphere/geosphere and society.’ Colonizing interventions are defined ‘as the
sum of all purposive changes made in natural systems that aim to render nature
more useful for society’.3
The concept looks at resources which are essential for the reproduction of a city
on both the level of physical reproduction of the urban residents (including ani-
mals), i.e. their ‘biological’ metabolism as well as collective reproduction of the city
as a social, economic and cultural system, i.e. the construction and maintenance of
houses, collective buildings such as churches, streets, walls etc., the material pro-
duction of goods for the needs of the urban residents themselves or for trade to
import necessary resources from other places. On the input side, food stuff, raw
materials, water, energy and air flow into the city to be consumed, processed and
transformed there. On the output side through biological metabolism and through
material production all kinds of products are set free which—since their purpose
was to generate revenue outside the city, as they were no longer immediately useful
or even potentially dangerous for the city and its residents—have to be discharged
to the environment of the city. The focus of this concept lies on material flows and
their transformation over time. The concept of ‘colonization of nature’ brings
further dynamic temporal as well as spatial dimensions into this relationship: If
cities and their population grow—as has been a repeated dominant phenomenon
over the last ten centuries—they will need to reach beyond their immediate sur-
roundings in order to fulfill their basic needs. They will tend to exercise either
political dominance by extending the territory they control, or use market power to
attract production surpluses from further distant regions. Thus cities mobilize in a
variety of ways resources of an ever widening hinterland for their social metabo-
lism. Doing so they frequently transform even remote ecological systems of these
hinterlands, for instance by lowering the water level through large-scale water

3
Winiwarter (2001).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 173

extraction, by deforestation, by polluting rivers and dumping urban wastes on

dumps and sinks at a distance from the city. In the 21st century this ‘colonization of
nature’ has gone so far, that the whole globe has become ‘hinterland’ of large cities
in the western world, which is for example testified by the range of countries of
origin of products sold in urban super-markets.

6.3 Where Cities Are Located: Access to Resources

The basic structure of the European urban system developed between 1100–1300.
This was the period when the large majority of cities still existing were first
mentioned in sources as an ‘urban settlement’ with terms like ‘urbs’ or ‘civitas’.4 Of
course the urban system did not result from any planning master-mind but evolved
in response to pre-existing settlement structures, topographical conditions and new
needs. Pre-existing were Roman cities in large parts of Southern and Western
Europe where Roman occupation had left its lasting traces. Within Europe the
degree of continuity of urban civilization beyond the collapse of the Roman Empire
varies massively: In Spain, southern France and Italy, Roman population persisted
to dominate even after the great migration, thus Roman cities frequently were kept
populated, even if changed in form and appearance. North of the Alps within a zone
demarcated by the Seine and the Rhine there is a strong imprint by Roman culture
but on the other hand massive perturbations by successive waves of Germanic
migration which resulted in a rather mixed picture of continuity and rupture. East of
the Rhine and north of the Danube, finally, where the imprint of Roman culture was
only short-lived and partial, almost no continuity can be noted. Christian church,
particularly the Episcopal organization provided an important bridge of continuity
between the late Roman period and the stabilization under the Carolingians. Fre-
quently during times of political instability the bishop acted as a protecting and
unifying agency for urban dwellers.5 When medieval society started on a slow but
steady growth path after 1000 we can observe a large number of settlements located
at fortuitous places developing into ‘cities’. Crucial location factors were transport
and defense: since transport is an essential factor for almost all commodities other
than water and air, locations which were situated on trade routes over land or—
better still—on water (or both!) were preferred. Thus we can frequently find cities
established at crossings of trade routes, particularly were trade routes crossed a
(navigable) river.6 Transport acted as an essential bottle-neck of medieval and
early-modern economy: In contrast to Roman times roads were badly maintained
and frequently also dangerous; robbery and way-laying were endemic in large parts
of Europe. Moreover, road transport was extremely expensive and inefficient: if

4
Hohenberg and Lees (1995) and Clark (2009).
5
Ennen (1987).
6
Hohenberg and Lees (1995, p. 31) and Schott (2011).

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174 D. Schott

grain was transported more than 7 days over land by cart, the draught animals had
eaten more in caloric value than they had transported.7 Waterways, in contrast, were
almost free of maintenance, downstream the current took care of propulsion and
even upstream a horse could pull ten times as much weight on a barge than on a
cart. Thus locations on navigable rivers, and the notion of navigability in medieval
times included fairly small rivers, were highly favored, as the potential hinterland
for the provision of a city with foodstuff, raw materials, wood and other bulky
goods was greatly expanded by water transport.
‘Defense’ or rather ‘defensibility’ was essential for locating fortified houses of
secular or clerical lords, which needed to be defended against attacks by enemies.
Frequently such fortified seats formed a nucleus around which urban settlements
developed, particularly where favorable trade locations and defensible sites com-
bined. To give but one example: Würzburg in Southern Germany was founded in
741 by the missionary Boniface on flood-protected land near a river ford of the
Main and below an older castle on the mountain. Here the cathedral as the seat of
the new diocese formed the nucleus of the city which developed in the ninth century
along a widened street market linking the cathedral with the river ford. Since the
early 12th century a bridge facilitated river crossing and Würzburg succeeded in
attracting significant long-distance trade onto it on account of that bridge. In other
instances a fortified castle or royal palatinate secured such places as the Danube
crossing at Ulm, from which grew a mint and a market settlement by the 11th
century, or the crossing of the Main at Frankfurt.8 Markets always were significant
functions of new cities and frequently a city is first mentioned in sources when it
was granted rights to hold markets by the king or the regional lord. Thus, in most
cases, a favorable trade location giving easy access to resources, the fortified seat of
a clerical or secular lord and a market which developed protected by this lord and
was intended to cater for the needs of his court, came together to enable the setting-
up of successful urban settlements in the high middle ages. In the 15th/16th century
other types of city foundations arouse such as mining towns which were essentially
determined by the access to mineral resources (Freiberg, Joachimsthal) or fortifi-
cation resp. naval towns which performed a special military function for the
emerging territorial states.9

6.4 Waters of the City

Water is one of the essential resources a city cannot do without. Thus for pre-
modern times we can usually assume that no settlement was established without
access to some water. But its limited availability could force urban authorities to try

7
Sieferle (2008), Sieferle cites Ohler (1986, 141). Other authors give an even smaller spatial
range (35–40 km) for grain transport over land cf. Irsigler (1991).
8
Schmieder (2005).
9
Rosseaux (2006). On the European level see Clark, European Cities, 112–114.

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6 Urban Development and Environment 175

to manage this scarce resource in a variety of ways or to attempt to increase the

supply by conducting additional water to the city from further away. The latter was
the well-known solution to the water problem in Rome and the city of Rome could
not have grown to such dimensions in the Imperial Period without the aqueducts
overcoming the local mismatch of supply and demand.10 However, this solution of
transferring water over longer distances was not suitable in the light of the highly
fragmented political structure of European medieval society. Cities frequently had
to face being besieged by enemies; being cut off from their hinterland a dependency
on aqueducts would have rendered cities highly vulnerable due to lack of water.
Thus we can identify a preference for using locally controllable water resources.
And rather than opt for centralized unitary systems, medieval cities looked for a
multiplicity of resources and water supply systems to decrease their dependency
and enhance their resilience.11
In the medieval city water served a multitude of purposes12: Besides the use of
drinking by humans and animals, water was used in processes of making food and
drink, of producing goods, particularly textiles etc. Water also constituted a
potential source for mechanical energy, driving mills which were the main types of
machines. Mills were not only used for grinding flour, of course a very important
use to keep urban population well fed, but also for all kinds of industrial processes,
particularly in textile production (fulling) and metal-processing (hammer-mills).
The current of rivers was used to power mills, located on the shores or sometimes
also—as ship mills—in the middle of the stream. In hilly cities with an abundance
of smaller rivers and creeks these were frequently re-directed and divided up into
smaller channels to enable as many users as possible to make use of the kinetic
energy. And in trading cities on rather flat ground canals made water transport
available for as large a portion of urban houses as feasible. The Flemish city of
Bruges, one of the major nodes of long-distance trade in the late middle ages, had
established a complicated system of water provision and transport serving a mul-
titude of functions, such as providing water power for a variety of crafts as well as
feeding a large number of public fountains on streets and squares.13 A specific
feature was the cloth hall which was built across a little canal so that the valuable
cloth could be unloaded and handled under the arcades of that building protected
from the weather. A critical issue for Bruges was the access to and from the sea: the
Zwijn, the river linking Bruges with the sea, was increasingly silting up, which
made it more and more difficult for sea-going vessels to reach Bruges or its out-port
Sluis. In consequence the city, one of the leading European entrepots and gate-
way-cities in the 14th century suffered long-lasting decline.14

10
Stahl (2008).
11
Grewe (1991).
12
Cf. Guillerme (1988) and Schott (2014), esp. Chap. 5.4.
13
De Witte (2004).
14
Girouard (1987) and Blockmans (1992).

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176 D. Schott

South of the Alps frequently scarcity rather than abundance of water was the
problem cities had to cope with. But scarcity of water did not necessarily prevent
urbanization: we can find a highly complicated system of water provision and use in
the city of Siena, one of Italy’s foremost city republics with a population of over
50,000 by the late 13th century. Situated on a hill-top along the highly frequented
via Francigena, the road linking Rome with French cities, Siena has no significant
river and only the water which it receives from precipitation, mostly in winter. The
geological build-up of the Siena hills causes rainwater to collect in the soil from
where it surfaces as springs at certain places since the impermeable clay prevents its
further immersion into the ground. Given the need to manage a scarce resource,
Siena developed a highly regulated water policy. Among a specified hierarchy of
uses drinking came first; the city tried to ensure compliance to rules by means of
guards watching over public fountains and wells, secret informers and severe
penalties. The water supply rested on a system of urban conducts of spring water
which was conferred to suitable places where they were accessible first as drinking
fountains for humans, then as horse troughs and facilities for bathing horses, then as
a series of basins for industrial purposes such as tanning and dying wool. Finally,
after leaving the city the water was used again to drive fulling mills. Thus the purest
water was to be preserved for the most sensitive uses such as human consumption,
whereas polluting uses were located further down the chain of uses. The water
supply rested on three tiers: springs with running water, which was considered
highest quality, wells of ground water and—least regarded—water from cisterns,
storing earlier rain-falls for the dry season, which however still could be used for
washing or industrial uses. The elaborate system of water networks but especially of
water regulations reflects the ideology of ‘good government’ as it was illustrated by
Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s famous frescos in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, produced
in the 1340s. And this ‘good government’, which rested on a remarkable degree of
citizen participation, obviously included the ‘beauty’ of the city as a high value and
reflected a high appreciation of public cleanliness despite difficult resource
conditions.15
Frequently elite house-holds or special institutions organized their own water
provision through small-scale water networks which transported spring water from
just outside the city gravity-fed into the city. There it was conducted by pipes to
private house-holds, monasteries, hospitals, breweries or public fountains. Such
public fountains, often donated by local aristocrats, could be used by the general
urban public to fetch their water and to secure an ample supply of water in case of
fire. Public fountains were also symbolically charged places of jurisdiction, for
making contracts and public announcements; cities frequently employed expert
fountain masters who were responsible for the functioning and maintenance of the
city’s water system. Polluting or poisoning fountains and wells was a capital crime,
punished by drowning.16 In most cities the largest quantity of water, at least for

15
Kucher (2005).
16
Grewe, Wasserversorgung.

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6 Urban Development and Environment 177

general household purposes except drinking was taken from private or public wells
dug in the court-yards of buildings or at small squares to reach to the ground-water.
Private wells had to be maintained by the owner. In the case of public wells, we
frequently find some sort of collective responsibility: neighborhood residents who
used the well, had to take care of it. Once a year the well was emptied of all the filth
which had accumulated in it and after this collective work a well party was cele-
brated.17 For Vienna, we have records of 10,000 private wells still in existence by
1900 although public water supply from the mountains had been in operation for
several decades already by then.18 With rapid population growth in the 18th and
early 19th century this system of water provision proved less and less adequate:
Fetching water from public fountains absorbed large parts of the working day of
servants and house-wives. A new profession emerged, in larger cities already in the
middle-ages, the water-carriers who collected drinking water from public fountains
or from springs or rivers outside the city in barrels and sold it from carts to private
house-holds ready to pay for water carried into their home. In Paris, when under the
prefect Haussmann a modern pressurized water provision system was introduced in
the 1850s, 20,000 water carriers lost their livelihood.19

6.5 Feeding the City

For early phases of urbanization and in some places up to the 19th century it would
be mistaken to imagine cities as completely non-agrarian places. Sizeable portions of
urban residents still were farmers or, if their main occupation was non-agricultural,
they nevertheless cultivated gardens or small fields within or at the periphery of
cities. Furthermore, animals abounded in medieval and early modern cities: it was
normal and acceptable, that a baker held ten pigs.20 Apart from pigs, which also
acted as natural refuse cleaners, devouring any organic waste in streets and courts,
goats and sheep, geese and chicken were held in cities and daily driven for feeding
onto meadows and into woods close to the city. Cattle was less frequent, being
restricted to urban farmers or dairy farms on the fringes, but horses were present
where carting and transport was ubiquitous, such as around inns close to city gates.
Cats were held to keep mice and rats at bay, although frequently this was a losing
battle as the successive waves of plague in the late medieval and early modern era
demonstrate. Thus cities were not devoid of natural habitats; in many cities and
towns large private tracts were given to agriculture, viniculture or orchards. Public
green, however, was virtually unknown; we only rarely find trees on streets and

17
Schmid (1998) and Malamud and Sutter (2008).
18
Koblizek (2005).
19
On water carriers in Paris and London in 12th century (Keene 2001); on the replacement of
water carriers in Paris of 19th century (Hall 1998).
20
Schubert (2012).

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178 D. Schott

squares. On maps from the 16th century we can still identify large tracts of vineyards
and orchards within the walls of major cities such as Cologne and Augsburg.21
Nevertheless cities could not be fed only from the produce of their own territory.
To feed a city of 50,000 inhabitants, already a very large city by standards of the
urbanization north of the Alps (Cologne, the largest city of the Holy Roman Empire
had 40,000 inhabitants by 1400), a hinterland of 45 km radius was needed.22 But
since within this hinterland other cities might compete for the surplus and harvest
failures or transport problems might impede the provision, larger cities developed
trade links further afield to ensure particularly the grain provision as the most
sensitive issue. Thus the Dutch cities received one seventh of their grain from
Gdansk and the Vistula Basin in the 17th century.23 In the 16th century when
population grew but grain harvests declined and fluctuated, partly due to the effects
of the ‘little ice age’, municipal authorities started to set up granaries to stock grain
for their population in order to be able to buffer harvest failures or transport
problems.24
Urban food provision created specific spatial structures of agricultural usage and
cultivation. Which land was used for which crop or cultivation of course partly
depended on its soil properties and fertility but also the distance to the city as a
centre of consumption and marketing and the time and expenses involved in
transport thereto played a decisive role. In the 1820s the Prussian economist von
Thünen sketched a diagram of concentric rings around a city as a consumption
centre by which he intended to calculate, in which area which crops could be grown
most profitably (Fig. 6.2).
Assuming a level and homogenous surface around the city with soil of even
quality (diagram a), a first ring of cultivation closest to the city would be occupied
by market gardeners supplying the urban market with fresh vegetables, fruit, hay,
potatoes and beets. Their products were easily perishable and had to reach the urban
market quickly to be saleable. In the case of hay, the large quantity at low value, i.e.
high transport costs, was the decisive factor. The next zone would be occupied by
dairy farms, since milk and butter were also, without artificial cooling systems,
easily perishable. The third zone was frequently occupied by forests devoted to fire-
wood, as again the high transport costs would prevent—if no water-transport was
available—the import of fire-wood from longer distances. The fourth zone then is
dominated by wheat-growing farmers. Given the model assumptions of Thünen, it
would be difficult to find exact matches to his model in reality. But in the case of
London, one of the fastest growing European capitals in the early modern period,
from its topography close to diagram B, we can clearly identify zones of special-
ization, which are arranged at different distances from the capital: at distances of

21
Kießling and Plaßmeyer (1999).
22
Clark, European Cities, 140; the city of Cologne needed 1,800 km2 for its provision with grain,
a low figure due to the very fertile soils. Eiden and Irsigler (2000).
23
Unger (1999).
24
Dirlmeier (1988).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 179

Fig. 6.2 Diagram a represents the ideal model without any topographical variation, diagram b is
an adaptation to a landscape with a navigable river (Von Thünen 1826)

30–50 km there were regions around little market towns like Hatfield and Luton
which had specialized in growing malt for the numerous breweries of London,
towns on the Thames like Henley made use of cheap water transport to ship beech
wood and grain to London, originating from the Chilterns. The southern Midlands,
by the 17th century almost exclusively grazing land, reared livestock for the
London meat market. Since cattle could provide its own transport, thousands of
oxen were driven to London where they were fattened up again on the marshes
downstream of London before being sold for butchering in London. But the market
pull of a city like London with 575,000 inhabitants by 1700 radiated even further:
in 1695 the cheese mongers of London asked Parliament for a bill to improve
navigation of the river Derwent in Yorkshire, by which they hoped to reduce
transport costs for cheese and butter bought there during transport to Hull on the
East coast, from where it was taken to London by sea-going ships. Thus large cities
like London exercised enormous influence over their hinterland and promoted
regional specialization, as soon as the provision of local residents in those spe-
cializing regions with basic foodstuff could be taken care by imports from surplus

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180 D. Schott

regions at acceptable costs.25 Improvement of transport thus was of the essence, and
this set in earliest and most thorough in Britain, where the ‘transport revolution’
preceded and accelerated the industrial revolution. Road transport was improved
and accelerated by means of the turnpike trusts, joint stock companies, frequently
made up of local notables who were given concessions to manage and improve
certain roads for fixed periods of time. In exchange the companies received the road
tolls to cover their expenses and make some profit. And water transport was
improved by shortening existing rivers and by cutting new canals, again funded and
managed by joint-stock companies.26 The aggregate effect of these measures was
more complete economic integration: by significantly cutting transport costs parts
of the country hitherto too far from the London market were opened up to the
demand pull of the capital. At the same time this also enabled London producers
and retailers to find consumers in parts of the country hitherto not really accessible.
In France, the growth of Paris (some 500,000 inhabitants by 1700), prevented the
development of any major town in an orbit of approximately 100 km. The insatiable
demand of such a large city absorbed all possible food surpluses within that region,
the ‘Ile-de-France’ and a particular division of labour, specialized on organizing the
food supply of Paris, emerged: several villages in the vicinity of Paris had spe-
cialized on bread-baking, the village of Gonesse counted 160 bakers by 1600. As in
London a ring of market gardeners had developed around the capital producing fruit
and vegetables for the Parisian tables, peaches in Montreuil and cherries in
Montmorency, both towns which today form part of Greater Paris, but were at
13 km from Paris within half a day from the fruit markets of the capital.27
For meat provision the large cities of Europe increasingly came to rely on an
international long-distance trade with cattle, which was reared on the thinly pop-
ulated grazing grounds of Eastern and Northern Europe, particularly in Hungary,
Poland and Denmark, from where large herds of oxen were driven each year to the
centers of consumption. By 1600 this long-distance cattle trade was one of the most
significant commodity flows, its value was about half as large as the international
grain trade.28 As a downside to improved nutrition at least for more well-to-do
urban dwellers this large-scale migration of cattle also promoted a corresponding
mobility of microbes and cattle diseases which threatened to spread across the
whole European stock of animals.29

25
Reed (1996).
26
Reed, London; Bagwell (1988).
27
Jacquart (1996).
28
Blanchard (1986).
29
See measures by public authorities in North Germany to check the spread of cattle diseases
while still allowing the trade with healthy animals from Denmark to the centres of consumption in
South Germany: Hünninger (2011).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 181

6.6 Wastes and Diseases: The City as a Population Sink

If we conceive the city as a place where metabolism takes place, we need to reflect
what happens to the output of physical metabolism of human and animal residents
in medieval and early modern cities. Humans and animals produced feces as result
of their physical metabolism. These feces were usually dumped in cess-pools
located in court-yards. As long as cities were relatively thinly populated, and there
was enough agricultural land within and outside the city walls, on which these feces
could be used as fertilizing dung, the problem of waste disposal could be contained.
For economies of scarcity such as the European well into the 19th century, feces
were not simply ‘waste’ but rather ‘resources’ since it was essential to regain and
maintain soil fertility. But as cities grew towards the late middle ages and then—
after a period of population decline following the Black Death in the 14th century—
again from the late 15th century, spaces within the city were increasingly built up,
houses were built higher. Thus drinking wells in court yards, which originally had
been dug at a distance from cess-pools, moved closer to them and this could mean,
that the ground water became infiltrated by the liquid parts of the contents of cess-
pools contaminating this water supply. Germs from human and animal feces could
thus re-enter the organism via the water supply but of course medicine then had no
knowledge of ‘germs’ which were only identified by Pasteur and Koch from the
1860s onwards. With the disappearance of agricultural land inside the walls and
the spatial growth of cities it became more difficult to use the contents of cess-pools
as fertilizer. Thus wastes were stored in disused cess-pools or dumped into rivers.
This was only one of many reasons why cities were rather unhealthy places, despite
numerous regulations by municipal authorities on cleansing streets and public
places. Apart from massive pandemias of plague, which haunted European cities
from the mid fourteenth to the late 17th century in successive waves, a plethora of
dangerous diseases particularly of the digestive tract (such as typhus or typhoid
fever) was endemic to European cities, taking a heavy toll every year particularly
among the infants. Life expectancy in large cities was significantly lower than in the
country and the high residential density linked with rather undeveloped standards of
personal hygiene enhanced mortality. Cities—particularly in the early modern
period—can be seen as ‘population sinks’; mortality was normally higher than
natality, thus the city could not keep the level of population by its own fertility.30
For London it has been calculated that the city needed a net in-migration of
8,000 people per year by the late 17th century in order to stabilize its long-term
growth rate. Each year a town of 8,000 people was absorbed by the capital, at a time
when most other English towns had almost no growth. For Paris, its growth was
particularly maintained by influx from the Ile-de-France where most towns and
villages showed very little growth between 1600–1800.31

30
Knittler (2000) and Knoll (2008).
31
Boulton (2000).

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182 D. Schott

Given the abundance of organic matter in cess-pools, but also the waste and
feces on city streets cities stank badly. Of course this stench was not uniform all
over the city; representative squares and streets were kept cleaner and were also
frequently paved, but the fact of stench, linked with particular high incidence of
diseases and fatalities in those places with particular bad smells, caused contem-
poraries to develop etiological theories linking stench with disease. The bad smell,
called ‘miasma’ by contemporary experts, was seen as direct cause of diseases, akin
to an understanding of poisoning. By the late 18th and early 19th century the fight
against stench and for cleanliness acquired a new sense of urgency and significantly
contributed to the broad sweep of urban sanitary reforms in the second half of the
19th century.32

6.7 Cities in the Wood Age

For the development of pre-industrial cities wood constituted a basic resource

which could not be substituted except at unreasonable expenses. The forest con-
stituted in multiple ways the economic foundation of medieval cities.33 By the year
1000 large tracts of the European landscape north of the Alps were still covered by
forests. These forests provided for cities and other human settlements a broad range
of functions: they offered wood for domestic and industrial fuel, for construction
purposes and as material for the production of tools, instruments, furniture and all
artifacts of daily life. But forests were also “nutrition forests” for the people living
close by. In them residents could collect berries, mushrooms and spices, set up bee
hives to gain honey, the only sweetener available before the import of cane sugar
from the Americas. Forests also supported cattle, pigs, sheep or fowl, provided
habitats for game and although hunting was a seigniorial privilege, sources which
report about poaching are abundant.34
Medieval cities, at least north of the Alps, were predominantly wooden cities:
since wood was the cheapest building material, most easily available and most
easily handled, the large majority of urban houses were of timber and building
techniques with wood became increasingly sophisticated. The timber-frame house
used significantly less wood than the original log house. Only selected buildings
such as churches, monasteries and, by the late middle ages, the guild houses were
built in masonry fashion. Roofs were covered in wooden tiles, straw or thatch.
Since in all house-holds and work-shops open fires were almost constantly burning,
such a ‘wooden city’ stood of course in very high risk of fire; city fires were among
the most frequent causes of large scale disasters which struck cities.35

32
Hamlin (1998).
33
Schubert (1986).
34
Lorenz (1993) and Küster (1998).
35
Boockmann (1994), Zwierlein (2011) and Schott (2013).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 183

In the light of this high risk of a conflagration city authorities from the late
Middle Ages on were trying to oblige house owners to use brick-built fire places
and to have their roofs covered by stone tiles or slates which however were con-
siderably more expensive than wooden tiles. Considerations of economy and safety
were at constant battle in the regulation of how cities were to be built, not only in
respect to fire but also to other hazards.
Providing sufficient quantities of fuel and construction wood had been relatively
easy in the high Middle Ages when cities were comparatively small in terms of
population and forests fairly close by. But the long growth period between 1000
and 1300 meant that the agricultural area had massively expanded at the expense of
forests. In the 14th century the area covered by forests in Central Europe had been
smaller than in the 20th century. Pushing back the ‘forest frontier’ also had eco-
logical consequences such as increasing erosion on sloping fields and a higher rate
of flooding because the forest could not retain as much rain water as before. Forests
in the vicinity of cities also had changed their character: due to grazing and repeated
logging of trees in short intervals the forests were loosened up and frequently turned
into a mixture of pasture and forest with a predominance of medium growth trees.36
The fire-wood needs of towns were quite substantial. A town of 10,000
inhabitants needed up to 50 cartloads of fuel-wood every day.37 By the late 13th
century municipal authorities started to realize the potential dangers of overusing
the forests in the proximity of the city. Nuremberg, one of the most dynamic and
prosperous German cities in that period, developed a forest protection policy for the
Imperial forests which Nuremberg had managed to gain control over and tried to
protect these forests against excessive use. Elements of such protective policies
could be the banning of collieries or saw mills. Since the prime-growth forests of
oaks and beeches, species which naturally dominate forests in that region, were
almost totally depleted, the city of Nuremberg decided to replant the forests with
faster growing pine trees. The technology of extracting pine seeds and replanting
forests, developed for this protection policy, became a lucrative business venture; a
company dealing in seed of trees was highly successfully after 1400 selling its
products from Nuremberg all over Europe.38
Nuremberg was in a privileged position, having these Imperial forests in its
immediate vicinity, but for many other cities there were no sufficient forests close
by, over which they could exercise control. Providing enough fire-wood and timber
for construction thus was one of the permanent challenges for urban authorities up
to the period of industrialization.39 The problem was less one of absolute shortage
of wood but rather of affordable and efficient transport. For pre-industrial transport
costs of overland haulage by cart were about 10 times as high as transport by sea

36
Schubert, Alltag, 43–45; Küster, Geschichte.
37
Clark, European Cities, 141.
38
Sporhan and von Stromer (1969).
39
Freytag and Piereth (2002).

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184 D. Schott

ships.40 Thus before the advent of the railway wood could only be transported by
water over longer distances. A city like Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg Empire,
rapidly growing in population since the siege by the Turks in 1683 (1680: 70,000,
1783: 209,121 inhabitants), received 80 % of its fire wood via the Danube, only
20 % were transported from the regional Wienerwald. But even for that area, fairly
close to Vienna, water transport was preferred: the firewood was—cut in pieces of
about 90 cm—washed down little creeks and rivers towards the Danube where it
was caught in special rakes and transported on floats or ships towards Vienna. In
many instances also special slides, tunnels or channels to facilitate wood transport
were constructed. Also construction wood was transported this way: originating
from upper Austria, Tyrol and Bavaria, the logs were tied together to larger floats of
400–700 m3 wood which were driven down the Danube and eventually stored in
suburbs of Vienna.41
In international comparison Vienna was in a fairly advantageous situation having
rich forest resources in distances of only some 100 km. The Flemish and Dutch
cities, as a contrast, had only very little, sometimes no forests in their vicinity, due
partly to the particular ecology of these lowlands. Here we can observe a long-
distance trade in construction timber already developing in the late middle ages.
Cities like Bruges, Gent and Antwerp, major players in the European trade net-
works of that period, were provided with wood from the Black Forest, from
Scandinavia and the Baltic, particularly from the Vistula. Gdansk became the
gateway-city for the opening up of the resources of the Vistula basin for the benefit
of the Flemish cities with their large need for construction wood and grain.42 Thus
we can already observe an international division of labor developing in staple
commodities such as wood and grain between the highly urbanized North–West of
Europe and the more agrarian and less densely populated Baltic and Eastern
European regions. But this network depended on water-borne transport; as soon as
carts had to be used, market integration of bulky goods tended to be local rather
than regional.
Whereas Vienna had solved its wood problems by investing in transport sys-
tems, London, another rapidly expanding capital in the early modern period, took a
different route: Already in the late Middle Ages coal was used as an alternative to
fire-wood since it was cheaper as regional forests started to be depleted. After the
Black Death which brought a massive population drop, coal disappeared from the
London market only to reappear after 1500. Firewood saw a price rise which was
double the general average in the period 1500–1700, a clear indicator for growing
scarcity.43 Coal was still competitive although it had to be transported from
Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England, some 400 km distance from
London. There the coal could be mined on the steep hillsides of the river Tyne and

40
Sieferle, Transportgeschichte.
41
Johann (2005).
42
Galloway et al. (1996); Unger, Feeding.
43
Allen (2010).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 185

easily transported to boats on the river by slides and early railways. Since almost the
entire transport could be made by ship, coal, termed by contemporaries ‘sea-coal’ to
distinguish it from (char-) coal, was still cheaper than fire-wood on the London
market.44 By mid-16th century 250 coal ships from Newcastle unloaded in London
each year, by 1690 this had increased tenfold to 2,500.45 Coal replaced fire-wood
first for industrial processes with high energy requirements such as salt-making,
smelting iron ore, brick-making, but eventually spread to other uses including
domestic fireplaces. Its wider introduction for domestic heating required a techno-
logical innovation, the diffusion of a new style of house, the ‘coal-burning house’.
This house had a special masonry chimney, a fire-place (or several) which partly
enclosed the coal-fire for better draft. This innovation occurred in London during the
rapid population growth of the 16th and 17th century, which was accompanied by a
massive rebuilding boom.46 Introducing coal as the main fuel massively changed the
quality of the environment: Since coal from Newcastle contained a higher per-
centage of sulphur, coal fumes produced sulphur dioxide and led to a significant
degradation of urban climate. Thus air pollution was already a massive problem of
17th century London.47 John Evelyn, a famous landscape architect and philosopher
at the court of Charles II, published a critical pamphlet on the ubiquitous air pollution
of London under the title “Fumifugium” in the 1660s.48 Air pollution must have
been so bad that the new king William of Orange, after the ‘Glorious Revolution’,
did not take his residence in Westminster Palace but preferred the more rural and less
polluted suburb Kensington.49 London thus experienced the transition from wood to
coal as basic energy resource, a major feature of the Industrial Revolution, occurring
in continental Europe normally in the middle decades of the 19th century, already
more than 150 years earlier! This eventually meant that a huge area otherwise
required to grow fire-wood, was released and became available for other uses;
economic growth could thus delink from the limited availability of renewable energy
resources and make use of the energy treasure of fossil fuels which had accumulated
over a very long period of geological history.50

6.8 Crisis of the Cities and Public Health

It was pointed out above in Sect. 6.6, that the material metabolism of urban dwellers
tended to create a rather unhealthy urban milieu with high mortality rates and
considerable individual insecurity about future perspectives. In the first half of the

44
Sieferle (2001) and Middlebrook (1950).
45
Boulton, London, S. 323.
46
Cf. Allen, Industrial Revolution, 90–96; Allen (2013).
47
Brimblecombe (2011).
48
Jenner (1995).
49
Braunfels (1979).
50
Sieferle, Forest.

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186 D. Schott

nineteenth century this situation further aggravated due to the continuing urban
growth which now was linked with the socially disrupting effects of early indus-
trialization.51 Whereas older forms of inter-class solidarity and reciprocal relations
between patrons and clients were eroding, no new institutions or cultural norms had
as yet taken their place. The excessive supply of landless labourers created mass
pauperism as a situation where large parts of the population could not earn their
living despite working hard. This social crisis of pauperism, affecting large parts of
Europe, not just in the cities but most easily visible there, was joined by the acute
pandemias of cholera, haunting Europe from the 1830s in several waves. Reacting
to this crisis, but more specifically to the failure of a sweeping reform of the Poor
Law a few years earlier to achieve its goals, Edwin Chadwick, the secretary of the
Poor Law Board, in 1842 published a ‘Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the
Labouring Population of Great Britain’, which was submitted to Parliament and
claimed to document the health conditions of the poorer sections of British society.
With this report Chadwick laid the foundation for the so-called ‘Sanitary Move-
ment’, which promoted major infrastructural changes to cities in order to improve
their health situation. Chadwick was a firm believer, as many of his contemporaries,
in the miasma theory of disease causation. Infectious diseases, in his report fre-
quently just termed ‘fever’, were caused by bad smells emanating from the ubiq-
uitous dirt and filth in cities. To prevent diseases, this filth must be removed and
Chadwicks recipe was to bring fresh, clean water in all house-holds, to install
water-closets there and to remove feces and urine from residential quarters by an
underground system of sewers. Cleaning up cities thus would reduce the incidence
of infectious disease, lower mortality rates and enable more poor people to earn
their livelihood by work.52 This far-reaching and very costly programme was
eventually, with modifications in details, implemented all over Europe and North
America in the second half of the 19th century and helped, together with other
factors such as improved nutrition, to significantly reduce the frequency of epi-
demics, to lower mortality and improve health standards.53 It is remarkable, that a
reform movement, based on a false scientific theory—with the discovery of bacteria
as carriers of disease by Pasteur and Koch the miasma theory was effectively
falsified—could muster such wide support and effect such far-reaching changes to
the fabric of cities, but also to the culture of cleanliness and hygiene. Considerations
of hygiene acquired top-priority in the last decades of the 19th century and the
physical transformation of cities, the building of water provision systems, of
sewage systems, the paving and cleansing of streets and squares, the introduction of
regular public waste removal systems, the construction of public slaughter-houses
and public baths were all governed by the goal to improve public hygiene.54

51
Lees and Lees (2007).
52
Hamlin (1998).
53
Hardy (2005).
54
Schott (2012).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 187

What were the effects of this massive transformation on the environment, how
did it change urban metabolism? For reasons of practicality and economy in most
cities the sewage system was implemented as a “mixed” or “combined” system,
where all fluid wastes and rain water coming down in a city were to be collected in
a single system. Moving solid feces in the tubes needed large quantities of water as
a carrier, so besides the water flushed down the water toilets, rain water was quite
welcome to flush through the tubes and prevent solid fecal matter from getting stuck
inside. Originally Chadwick had envisaged a recycling system: after being collected
and transported out of the city, the waste waters would be dispersed on land outside
the city and the nutrients contained in the waste water would fertilize the soil thus
improving agricultural yields. This arrangement, highly plausible under the aus-
pices of a threatening food shortage in the early 19th century, was to counter
arguments advanced by agricultural chemists such as Justus von Liebig who
warned against robbing the soil of its necessary dung by building sewers. However,
in most cities such a system of sewage farms was not implemented, either because
of lack of suitable land—only sandy soils qualified well for this practice—or
because other cheaper solutions were at hand such as the dumping of waste waters
into rivers and the sea. In London as well as in Hamburg, two cities where sanitary
systems had been set up fairly early, the discharge into the river was preferred
which led to considerable pollution downstream.55 On the input side of urban
metabolism, the modern sanitary systems brought a massive increase in per capita
demands of water. Up to mid-19th century 15–20 l per inhabitant and day had
normally been sufficient to fulfill the water needs of urban dwellers. With the water
closet in place and an increasing range of water-consuming amenities filling houses
and apartments, daily per capita consumption jumped to 150–200 l per day.56
Cities, particularly larger cities thus could no longer rely on their local water
resources but had to bring water from further afield, tap into water resources of
distant and frequently rural regions. Paris under Haussmann built impressive
aqueducts which transported water from tributaries of the Seine at a distance of over
200 km.57 Thus, whereas cities became cleaner, epidemics such as cholera and
pandemic diseases such as typhus were checked, The overall environmental effects
of the ‘cleaning up of cities’ which undoubtedly took place in the later 19th and
early 20th century, were to externalize pollution, to transfer much of the dirt to the
periphery, to pollute the land of sewage farms, rivers and the sea with the filth
of urban populations and to massively increase water extraction from far away,
frequently with considerable ecological as well as social consequences. These
consequences could be even more pronounced in arid regions of Europe or in those
parts of other continents, where European migrants established modern urban
societies and implemented these sanitation technologies. Thus in Southern Cali-
fornia a very complicated system of water provisioning emerged to provide water

55
Breeze (1993) and Büschenfeld (1997).
56
Schott, Urbanisierung, Chap. 9.
57
Hall, Cities, 724.

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188 D. Schott

for the rapidly growing metropolis Los Angeles since the early 20th century when
William Mulholland constructed his famous Sierra Nevada Pipeline over 400 km,
opened in 1913. Nowadays Los Angeles water comes over several 1,000 km from
as far afield as Wyoming, the Colorado river, the San Francisco Bay and the Sierra
Nevada. And the almost unquenchable thirst of the still growing metropolis with its
lush and water-needy private green spaces has severe implications for regional
agriculture where large tracts have problems to secure sufficient water for their
intensive cultivation, for instance in Owen’s Valley and several lakes have already
dried up completely.58 In colonial cities modern (European) sanitation technology
was usually only implemented for restricted parts of the city, those quarters where
the European colonizers (and sometimes their indigenous collaborators) lived.
Whereas in the former Dutch colonial entrepot Batavia, today’s Indonesian capital
Jakarta, modern sanitation is still limited to the formerly European quarters where
now the Indonesian government resides, the former district “Weltevreden”, in
Singapore the British public health policy of late nineteenth and early twentieth
century, combined with a rigidly effective but authoritarian policy since indepen-
dence has achieved to significantly improve public health as well as the state of the
environment.59

6.9 Networking the City

Installing comprehensive systems of water provision and sewage collection

underneath the cities was only part of a larger drive towards improving the state of
cities by implementing modern network technologies.60 Since the state of cities
appeared critical by mid-19th century not only in terms of health but also in terms
of overly condensed traffic and problematic residential densities, urban reformers
looked for solutions to relieve the congested city centers and to improve the quality
of urban living. They found a range of technologies which improved the lighting
and thus the perceived safety in cities, which facilitated urban transport, which
offered alternative means of industrial power besides the steam engine. Starting
with gas light in early 19th century England, a series of technical networks was set
up in cities which offered a range of services to urban dwellers, shops, industrial
companies or administrative services.61 Frequently these services were first
developed by private entrepreneurs or share-holder companies, who entered con-
tractual arrangements with the cities, granting entrepreneurs and companies rights
to use urban land for their tubes and pipes. When these contracts came up for
renewal—frequently after periods of 25–30 years—municipal administrations

58
MacDonald (2007), Orsi (2004) and Gottlieb (2006).
59
Toyka-Seid (2008), Spreithofer and Heintel (1997) and Schott (1998).
60
Hughes (1983), Tarr and Dupuy (1988), König (1990), Melosi (2000) and Schott (1999).
61
Paquier and Williot (2005), Schivelbusch (1983) and Goodall (2005).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 189

decided in many cases to take these services in their own hands and municipalized
gasworks, water works or tramway companies. The motive for this pan-European
movement of ‘municipal socialism’ was the dissatisfaction with the level of services
received so far and the recognition on the side of municipalities, that the municipal
ownership of such utilities might improve the financial situation of the city and
might put it into a position to better apply the formative potential of these infra-
structures in order to promote and direct urban development.62 This particularly
applies to traffic infrastructures, where decisions over which lines to build and what
fares to charge were crucial to shape patterns of future development. Thus cities in
Europe and North America were turned into mega-machines, they were perforated
and structured by multiple systems of technical infrastructures which—in their
totality—transformed daily life of urban dwellers completely by 1900, as compared
to 1850.63 This transformation can be seen as part and parcel of the ‘civilizing
Process’ (Elias); public urinals on city squares offered urban residents the oppor-
tunity to relieve themselves in what came to be considered ‘decent’ fashion, while
at the same time urban codes and bylaws penalized indecent behavior in the public,
such as urinating in shady corners, which had been quite common at mid-century.64
The electric tramway introduced a new speed and a heightened sense of urgency
and acceleration into urban traffic which had been dominated by the pace of
pedestrians and horses up to 1890. People now expected their co-urbanites to adapt
their public behavior to this new speed and new mechanic rhythm, a letter to the
editor of a gazette in Mannheim (Germany) demands his fellow-citizen to develop
‘metropolitan discipline’ in order not to lose the time-gains offered by the new
means of transport.65 Setting up the networked city also brought massive changes to
the structure and functioning of urban administration. Until the 1870s municipal
administrative bodies had been fairly small and they had restricted themselves to
maintaining order and safety. With this multitude of networks and services urban
administration became a much larger administrative body with comprehensive
responsibilities for the welfare of urban residents; therefore it also professionalized
and bureaucratized. The position of ‘Oberbürgermeister’ (Mayor) of a large Ger-
man city became quite an attractive career perspective for middle-class profes-
sionals with a background in Law or Economics.66 In a transitional phase, dating
roughly from the 1890s to the 1930s, setting up the networked city gave consid-
erable powers to municipal administrations to direct urban development and
influence the daily life of urban residents. With the growth and formation of
statewide electricity and gas networks, however, the municipal level was progres-
sively marginalized in the shaping and directing of power networks, apart from
keeping, what frequently was the case, the local distribution networks in their

62
Krabbe (1990) and Kühl (2002); Schott, Vernetzung.
63
Hård and Misa (2008) and Otter (2008).
64
Payer (2000).
65
Schott, Vernetzung, 448; Schmucki (2012).
66
Reulecke (1985) and Hofmann (2012). See for Europe Roth and Beachy (2007).

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190 D. Schott

hands. The experience of both World Wars and the huge power requirements of war
industry as well as the difficulty to plan and fund the massive investments required
by large power plants and extensive distribution networks had demonstrated in the
eyes of the decision-making forces of the time, that regulatory power had to be
removed from the cities and placed either at the level of nationalized power utilities,
as it happened in the UK, France and Italy after World War II, or that utilities had to
be tightly regulated at the level of national government, leaving ownership with
large regional utilities, frequently with a mixture of public and private shareholders,
as was the case in Germany after 1935.67 Only in the last two decades, the reluc-
tance or resistance of large power companies towards ‘green’ energy policies and
the deregulatory drive of the European Union have contributed to a process of
re-municipalizing power systems which is supposed to make energy policies more
susceptible to democratic pressure for more ecologically oriented energy policies.68

6.10 Planning the City

In the last decades of the 19th century another response to the ‘urban crisis’ of mid-
century developed, town planning. Whereas networking the city was primarily
concerned with removing obnoxious matter out of the city as quickly as possible
and providing urban residents with energy, water and transport services which
would facilitate their daily life and make it less unhealthy, town planning was
concerned with spatial ordering of the city.69 Urban life had become so problematic
and unhealthy partly due to increased population densities in central districts of the
cities, partly also due to the effects of industrialization. Factories had been set up at
convenient places, where the decisive locational factors (water, transport accessi-
bility, labour) were given and had henceforth structured their surroundings during
their growth. Due to long working-hours and the absence of affordable public
transport, workers normally had to live close to factories; they and their families
were thus permanently exposed to the unhealthy emissions of smoke, noise and
fluid discharges, emanating from factories. This led to a clear pattern of environ-
mental injustice, damaging the health of workers and their families living close to
factories most intensely, a fact which can be deduced from mortality figures.70 One
central motive for early town-planning thus was to disentangle and separate, as far
as possible, industrial sites from places of residence. Since the environmental
pollution from factories was then considered a fact which had to be accepted, the
only solution was seen in physical separation. Another problem which had to be

67
Schott (2008).
68
Bauer et al. (2012).
69
Sutcliffe (1981) and Ward (1994).
70
Platt (2005) and Mosley (2001). For a wider discussion of ‘environmental justice’ see Massard-
Guilbaud and Rodger (2011).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 191

solved by town planning was to provide a clear and stable framework for private
investors, wanting to build houses, factories etc. in expanding cities. Already the
redevelopment of Paris under Napoleon III and his prefect Eugène Haussmann had
given an exemplar to other cities, how to design modern city streets and square. But
Paris had been an exception in regard to the extraordinary powers of confiscation
and redistribution which had been at Haussmann’s disposal in the early years.71 In
other countries, strong guarantees for the ‘sanctity’ of property made such large-
scale urban renewal next to impossible. Thus town-planning as an academic dis-
cipline developed more around the issue, how to divide up new land at the
periphery of cities. Very influential not just for Germany but later on for the general
body of planning theories became Reinhart Baumeister’s handbook of 1876 on city
extension. Basically, it turned the very important Prussian law from 1875 on
“alignment lines”, demarcations between private land, which could be developed,
and public land which was reserved for streets and square or other public uses, into
guide lines for the practice of the engineer who has to set up an efficient and
practicable street plan. Hygienic considerations on sufficient ventilation of streets
and the use of natural gradients to construct well-working sewers were high on the
agenda of this kind of planning. More sophisticated and comprehensive was then in
1890 the handbook published by Joseph Stübben, a German civil engineer who had
carried out the planning for the extension of Cologne, which took down its massive
fortification walls only in the 1880s.72 At the same time we can already observe a
growing critique of the kind of orthogonal and uninspiring urban landscape which
was generated along these planning principles. Camillo Sitte, an Austrian architect
and trades teacher, published a massive critique of these planning principles in his
book “Urbanism according to artistic principles” (1889), in which he invited his
readers to understand urban squares and streets as pieces of public art. His plea for
crooked streets, for respect of natural topography and historical boundaries, for
irregularity and asymmetry in the design of monuments and public squares was
quickly taken up by many planners and resonated in many European countries.73
The Garden city concept, developed by Ebenezer Howard and realized in Letch-
worth, close to London, from 1904 onwards, brought a new vision of suburban
living and of the simple and ‘authentic’ cottage house into planning debates. Many
social reformers saw in garden cities or in leafy settlements away from the bustle
and smoke of the city a powerful instrument to solve the social question, not only
by improving the health of workers, but also by turning them away from revolu-
tionary ideas of overthrowing the capitalist system and integrating them into
society.74 ‘Housing reform’ thus became in the early 20th century, to a degree, what
Public Health had been in the second half of 19th century, a panacea for all major
social problems. By 1910 the major strands of town planning came together on an

71
Hall (1998) and Jordan (1995).
72
Sutcliffe, Towards; Albers (1997) and Ladd (1990).
73
Wilhelm and Jessen-Klingenberg (2006).
74
Ward (2011) and Hall (2009).

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192 D. Schott

international level and formed what came to be a very influential international

reformist discourse. In the UK town planning became a statutory practice by
municipalities through the “Housing, Town Planning etc. Act” of 1909. The degree,
to which cities supported and supplemented their planning policies through stra-
tegic land purchase policies and public transport policies was very different in
Europe.75 An almost universal tendency, however, was to devote more attention
and considerably more public funds to housing after World War I. The revolu-
tionary mood of large sections of the European working-class after 1917/18 needed
to be placated, thus the rationale of that policy, by generous welfare policies, among
which the improvement of housing provision was a major factor. Besides, better
housing promised to yield better, more healthy workers, soldiers and mothers, so
this investment also promised returns in terms of economic prosperity and national
strength. Thus we can identify areas of social housing estates in new architectural
forms and partly also with new communal services (laundry, library, meeting places
etc.) at the then periphery of cities being developed in the 1920s and 30s, and linked
to city centers and factory districts by electric tramways or urban light-rail systems.
We now know, that with rare exceptions (Vienna) this social housing policy did not
help to solve the housing problems of the poorest sections of populations since they
simply—given their unstable income situation and frequent unemployment—could
not afford to live there. But the social housing estates of the interwar period fre-
quently helped to establish rather stable social milieus of qualified workers and
lower middle class employees. Even today, many of the estates are still highly
popular and sought-after residential quarters, whereas social housing estates of a
later period, frequently in large high-rise complexes, have had a more mixed
history.76
For the second half of the 20th century a planning vision which emerged of the
international planning discourse mentioned before, became fundamental: With the
“Charte of Athens”, worked out at a conference of CIAM (Congres Internationaux
d’Architecture Moderne) in 1933, an organization of decidedly modern architects
and planners, and trimmed into a manifesto by their major spokesman, Le Cor-
busier, in 1943, a very clear and pronounced program of urban planning was
published.77 Le Corbusier and his colleagues envisaged the city of the future in
analogy to a machine: Primary principle was optimal functioning which could—as
the manifesto assumes—be accomplished by taking the different functions of the
city, working, living, recreation, transport, apart and reassembling them at different
locations of the city in order to prevent interference between them. They should
then be linked by efficient public transport and wide streets giving room for private
motor cars. Such a guiding vision necessitated a comprehensive redevelopment of
existing urban structures, a consensus shared by most planners and architects in
North America and Europe till the 1970s. This paradigm dominated urban planning

75
Saunier (2007) and Schott (2009).
76
Meller (2001), Von Saldern (1995), Kähler (1995) and Haumann and Wagner-Kyora (2013).
77
Koch (1984).

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6 Urban Development and Environment 193

globally and—with some variations—also in socialist countries. Although the

outcome of World War II with massive destruction in many European cities seemed
to provide an opportunity for such comprehensive redevelopment, the lack of funds
and the weakness of public authorities prevented the realization of such radical
plans in many cities and favored a more conservative mode of reconstruction,
making use of existing foundations and infrastructures as far as possible.78 With the
long period of economic prosperity in the West European countries from the 1950s
to the 1970s, the unexpected pressure from motorized traffic enforced a second
wave of redevelopment and destructions in the 1950s–1970s, aimed to adapt the
urban fabric for the requirements of motor traffic. The consensus on the need for
comprehensive redevelopment, however, was challenged and then quickly broken
in in the mid-1970s, In many cities young people started to occupy empty houses,
earmarked for demolition and defend them against attempts by the police to
evacuate the buildings. This protest movement, wanting to defend affordable
housing against speculation, was back-grounded by a major cultural shift in values.
In a climate of crumbling technological optimism after the Oil-Crisis and in the
midst of a long-drawn period of mass unemployment, old houses and old things
suddenly gained new popularity. This new values went along with new needs and
new styles of living. Young people discovered for themselves modes of communal
living outside classical family structures, for which the older style of mass housing
was far more suitable than modern social housing blocks. The change of paradigm
became very visible in a new style of urban renewal which was first practiced on a
larger scale at IBA-Alt79 in Berlin (1979–1987).
Since the Rio conference of 1992 which formulated “sustainable development”
as the general goal of world community, “sustainability” has been taken on as a new
target of urban planning which means that all planning measures have to be
reflected according to their effects on resources, particularly energy consumption.
General principles of urban planning which had internationally dominated planning
thinking for large parts of the 20th century such as de-concentration of population
and separation of function have been critically reevaluated over the last 20 years.
The emphasis is now being placed on bringing people back into the cities in order to
avoid long and unsustainable journeys to work and to be able to implement col-
lective solutions of heating, communication and transport which work much better
in a higher-density urban environment than in peri-urban sprawl. Also the idea of
separating urban functions has given way to an at least partial reintegration of work
and living, which is also due to the fact that many industrial or other processes are
much less emitting in terms of pollution and noise and can thus be reintegrated into
residential neighborhoods with only little mutual interference. This change of
paradigm also corresponds to cultural shifts in larger parts of population over the
last decades. Many people, particularly the growing number of senior citizens, now

78
Von Beyme (1987).
79
Translates into ‘Internationale Bau-Ausstellung Altbau’, international building exhibition, for
old buildings.

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194 D. Schott

place more value on proximity of services and a high variety of contacts and
impressions present in an urban setting rather than extensive private green space
and lack of intellectual and cultural stimuli more typical for suburban settings.
Over the last 20 years many European and North American cities have signif-
icantly improved their environmental qualities in terms of air, water and other
pollution standards, due to more sophisticated technology, de-industrialization and
the transfer of heavily polluting production processes to the ‘global South’. On the
other hand, the large megalopolises of the Third World still pose major environ-
mental problems, partly because those infrastructural technologies which have
helped to stabilize the urban environment in European and North American cities,
have only been very partially implemented, partly also because the technological
solutions developed in Europe in moderate climates with sufficient natural pre-
cipitation cannot be implemented in other world regions in the same ways without
running the danger of unsustainable depletion of natural resources. It thus remains a
major and hitherto unresolved challenge to enhance the quality of urban living for
urban residents in the developing world while observing principles of sustainable
development.

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Chapter 7
History of Waste Management
and the Social and Cultural
Representations of Waste

Sabine Barles

Abstract The history of waste mirrors that of the societies that produced it, and
their relationship with the environment and the resources they mobilized. Until the
industrial revolution, the management of urban excreta was predominantly linked
with urban salubrity, from the Roman cloaca maxima to the Parisian motta
papellardorum. The quantity of waste produced remained small and the methods
for collection and discharge often unsatisfactory, which led to frequent denuncia-
tions of urban dirtiness. Neo-Hippocratic medicine, which considered the tainted
environment and air to be the principal causes of urban excess mortality, prompted
the implementation of new policies and management techniques in Europe to clean
up the cities. In addition, the value of most urban excreta intended either for
agriculture or industry increased. Thus, from about the 1770s to the 1860s, salubrity
and excreta recovery went hand in hand. From the 1870s onward, the fertilizer
revolution, the rapid development of coal and, later, that of the petroleum industry
and the search for more convenient and plentiful materials, undermined the recy-
cling industry. Although some cities at first tried to fight the devaluation of urban
by-products, they gave up during the interwar years. What was once a source of
profit became a cost to society, and, until the 1960s, the aim of waste management
was to reduce this cost. The environment became the receptacle for waste. The
1960s and 1970s were marked by an environmental crisis, a growing concern for
the limits of the planet and a criticism of the industrial city. In this context, waste
was regarded as the symbol of the aberrations of a consumer society. The pro-
duction of waste continued to grow and the sanitary accidents as a result left a deep
impression. Waste policies were implemented with mixed results. Developing
countries also began to suffer from this curse of developed countries.

S. Barles (&)
UMR Géographie-Cités, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 199

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_7

[email protected]
200 S. Barles

7.1 Introduction

The histories of waste, and of the words that have been used and continue to be
used to describe it, are inseparable from one another. Indeed, a quick survey shows
that three different types of vocabulary have emerged to describe what we now call
waste. In the first category, terms are associated with the themes of loss and
uselessness: déchet in French from the verb choir (to fall), refuse and also garbage
in English (which primarily refers to animal offal), rifiuti in Italian, residuo in
Spanish, Abfall in German. In the second category, terms emphasize the dirty or
repulsive nature of these particular materials: immondice in French, immondizia in
Italian, from the Latin mundus which means clean; ordure in French from the Latin
horridus, meaning horrible. Finally, terms in the third category describe the
materials that make up the waste: boues in French, spazzatura in Italian, Müll and
Schmutz in German, rubbish in English derived from rubble.1
The word waste belongs in the first category. From the old French vastum, which
means empty or desolate, it was first used to depict a desolate, ruined or neglected
region. Later, the term was used to describe a wasteful expenditure (and, in this
sense, it had the same meaning as déchet in French). It finally acquired its current
meaning in the 15th century. The fact that the original meaning of waste has a
spatial dimension in that it described a place, similarly to spazzatura from the verb
spazzare (to make room, remove clutter), is likely not neutral. It is also undoubtedly
the case with the rich vocabulary, which has only been touched on lightly here, used
to describe various wastes. Indeed, the issue of waste has long been closely linked
to (even confused with) both the issue of salubrity and sanitizing of urban space and
the management of urban urine and excrement.
After a quick overview of the period between Antiquity and the eve of the
Industrial Revolution, we will focus on the period between 1770 and 1860, during
which the value of excreta, particularly urban excreta, thanks to its agricultural and
industrial importance, increased. Next, the birth of waste in the form of abandoned
junk and materials from the 1870s to the 1960s will be presented. Finally, we will
show that since the 1960s and 1970s, the environmental crisis has translated into a
waste crisis for which only imperfect solutions have been found. The story of waste
is an international one, however, here we focus on the history of waste in Europe
and North America2 (with the exception of the last chapter) and do not address its
history in the former East Bloc.3

1
See also Harpet (1998).
2
Even if the literature about the history of waste has developed since the end of the 20th century,
it remains relatively scarce compared to other urban environmental history topics. See for instance,
for the last two centuries: Melosi (2005), Strasser (1999), Barles (2005) and Giuntini (2006).
3
See for instance: Gille (2007).

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7 History of Waste Management … 201

7.2 From Antiquity to the Eve of the Industrial Revolution

Streets, and more generally open spaces in cities, have often been used as recep-
tacles for urban waste: human and animal urine and excrement, other organic
materials from domestic or artisan activities, rubble from demolitions, various
mineral debris, etc., such that the composition of these soils provide an account of a
city’s history. The impregnation of waste into the soil was particularly significant
because streets and squares were not always surfaced and could absorb much
rainwater or because urbanized areas were built on low, even marshy, ground.
The need to clean up polluted urban space was at the root of the famous Roman
cloaca maxima, built under Tarquin the Proud (7th–6th century BC) to drain the
Velabrum and the lowlands located between the Capitoline Hill and Palatine Hill.
First through an uncovered canal network, then with a subsurface sewage system, it
collected urban refuse and materials from latrines and drained them into the Tiber.
Subsidiary lines, such as ditches originating from houses, led to the cloaca maxima
and contributed to the cleaning up of Rome. Thus perched on these subterraneous
passages, Rome was described as a “hanging city” (urbs pensilis) by Pliny the
Elder.4 The maintenance and cleaning of sewers, a job given to convicted criminals,
was the basis for the cloacarium tax. Many cities at that time were equipped with
similar community facilities.
The use of these underground pipes to drain and clean urban areas declined in
varying degrees during the Middle-Ages in Europe and was replaced by surface runoff
for rainwater and drainage waters. Urban brooks (still identifiable today in France by
the name Merdereau or Merderet) and moats acted as sewers. Many cities diverted,
canalized and created networks of drainage systems in order to allow for the devel-
opment of their artisan activities (at the time this water played a mechanical role, later,
according to its composition, it took on a chemical and biological role). Because
these canals contributed to drainage, they were simply considered sewers; however,
they had a much more significant role in that they founded urban prosperity.5
Furthermore, the status of human excremental materials varied in space and
time. Some cities retained a combined sewerage system used since Roman time;
many cities adopted, during the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, pit privies, which
were at first simple holes and later underground reservoirs placed under dry latrines.
The growing use of these cesspools led to the development of a new profession: the
cesspool emptier (although in some cities local growers did this job). Moreover,
the necessity for salubrity led many cities to prohibit the disposal of human waste
into sewers and rivers—this was the case in Paris where, since the 13th century, the
Great Sewer (“Grand Égout”), a former backwater of the Seine River, drained the
Right Bank. However, these bans, as well as possible sweeping and cleaning
obligations, were often ignored by urbanites.6

4
In his Natural History, XXXVI.
5
Guillerme (1983, 1988).
6
Boudriot (1990).

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202 S. Barles

In these cities, where only a few streets were paved, where the slope of streets was
not regulated, where both human and animal populations were extremely dense and
where cart and other tipcart traffic contributed to the formation of a putrid mud, a
significant elevation of the ground led to ground floors, even second floors, of houses
to become buried. This partly unintentional elevation of the ground level was the
result of an accumulation of urban waste and rubbish at the surface. It occurred at
varying rates and often accelerated following demolitions in times of conflict. It also
tended to increase as a result of artificial embankment construction which trans-
formed marshy areas into developable land and where construction material often
was itself a type of waste: excavated material from moats, demolition rubble and
urban mud.
During the Middle Ages, dumpsites, formed from bulky refuse and the drainage
of pit privies or through the deployment of street cleaning services, could be found
in some cities.7 These dumps, originally established at the city gates, then later
surrounded by the growing city and replaced by sites outside of the new urban
limits, often grew into real hills. This is the case in Paris where these mounds have
been completely integrated into the urban landscape; because they are raised above
the general ground level, they can accommodate more efficient windmills (Fig. 7.1).
The labyrinth of the Jardin des Plantes is another example of a historical dumpsite
that is still visible today. Other mounds have disappeared: this is the case for
the motta papellardorum, located on the western point of the Île de la Cité and
for the Monceau Saint-Gervais, located behind the city hall (Hôtel de Ville).8
Generally speaking, salubrity levels dropped in European cities from the 15th to
18th century.9 It was during the 18th century that two movements were set in
motion that eventually resulted in a reassessment of the management of urban
excreta.

7.3 1770s–1860s

7.3.1 Neo-Hippocratism and Hygienics

During the 18th century in Europe, medical thinking was characterized by a

growing interest in Hippocrates’ theories. In particular, his treatise “Airs, Waters,
and Places”,10 in which he emphasized the primary role of the environment in

7
Chevallier (1849).
8
Belgrand (1887).
9
For more precisions about Middle Ages and Renaissance, see (among others): Leguay (1999);
Assainissement et salubrité publique en Europe méridionale (fin du Moyen Âge, époque moderne).
2001. Siècles—Cahiers du centre d’histoire “Espaces et cultures” 14; Magnusson (2006) and
Jorgensen (2008).
10
Coray (1800).

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7 History of Waste Management … 203

Fig. 7.1 Paris, map of Jacques Gomboust (partial), 1653

health, was frequently referenced.11 Many doctors followed his recommendations

and looked to the environment to explain morbidity and mortality. Many of them
considered air, and its intimate and frequent contact with the body, a transmission
medium for miasma or sulfurous pollution emitted by the soil whose fumes were
often considered morbid, even deadly.12 Their analysis was confirmed by the high
frequency of intermittent fevers in wetlands where a generalized weakening of the
body shortened the life of their residents.13
Eighteenth century doctors paid particular attention to cities whose statistics—
which at that time were being developed extensively—revealed excess mortality:
not only was the natural balance negative (more deaths than births), but the life
expectancy of their residents was lower than in the neighboring countryside.14 It
became the natural tendency for doctors to view these environments through this
neo-Hippocratic lens and to consider them as extreme and artificial types of

11
Corbin (1986, 1988), Barles (1999) and Lécuyer (1986).
12
Boissier de Sauvages (1754) and Méphitis (1765).
13
Lancisi (1717).
14
Poussou (1992) and Kunitz (1993).

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204 S. Barles

marshes.15 Thus, the belief was that urban excess mortality was due to the cumu-
lative effects of a contaminated ground saturated with putrefying waste and of the
human and animal density. Indeed, discoveries by Priestley and Lavoisier showed
that respiration permanently tainted the air by consuming oxygen and producing
CO2 (then called phlogisticated air) in a process characteristic of combustion.16
These analyses led the medical establishment and, in large part, the scientific,
political and intellectual communities to establish new requirements to correct and
rectify the deleterious conditions of these cities.17 They recommended airing cities
and decreasing their putrefaction through improved ground covering, better man-
agement of human and urban excreta, universalized sweeping and cleaning, and
improved distribution of these services. These types of projects were developed
throughout the 19th century.

7.3.2 Urbanization, Industrialization and Recycling

Both industrialization and urbanization separately raised the issue of food resources
and raw materials required for industrial use. Demographic growth, the increase in the
number of urbanites, required a concurrent increase in agricultural production.
According to future agronomists, one way this could be achieved was by improving
yields through improved fertilization of croplands. By the late 18th century, a
shortage in farm manure prevailed, leading to a search for other fertilizing materials.
Indeed, the numerous studies on putrefaction during the 18th century and the iden-
tification of the great material cycles by early chemistry showed that death was critical
to life and that human and animal excreta, as well as food residues, could be used as
fertilizers.18 As these wastes were most concentrated in cities, it was there that mud
from streets, drainage of pit privies, beef blood, old shoes, indeed any organic waste
was collected. Throughout Europe and North America, scientists and intellectuals
stressed the need for cities to return their food as fertilizer to the countryside.
Recovering those “materials which the cities owe to the earth”19 was the only way to
ensure both salubrity (through an efficient collection of organic materials scattered
throughout cities) and food production. Throughout the 19th century, the chemists
Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, Justus von Liebig, Alexander
Müller (among others), the lawyer and social reformer Edwin Chadwick, engineers
like Adolphe-Auguste Mille, all promoted human and urban fertilizers.20 Later, even
public figures addressed the issue, such as Victor Hugo in Les Misérables.

15
Baumes (1789).
16
Priestley (1774) and Lavoisier (1782).
17
Fortier (1975).
18
Wines (1985) and Tarr (1996).
19
Dumas (1866–1867).
20
von Liebig (1862), Müller (1860), Chadwick (1842) and Paulet (1853). See also: Mårald
(2002), Goddard (1996) and Hamlin (2007).

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7 History of Waste Management … 205

Furthermore, an important part of emerging industry was reliant on using raw

materials that could be supplied only by cities. This is the case, for example, with
vegetable rags used for papermaking for several centuries, but became much more
needed once the papermaking machine was developed.21 In the 19th century, rags
became a strategic industrial issue (1.5 kg of rags were needed to produce 1 kg of
paper), such that France banned their export from 1771, followed by Belgium,
Holland, Spain, Portugal and a few other countries during the first half of the 19th
century.22 Great Britain and North America fought over the international markets,
their local resources insufficient to meet the growing industrial demand, forcing them
to look for rags in countries that did not produce or produced little paper: in 1850,
North America imported 50,000 tons of rags, more than 60,000 tons in 1875.23 Rag
collection was therefore an urban activity: an urbanite produced on average more
rags than a rural resident which, in addition to the typically more concentrated
population of cities, made the collection of urban rags more profitable.24 Thanks to
urban rag collection, production doubled during the first half of the 19th century
(Table 7.1).
Similarly, there was a growing industrial use of animal bones (Fig. 7.2), which
were also concentrated in urban areas since slaughtering took place in the city (in
butcheries then later in specialized slaughterhouses). Bones were increasingly
needed for their classical use—the manufacture of objects, grease, glue—as well as
for new market opportunities: from the 1820s, phosphorus was used to make
matches ignited by friction; animal charcoal to refine sugar whose consumption was
growing—from 1 kg/capita/year25 in 1788 to nearly 5 kg/capita/year in 1856 in
France, three times more in England26;—gelatin (identical to glue except for its use)
for food preparation and later for photographic negatives; and later, superphos-
phates for agricultural fertilization (first in England and Germany then in France).
Other butchery by-products found market opportunities in the manufacture of
candles and later of stearic candles, Prussian blue, glue, ropes, combs, etc.
Urban by-products emerged from these new industrial products and led to other
market opportunities: used paper gave rise to cardboard industries, tin cans to metal
toys, town gas (obtained from the distillation of coal) to tar which was used in the
manufacture of numerous chemical compounds and, soon after, for surfacing
sidewalks and later streets. Many other examples of the city as a source of raw
materials for industry and for agricultural fertilizers exist.27

21
André (1996), Hills (1988) and Strasser (1999), op. cit. p. 80 sq.
22
Turgan (1860–1885).
23
Strasser, op. cit. p. 85.
24
Esquiros (1861) and Barberet (1866–1887).
25
Chaptal (1819).
26
Payen (1859).
27
For more details about urban raw materials, see: Barles (2005). op. cit. About industrial use of
urban by-products, see: Guillerme (2007). See also: Simmonds (1862).

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206 S. Barles

Table 7.1 World production Country Production (tons)

of paper and cardboard in
1850 England 62,960
Scotland 14,300
Eire 3,310
France 41,680
Zollverein 37,200
Austria 22,320
Denmark 1,680
Sweden 1,530
Belgium 6,132
The Netherlands 4,200
Spain 5,310
Italy 7,992
Switzerland 13,000
Turkey 180
Source Picard (1891)

Fig. 7.2 Life cycle of animal bones, second third of the 19th century

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7 History of Waste Management … 207

To multiply their profits, manufacturers sought out market opportunities in

products with no value, i.e. waste from their primary operation. Animal charcoal
dirtied during the clarification of sugars could not be revived endlessly: it was
considered a waste up until 1810 when it began to be used as a fertilizer (containing
a high concentration of phosphorus). In such a way, used animal charcoal soon
became more expensive than unused animal charcoal. Cotton waste from textile
mills—particularly in Manchester—began to be used, like rags, for papermaking.
As late as 1882, the hygienist Henri Napias summarized the goal: “In industry, there
must not be any actual scrap, and everything must be used either for industry itself
or for agriculture [translation]”.28

7.3.3 An Uneven Situation

Hygienic requirements on the one hand and agricultural and industrial demand for
urban excreta on the other, had unequal effects on the management of waste. In big
cities, and particularly in the capitals, hygienic policies were quickly established
(which does not imply that small and mid-size cities did not demonstrate innova-
tion, as illustrated in the English borough of Croydon29). In large part, these policies
led to the recalibration of arterial systems, street paving, water distribution, col-
lection of wastewaters in gutters or sewers, and reorganization of the collection
services of urban excreta.30
A distinction can be made among these cities between those who chose to
immediately adopt the combined sewerage system and those who resisted. In fact,
home water distribution was established in London as early as the 18th century and
created a corollary need for water drainage. The solution quickly became to dis-
charge the used water into sewers, then in the Thames. The growing use of water-
closets with flushing systems prompted the removal of pit privies (a gradual and
relative removal such that the systems were often used together). As a consequence,
drainage became an issue of wastewater and the need for recycling led, in many
cases, to the use of wastewater for agricultural irrigation purposes in sewage fields
(as in Milan or Chambéry). In other cities, including Paris, water was distributed to
homes much later: it was first used to clean streets, and the system of pit privies
remained prevalent. Here, innovations in the management of sewage removal from
cesspools and the production of human fertilizers were numerous and assisted in
making sewage disposal a very lucrative economic sector. The “Flemish method”,31
the fertilization of land by spreading fresh sewage, was used in Northern France and
Holland. Widely used in China, this method was adopted throughout Europe during

28
Napias (1882).
29
Goddard and Sheail (2001).
30
See for instance: Melosi (2000), Vögele (1998) and Frioux (2013).
31
Moll and Mille (1857).

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208 S. Barles

the 19th century to such a degree that some regions chartered “sewage trains” to
increase their radius of use around cities. In other areas, a fertilizer obtained from
drying night soil for a few years was produced—Paris’ dry night soil (poudrette)
was sold in a 200 km radius around the city. Later, sulfate of ammonia was
manufactured, a compound obtained by the distillation of the liquid part of night
soil in a process developed in Paris during the 1830s and commercialized in
England.32 This fertilizer was later made from by-products of coal distillation and
became one of the major suppliers of nitrogen at the turn of the 19th and 20th
centuries. Animal-seaweed (a mixture of brown algae and night soil) produced in
Marseilles, was transported by sea and commercialized as far as Italy. Large waste
removal companies were thus doubly profitable: they profited not only from
emptying cesspools, but also from commercializing fertilizers—which explains
why they were opposed to future combined sewerage system projects. Furthermore,
cities often collected taxes on waste removal and these monies greatly contributed
to their annual revenues.33
The collection of refuse and mud from streets also noticeably evolved. In many
cities, the sweeping, usually required of residents, was gradually replaced (where it
was not already the case) by the collection of tax and the organization of a public
service that could be ceded to private enterprises. Refuse heaps, made either by
urbanites or by employees of the sanitation department, were searched by rag-and-
bone men whose profession reached its apex between 1830 and 1870. Hygienists
considered scavenging a necessary evil: when practiced on the street it was harmful
to salubrity, but as a supplier to industry it was one of the factors of economic
growth. During this period, the revenues of rag-and-bone men generally increased
and wholesalers of rags and other salvaged materials acquired at times considerable
wealth. Material not salvaged by the rag-and-bone men—mud—was picked up by
public or ceded waste removal services. Intended for agriculture, mud was often
sold by waste removal companies or services to farmers, like in Edinburgh, Lille,
Manchester, Paris—whereas it was given freely a century before—such that in
several cities (including Paris) cleaning costs actually decreased in the first two-
thirds of the 19th century despite substantial increases in cleaning requirements and
the growing population.34
This improvement—admittedly relative in terms of the sanitary issue—to the
management of waste was not equal among cities. Two factors were at stake in the
growth of recycling measures in big cities. On the one hand, recycling was cost
effective only if the supply was sufficient, such that the population producing the
materials had to be large. On the other hand, these materials were most often
intended for agriculture use (and in particular for market garden production) and
local industries, which depended on a large market and thus also needed a large
population base. Elsewhere, the modalities in the management of urban excreta

32
Commission des engrais (1865–1866).
33
Barles (2005). op. cit.
34
Du Mesnil (1884).

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were hardly different than those that characterized the 18th century. As a conse-
quence, growth in the recycling sector can be considered an indicator of the spread
of the first wave of industrialization.

7.4 1870s–1960s

7.4.1 Industry and Agriculture Turn Their Backs on the City

From the 1870s onward, the doctrine that the recycling of by-products is a condition
of industrialization, food production and salubrity, was undermined by the mobi-
lization of new resources and raw materials.
Urban waste, responsible for the growth of many industrial branches, was
increasingly considered the limiting factor. This was the case for rags, whose
supply was insufficient to meet the industrial demand from the 1860s onward and
whose price continued to rise as a consequence. Paper manufacturers had little
control over wholesalers of rags and looked for vegetable-based substitutes to
escape these constraints. At first, straw and alfa were used and later, as a result of
work by the German papermaker Henri Vœlter, wood.35 Initially, both the new
types of pulp and rag pulp were used; later, at the end of the 19th century, rag pulp
was gradually replaced entirely. Use of the new pulp led to a tenfold increase in
world production between 1850 and 1890.36 At the same time, market opportunities
for animal bones also declined. Sugar refiners considered animal charcoal too
expensive and started to use activated charcoal (from plant sources) and mechanical
refining. Plastic materials replaced bones for the manufacture of some objects:
celluloid, first developed in 1869 from cellulose and camphor to replace the ivory in
billiard balls, and later Bakelite, fabricated in 1907 from phenol and formol
(formaldehyde), both invented in the United States.37 From Bakelite on, all plastic
materials were made from by-products of the coal and oil industries. As early as the
1860s, these gave rise to the dye industry and led to the demise of the Prussian blue
industry.38 Electrical lighting was in use by the late 19th century in cities, thus
competing with stearic candles; vegetable glue and later synthetic glue replaced
animal glue; fish gelatin took the place of bone gelatin. With refrigeration, large
slaughterhouses moved away from the cities and relocated closer to where animals
were being raised. This move led to the emergence of the powerful meat and bone
meal industry that utilized useless butchery by-products. The durability of this

35
Figuier (1873). See also: André, op. cit.; Hills, op. cit.
36
Exposition universelle internationale de 1900 à Paris. Rapports du jury international.
Introduction générale. Tome II. 3e partie: Sciences. 4e partie: Industrie. 1903. Paris: Imprimerie
nationale, p. 366.
37
Friedel (1983).
38
Bensaude-Vincent and Stengers (2001). (Trad. Bensaude-Vincent and Stengers 1996).

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210 S. Barles

industry remained unquestioned until the 1990s following the Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy crisis.39
Issues surrounding fertilizers also evolved.40 Beginning in the 1850s, based on
the well established role of phosphorus in plant growth (recognized as early as the
1840s), there was a frantic world-wide search for fossil phosphates to supply a need
not filled by bones. Animal bones were no longer needed for phosphorus fertil-
ization following the discovery of large deposits in North Africa and the expansion
of mines in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.41 Furthermore,
during the last 3 decades of the 19th century, sulfate of ammonia became essential
for nitrogen fertilization; it was increasingly extracted from ammoniated water
during the manufacture of town gas and later from large industrial coking plants.42
At the same time, imports of sodium nitrate from South America into Europe and
the United States soared. The growing concern that this latter supply would soon
be depleted43 turned the search towards the largest known reservoir of nitrogen: air
(it contains 80 % nitrogen). The Haber–Bosch process,44 developed on the eve of
the First World War, appeared to provide an infinite amount of nitrogen for agri-
culture and the war (it was also used in the manufacture of explosives). With a
growing trend to trust mineral fertilizers over organic ones, these new nitrogen
sources competed with urban fertilizers and more generally with those from recy-
cled materials. In fact, this competition became fiercer as urban growth loosened the
link between city and agriculture.

7.4.2 New Methods of Recovery

In cities that had based their waste management on recycling, these changes put into
question the entire economy and management of urban excreta that had been, until
then, a source of tax revenue or, at the very least, of municipal savings. The crisis
was particularly severe as the issues of recycling and of salubrity, which had for a
long time seemed convergent, conflicted with increasing frequency. Hygienists
severely criticized the act of dumping refuse on streets and, in a few cities from the
1860s, it became necessary to use boxes or refuse bags (Lyons in 1855, Paris in
1883, Saint-Petersburg).45 This made scavenging more difficult and less lucrative as
mixed materials took on an altered quality.46 The gradual disappearance of animals

39
See for instance: van Zwanenburg and Millstone (2005).
40
Wines, op. cit.
41
Matignon (1931).
42
Ibid.
43
See for instance: Crookes (1917).
44
Smil (2001).
45
Jugie (1993).
46
Fontaine (1903).

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7 History of Waste Management … 211

in the urban space, encouraged by hygienists, and made possible by the mecha-
nization of transportation, the use of tar or asphalt-based surfacing designed for the
new automotive traffic, and the improvement to garbage collection, reduced some
of the fertilizer value of urban mud. At the same time, growing household con-
sumption resulted in increased amounts of waste being produced by urbanites as
well as the emergence of new types of waste. References to packaging, for example,
can be found as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, not all
cities abandoned the concept of recycling; on the contrary, many more cities that
did not yet recycle began to. In both cases, these initiatives aimed to factor in the
new industrial and agricultural constraints.
The first strategy was to look for land farther away and with greater yields for
agricultural market opportunities that had been previously available from market
gardening at the city gates. Marseilles, France’s second largest city with half a
million inhabitants at the end of the 19th century, was renowned for its insalubrity.
It was one of the last cities in France to suffer from a cholera epidemic and was
unable to dispose of its mud and garbage within its immediate outskirts; rather it
was piled up in two dumps, which worsened the city’s situation. A first project set
out to discharge refuse into the sea—a solution that was adopted by many coastal
cities throughout the world. Meanwhile, the Crau plain, located 60 or so kilometers
northwest of the city, was the focus of a significant agricultural development
project. Its progress, however, was slowed by the scarcity and high cost of fertil-
izers. In the 1880s, a private company undertook the construction of a railway line
to dispose Marseille’s mud in this plain. The trains returned to the city loaded with
stones collected from the fields, and these stones were used in public works. The
city made minimal financial contributions to the project because the company’s
primary revenues came from selling the mud and because it received contributions
from the manufacturers of Marseilles who wished to improve the city’s standards of
hygiene in order to boost economic development.47 Around the same time, Paris
disposed of its mud in the north of France where a thriving beet cultivation required
low cost fertilizers—the profitability of the operation was possible only because
railway companies were obligated by the State to charge very low tariffs on this
type of transport. Similarly, the adoption of a combined sewerage system in many
cities led to the establishment of sewage fields becoming located increasingly further
away from urban areas in order to benefit from sufficient surfaces and affordable land
prices. In the 1920s, the sewage fields of Paris were located at several tens of
kilometers away from the city and the engineers even contemplated fertilizing the
region of Champagne sèche, approximately 120 km away.48 Another solution was to
manufacture more reliable and effective fertilizers to compete with mineral and
industrial fertilizers. Zymothermic fermentation, where optimal conditions of

47
Enlèvement journalier par chemin de fer et conduite dans la plaine de la Crau des immondices,
balayures et vidanges de la ville de Marseille. Observations sur le projet Montricher. 1886.
Marseille.
48
Védry (1992).

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212 S. Barles

Fig. 7.3 Waste crushing plant near Paris, Pantin, early 20th century

ventilation and humidity are used to accelerate decomposition in dungheap pits, was
tested in Florence in 1912 and later in many cities. Using this method, fertilizer could
be obtained in 40 days or 9 cycles per year, later as quickly as 30 days and 12 cycles
per year, compared to 4 or 5 months for mud kept in heaps (2–3 cycles per year).49
Another avenue, investigated both in France and the United States, was to
industrialize scavenging. The traditional scavenging site of rag-and-bone men,
streets (as in Paris) or dumps (as in New York), were moved into a specialized
establishment (Fig. 7.3): a salubrious sorting plant where sorting operations could
be carried out in a more rational and efficient way. From the 1880s on, there was an
increasing number of these plants that aimed to offer manufacturers and farmers
products that had been carefully sorted and processed and were therefore com-
petitive. In 1923, a sorting plant built in Nice (in the South of France), a city that
had once discarded its waste into the sea,50 produced fertilizers and separately
salvaged papers, cartons, rags (sorted by type), corks, bones, various scrap metals,
tin scrap, other metals, bread and other food remains. Processes were further
improved with the use of magnets for the recovery of ferrous metal and belt con-
veyors for the transport of waste past the workers. Each product had its specialized
collector and rag-and-bone men went from being self-employed (freedom was one

49
Joulot (1946), see: Giuntini, op. cit., pp. 65–67, 70–71.
50
Courmont et al. (1932).

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7 History of Waste Management … 213

of the arguments made by rag-and-bone men to practice their profession in the 19th
century) to salaried workers.51 In North America, swine-feeding and other recycling
programs developed, specially during World War I.52
Finally, as early as the 1870s, incineration was tested in England.53 The first
British destructor was used in Nottingham in 1874, another in Manchester 2 years
later. The huge advantages of these destructors were their capacity to reduce the
volume and weight of waste to smoke, and the fact that they could be established in
urban areas, even highly populated urban areas, thanks to their (supposed) great
salubrity. Indeed, it brought processing closer to the site of collection and decreased
the cost of service compared to long-distance solutions that were often more costly
than initially anticipated and that gave rise to complaints from residents of the roads
that were being used by dumpers, and later, transport trucks. At first, incinerators
adopted in Great Britain and the United States were not used in France because of
the generally held opinion that they resulted in the loss of many useful materials,
converted into smoke. Nevertheless, energy recovery tests proved to be fruitful and
revealed that incineration provided a new opportunity for the recovery of waste
(because it is autocombustible). The most striking example is from Liverpool where
the incineration of 53 % of household waste, 174,090 tons in 1907, produced
9.2 million kWh that was used to power tramways. Ash (33 % of the incinerated
tonnage) was used for the manufacture of mortar, concrete structures and concrete
slabs for sidewalks.54 From that time on, many sorting plants were equipped with
incinerators and only materials with high value were salvaged (in particular metals),
the rest was burned. Moreover, central and urban district heating offered a new
market venture for incinerators. In fact, this type of heating was developed in North
America as early as the 1870s and later in Germany in 1900. In Canada and the
United States, 300 cities were equipped with incinerators in 1932; 20 cities in
Germany by 1927.55 Central heating, which according to a French advertisement of
the 1920s “allows comfort even if a woman works and is not home to maintain the
stove [translation]”,56 was a sign of modernity.

7.4.3 The Abandonment of Waste

Despite the hope urban administrators had placed in these innovations, there was a
growing disinterest in recovery. There were several reasons for this. By the late
19th century, the usefulness of urban excreta became impaired, and as discussed

51
Joulot, op. cit., p. 82.
52
Melosi (2005), op. cit., p. 154, 163.
53
Melosi (1988).
54
Paris (1909).
55
Gallo (1994).
56
Quoted by Gallo, op. cit.

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214 S. Barles

earlier in this text, its use decreased rapidly during the inter-war period. Moreover,
new recovery processes became obsolete, particularly because waste collection had
led to the debasement of materials. In fact, there was an unprecedented increase in
the volume of garbage, much more rapid than its increase in weight. This consis-
tently lower density was due to the proliferation of packaging, newspapers and, in
some cities, to the decline in the quantity of ash released, which was very variable
as it was dependent on which specific local heating processes were used at the time.
Vehicles traditionally used for garbage collection were often motorized, and no
longer appropriate as they filled up quickly resulting in an increase in service
required and higher collection costs. Packer trucks (with compressing device)
gained popularity in Europe from the 1930s onward57 and provided the solution as
they compressed garbage; however, they also altered it in the process.
At the same time and partially as a result of the situations described above, many
experiments ended in financial failure. In 1923, entrepreneurs of Nice’s recovery
plant, mentioned above, requested the modest sum of 20,000 francs per year and a
free supply of household rubbish and mud from the local government in order to
proceed with what they thought to be a highly profitable recovery project. In 1926,
when the plants were commissioned, the city was required to increase its funding by
50 times, to one million francs per year. In 1930, all the plants were replaced by a
mass-burning plant.58 By and large, the operating costs of the recovery plants
proved to be much higher than the revenues from the sale of their products. The
same was true for sewage farms and led to their eventual abandonment in Europe
and North America (they continued to be used in Mexico however). As for energy
recovery, the costs outweighed the returns: to use an example from Europe, the
1953 study by the Organization for European Economic Co-operation revealed that
a cost of 1,150–1,715 FF ton−1 (amortization, interest on the investment, operation
and maintenance costs) had to be factored in for revenues of 270 FF ton−1 up to,
infrequently, 1,500 FF ton−1.59
The prevailing view of administrators was that urban excreta was no longer
profitable, and henceforth an “unavoidable burden”60 for society. This evolution is
reflected in the use of the French word “déchet” for household garbage from the
1930s. The idea of profit from waste appears to have been abandoned even earlier in
Great Britain and the United States. Consequently, techniques associated with
garbage collection were no longer developed with usefulness in mind, but rather
with the aim for disposal or storage at a lower cost. Four techniques were primarily
used: incineration without utilization for energy purposes (although some cities
continued to use this process) with the sole objective being to reduce volume (as
described earlier); the garbage grinder; drainage direct to sea, and to a lesser degree,
drainage direct to river (mainly concerning domestic sewage); and disposal on land.

57
Organisation européenne de coopération économique (1953).
58
Joulot, op. cit., p. 82–83.
59
Organisation européenne de coopération économique, op. cit., p. 101.
60
Joulot, op. cit., p. 175.

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7 History of Waste Management … 215

The garbage grinder was developed to link the disposal of solid waste (that can
be ground up) with the disposal of wastewater and thus to realize the ancient dream
of networking garbage collection and waste transport. It is an electric device cus-
tomized for a kitchen sink that allows for the drainage of shredded refuse to the
sewers. It was the subject of many experiments in Great Britain and the United
States but, in the end, experienced only limited development. The technique was
comparatively inconvenient, concerned only one part of refuse (kitchen waste),
required an increase in the capacity of wastewater treatment plants (where these
existed) and resulted in increased water consumption (round 7 l inhab−1 day−1).61
New York is an example of a city that since 1872 practiced drainage direct to sea:
barges were used to carry refuse 25 miles from shore (prior to this, a part of the refuse
was discharged into the East River) up to 1934.62 The process was defended for
many years. Not only would it allow for the development of marine plankton, it
appeared to be the solution to the new problem of bulky waste. Indeed, consumption
of new objects resulted in the production of new waste, including electrical appli-
ances and end-of-life motor vehicles. The sudden emergence of these monstrous
objects appeared not to have been anticipated by policies which promoted their
manufacture and sale to consumers. This problem, already recognized in the 1930s,
became very worrisome after the Second World War.
Sanitary landfilling originates, like incineration, from England where it emerged
in 1912 (the terms is used from the 1930s onwards). This method consisted of
placing successive layers of waste, 1.5–2.0 m thick, separated by inert matter.
Another layer was added only when the temperature of the previous one had sta-
bilized (fermentation produces heat). The process was advantageous because of its
low cost and its only constraint was its need for large spaces located close enough to
towns to avoid excessive transportation costs. This explains why landfills are more
frequent in vast countries like North America than in Europe where space is limited.
Nevertheless, the number of landfills multiplied as never before during the inter-war
period and they were gradually considered the best solution for garbage storage
(60 % of English garbage was placed in landfills in 195063). This was the case even
in France where landfills were at first considered to be insalubrious and wasteful.
Moreover, proponents of landfills argued that garbage dumping contributed to the
urban development of waste grounds and uncultivated land. However, most of the
time, a landfill was considered a no man’s land. The Entressen site (South of France),
used as a landfill up to 2010 for garbage from Marseilles, is the best example of this
since it resulted from the discontinuation of the Plaine de Crau recovery project. It
was at the beginning of the 21st century the largest landfill in Europe.
Thus there was a general trend towards an overproduction of waste (Table 7.2)
and a devaluing of these materials. This trend was all the more remarkable because

61
Summer (1968).
62
But New York City continued to dump sewage sludge at sea. Melosi (2005), op. cit,
pp. 181–182.
63
Organisation européenne de coopération économique, op. cit., p. 144.

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216 S. Barles

Table 7.2 Waste removed in London and suburbs 830

some cities, circa 1930
(g inhab−1 day−1) Zurich 630
Paris 770
Berlin Summer: 370
Winter: 584

agricultural and industrial wastes added to the mountain of waste already created by
households. In this area however, Germany and the Netherlands stood out. In
Germany, until 1945 the political system under autarchy favored recycling;64 yet
landfills can still be found as parts of “the tectonic landscape [translation]”,65 such
as the 60 m high mound of refuse that stands near Leipzig. In the Netherlands, a
comprehensive program was started in the 1930s for the agricultural recovery of
household garbage. In the 1960s, 200,000 tons per year of compost was produced
from the garbage of two million people (20 % of the entire population). This greatly
contributed to the development of horticulture and particularly, after 1955, to flower
bulb cultivation.66
The Second World War also blurred the big picture. On the one hand, the
shortages that characterized the war and the years following the conflict led to a
reduction of garbage production and a renewed interest in certain recovery pro-
cesses; however this was considered a short-term situation and, considering its
causes, undesirable. On the other hand, the destruction caused by bombings posed a
real problem to urban administrators once the conflict ended. This was particularly
the case in Berlin where two-thirds of the buildings were destroyed in 1945. The
near absence of transportation made the disposal of the rubble difficult, and it had to
be piled up locally. Thus about 30 hills of rubble up to 100 m tall erected towards
the end of the 1940s, mostly by female workers (the Trümmerfrauen).

7.5 1970s–Today

7.5.1 The Environmental Crisis

During the environmental crisis, which originated in the 1960s and 1970s, scien-
tists, intellectuals, artists, journalists and citizens in most developed countries
(although to varying degrees in each country) finally denounced the pernicious
effects of industrialization, consumption and even development. As early as 1948,
Fairfield Osborn published his internationally acclaimed book, Our Plundered

64
The same occured in Italy some years before. Giuntini, op. cit., p. 70.
65
Joulot, op. cit, p. 53.
66
Houter and Stolp (1968).

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7 History of Waste Management … 217

Planet.67 The number of written works of this nature multiplied from the 1960s,
including Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,68 published in the United States in 1962
and rapidly translated in many countries. These works did not specifically criticize
solid waste, but opened the way for environmentalism and an awareness of the
Limits of the Earth, the title of another book by Fairfield Osborn published in
1953.69 A little later, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference of Experts on
the Scientific Basis for Rational Use and Conservation of the Resources of the
Biosphere, which became known as the Biosphere Conference, was held in Paris in
1968,70 reopening and expanding these arguments. Both unity and uniqueness, and
the idea of a Spaceship Earth, were stressed. As well, the observation that “the
rationalization on a planetary scale of the utilization of the biosphere’s resources is
critical if one desires to ensure satisfactory living conditions for future generations
[translation]” was emphasized at the conference. The 1972 publication of the
American book, The Limits to Growth,71 which also received international acclaim,
confirmed the worries expressed by many stakeholders.
Works such as, The City in History by Lewis Mumford, in which he denounced
the “Paleolithic Paradise: Coketown” and the “The Myth of Megalopolis”,72 and
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs,73 both published in
1961, added a violent criticism of industrial cities to these general considerations.
Engineers like Abel Wolman and his famous article “The Metabolism of Cities”74
published in Scientific American in 1965, and ecologists such as Eugene Odum in
the United States or Paul Duvigneaud in Europe agreed with historians and urban
planners. They all emphasized how the management of cities and their absurd
metabolism had created an impasse. They argued that because these heterotrophic
systems not only imported their food and most of the resources they needed, but
also, through their use, transformed these materials into solid, liquid or gaseous
waste, they would damage both urban and natural environments. In particular,
Duvigneaud went further by linking the social crisis to the environmental crisis.75
The former, according to him, was a consequence of the latter. It is possible to
discern here the move from a hygienic approach—whose defenders considered the
removal of waste the answer to the problem of urban salubrity—to the environ-
mentalist approach that, while often remaining anthropocentric, revealed the limits
of the first approach in view of the inseparability of human societies from the
biosphere that supports them.

67
Osborn (1948).
68
Carson (1962).
69
Osborn (1953).
70
UNESCO (1969).
71
Meadows et al. (1972).
72
Mumford (1961).
73
Jacobs (1961).
74
Wolman (1965).
75
Duvigneaud (1980).

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218 S. Barles

In this general setting, solid waste became the symbol of a consumer society and
of its faults which were, in particular, accounted for by its ubiquitous presence in
urban, peri-urban and rural landscapes. Art and literature seized garbage as an
expression of the futility of a comfortable existence and as one of the contributing
factors in the formation of grotesque landscapes and new environments (examples
include Les Météores by Michel Tournier, published in 1975, and much more
recently, Tristan Egolf’s Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming
the Aware in the Corn Belt, published in 1998, the Brazilian film Ilha das Flores,
produced in 1989, and the recent film for mass audiences Wall E, released in 2008).
Social Science invented rudology and garbology, the study of waste, to reveal the
societies that produce it.

7.5.2 Garbage Crisis, Garbage Policy

Despite the lull, even decline during the Second World War, there was a significant
increase in the amount of waste generated throughout the 20th century (Fig. 7.4): in
the United States, municipal waste production went from 1.2 kg inhab−1 day−1 in
1960 to 2.1 kg inhab−1 day−1 in 1990 where it seemed to reach a ceiling; in France,
it went from less than 1 kg inhab−1 day−1 in 1970 to 1.4 kg inhab−1 day−1 in
2000.76 The same year, it reached 1.6 kg inhab−1 day−1 in the Europe of the 15 and
later stabilized at roughly 1.5 kg inhab−1 day−1—although there was a sharp dis-
parity between countries. In addition to municipal waste, there was waste from
agriculture, industry, construction and public works. The quantity of these wastes,
however, was largely unknown as it was not closely monitored—by comparison, in
2004, 16.4 kg inhab−1 day−1 of waste was produced by economic activities
(including households) in the Europe of the 27 of which municipal waste made up
1.4 kg inhab−1 day−1.77
As such, as early as the 1970s a waste crisis emerged and the public stakeholders
were often powerless in the face of the piles of materials there were to manage. The
crisis was also due to the increase in the number of accidents stemming from the
toxicity of waste: the abnormally high cancer rate in the 1970s at Love Canal, a
neighborhood in Niagara Falls (United States) where 21,000 tons of toxic waste had
been dumped from 1942 to 195278 (see Oates 2004 novel The Falls which recounts
the story of this tragedy); the 1983 discovery in France of 41 barrels of chemical
waste which contained dioxin from Seveso (Italy) following an industrial disaster in
1976; the pathologies developed by inhabitants of houses built on ancient municipal
landfills or the contamination of produce from vegetable gardens by polluted

76
Melosi (2005), op. cit., p. 206.
77
According to Eurostat. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/environment/data,
accessed 3 January 2014.
78
Levine (1982).

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7 History of Waste Management … 219

Fig. 7.4 Production of household waste, Paris, 1870–1980. Adapted from Barles (2005)

soils79… These were all factors that contributed to challenging the so-called ideal
solution for disposal on land, and more generally, the management (and in some
cases the absence of management) of solid waste, the third pollution (after water
and air pollution) as described by William Small in 1970.80
The first large political bills concerning waste (in particular urban waste) were
brought in during the 1960s and 1970s: the Solid Waste Disposal Act in 1965 and
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976 in the United States, the
European directive of July 1975, to name only a few. These texts all emphasized
the necessity to reduce the production of waste at its source—for example, by
reducing waste from packaging—and recovering the waste collected—through
recycling, utilization for energy purposes or biological conversion. They also rec-
ommended the implementation of a ‘polluter pays’ principle to the management and
pricing of waste, which was universally adopted by the OECD in 1972.81
According to the principle of internalizing the negative externalities, it was a
question of placing a monetary value on the residual damage to the environment—
damage remaining after collection and treatment of waste—and to charge this cost
to the emitter of the waste (which could be an individual or an industry for example)
in addition to the cost of the collection service and treatment. Nevertheless, the
situation remained worrisome and evolved insubstantially until the 1990s:
the quantity of waste did not decrease, or only a little, recycling stayed limited both

79
Sowers (1968).
80
Small (1971).
81
Guiding principles concerning the international economic aspects of environmental policies.
Recommendation adopted by the OECD Council on 26th May 1972.

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220 S. Barles

quantitatively and geographically and disposal on land remained widespread and

even gained ground in some countries.82
Additional cost was one of the major constraints of these policies. It was caused
by the cost of implementing the recovery processes combined with the near absence
of markets in which to sell these value-added products—contrary to the case during
the 19th century. Recovery required not only the establishment of sorting and
conversion plants but also a complete reorganization of the collection service as it
required on-site sorting in order for it to be efficient. The intent to recover proved to
be more costly for communities than that of abandoning waste. Furthermore, sec-
ondary raw materials or energy generated in this way competed with raw materials
and classical sources of energy, whose extraction or processing sometimes proved
to be less costly than that of the by-products. This is the case, for example, for
plastic materials recycling which is more expensive than the initial production from
petroleum by-products. In other cases, knowing the origin of the products, users
were reluctant to use them, as with compost created from the fermentation of
household garbage. Some sectors had more success however: glass, as refuse glass
(cullet) has always been used to make new glass, and paper, thanks to the devel-
opment of effective recycling processes and in view of a limited supply of wood.
Nevertheless, the price of old papers has sometimes been negative in the last
decades. The arbitrage of one recovery method over another was difficult for
communities: utilization for energy purposes was all the more valuable because of
the elevated energy value of garbage. Pre-sorting garbage for recycling, for example
paper and plastics, proved to be ineffective for incineration of the residue as it had a
reduced energy value.
Other difficulties were added to these. The process of separate collection
required the involvement of citizens as they had to perform the initial sort of the
recycled materials (whether collection was done curb-side or by drop-off at a
depot). In fact, the technologization of society—especially if technology is con-
sidered a medium between man and his environment—undeniably has had the
effect (if not the aim) of separating individuals from the chores of everyday life and
to eliminate all contact with excreta, now handled by technical devices of varying
degrees of sophistication and outsourced cleaning services. In some countries, the
participation of urbanites was successfully (re-)achieved: this was the case in
Germany, probably thanks to its past recycling policies (see above, Sect. 7.4.3). In
some other countries however, households considered sorting a bother. At another
level, new plants were now required because of the removal of landfills, and the
implementation of recovery and the expansion of urban areas were frequently in
opposition to the refusal of residents. Often attributed to the NIMBY syndrome (not
in my backyard), this attitude also related to the distance between urbanites and
their excreta (as touched on here) and the way in which these projects had been
historically implemented: without dialogue or participation from the concerned
populations.

82
OECD Workshop on Waste Prevention: Toward Performance Indicators (2002).

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7 History of Waste Management … 221

At the source, waste reduction programs had very little success because it
required the sphere of production to be rethought. While the removal of urban waste
generally fell under the responsibilities of the local government, production
belonged to the private sector (contrary to the case of liquid sanitation insofar as
water distribution is generally a public utility; incidentally, all things being equal, in
this case it is easier to coordinate a management policy that links upstream dis-
tribution and downstream recovery and treatment). Although, the private sector
could certainly be subject to rules, incentives, taxes, etc., as it also remained under
the control of these governing bodies and the State. Furthermore, applying the
‘polluter pays’ principle did not always prove to be a deterrent as the polluter’s
penalty was low in comparison to its overall budget or to the cost of reducing the
quantity of emitted waste at the source.
These reasons explain why, despite their ambitions, waste management policies
implemented in developed countries for the last 40 years have not been particularly
successful.

7.5.3 A Global Problem

At the same time, the issue of waste, which had been mainly limited to developed
countries until the 1960s, spread globally. Against the background of chronic
poverty, inefficient management structures and weak regulations, the proliferation
of garbage in developing countries made waste a sanitary, social, environmental
and economic issue.83
Indeed, collection and storage conditions contributed to urban and generalized
insalubrity. The services were generally undersized (not enough vehicles, storage
areas insufficiently large) and unsuitable, such that collection was frequently only
partial. As a consequence, streets and gutters became landfills. The non-appropriation
of excremental materials and the absence of monitoring of industrial activities
increased the sanitary risk of waste. The situation was made worse by equipment
dating from the colonial period, often unsuitable within the local context. At the same
time, the so-called informal sector played a major role in on-site handling, collection,
sorting, recycling, and recovery. Millions were engaged in these activities and made a
major contribution—even though it was imperfect—to the management of waste,
often in deplorable sanitary conditions. The scavenging activities typical of European
and North American cities during the 19th century moved geographically; the con-
ditions of work also deteriorating.
For city councilors, the activities of the informal sector, and in particular recycling,
have long been considered a sign of underdevelopment and poverty—which they are.
Many cities thus tried to eradicate these activities in favor of disposal on land for
all materials or, occasionally under pressure from international moneylenders and

83
See for instance: Ngnikam and Tanawa (2006) and UN-Habitat (2010).

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222 S. Barles

Fig. 7.5 Installation for the pre-sorting of household waste in a Shanghai district. Photo S. Barles,
January 2008

large public services companies, for incineration. The cure was often worse than
the disease: job losses for salvage dealers, lack of funds for the upkeep of the vehicle
fleet and facilities, decline in service. In the last several years it has emerged that it
would be best to recognize and integrate the activities of the informal sector in the
management process, but this idea has not yet translated into any results. The situation
in emerging countries is also of concern, where the adaptation of urban services does
not match the speed of processing (Fig. 7.5).

7.6 Conclusion

The history of waste mirrors that of the societies that produced it, and their rela-
tionship with the environment and the resources they mobilized in the process. The
very notion of waste has fluctuated before taking its contemporary meaning—a
material that its owner intends to discard. What was at one time considered waste
may no longer be considered so now, and what is waste today may not have been
deemed so in the past. One hundred and fifty years ago, oyster shells were a
fertilizer of repute, now they often end up in a dustbin, landfill or incinerator.

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7 History of Waste Management … 223

This history of waste also reflects the metabolism of societies and the lineari-
zation of material flows: industrialization translated into an increasing use of
resources, first processed by industries and then consumed by urbanites. Each of
these steps produced an array of waste materials, until their final disposal. However,
during the first industrial age, the absence of synthetic fertilizers and a lack of
knowledge of fossil fertilizers associated with certain industrial processes, such as
the manufacture of paper, candles, dyes, etc., contributed to limiting waste pro-
duction. At the time, the metabolism of societies was partially closed, in view of the
agricultural and industrial importance of most urban, even industrial, by-products.
As soon as industry and agriculture had the means to do without these by-products,
they stopped using them. Thus it was only during the second industrial revolution
that the opening of the bio-geochemical cycles became widespread and that waste
had to be accepted as consubstantial with the rise in the standard of living and
development. The environmental crisis of 1960–1970, and later, the depletion of the
ozone layer, climatic change and the emergence of the concept of sustainable
development led to a renewed consideration of waste. Waste became the symbol of
the pernicious effects of a consumer society. Despite this new view of waste, the
management of it has not considerably improved, especially since the amount of
waste continues to grow in the South.
The issue of waste is now part of a larger discourse, that of non-renewable
resources and the uniqueness of our planet. It is no longer enough to recycle or to
recover excreta simply to limit the quantity of final waste. What matters now is to
close the loops and, through recycling and recovery, to limit the extraction of
resources at the source. Such a project, driven by industrial ecology and territorial
ecology, will succeed only if the levels of consumption fall. It will require a
profound reform in society and its way of viewing its waste.

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half of the nineteenth century. Environ Hist 8:65–84
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JA, Dupuy G (eds) Technology and the rise of the networked city in Europe and America.
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landet [The manure book, or principles for the handling of nutrients in the cities and the
countryside]. Stockholm
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Chapter 8
Technological Hazards, Disasters
and Accidents

Gianni Silei

Abstract Although some technological risks can be traced back to the ancient times,
it was between the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century that tech-
nical advancement and the process of industrialization posed the question of the
management of the technologies and of their possible disastrous consequences.
During these years there was an important change in approaching these issues:
from the inevitability of disasters to the adoption of policies of prevention and risk
management. This important change had as a consequence an increasing role of
public institutions (national governments, agencies and authorities) in the control,
prevention and emergency management of technological disasters. According to this
new approach, scientists, the experts and the technicians that were required to
“predict” using their special knowledge technological disasters, became central
figures. The first post-war period represents an important turning point because this
new and modern attitude towards technological hazards reached its full maturity. The
spreading of new technologies also facilitated by the process of industrialization and
the emergence of the era of mass consumptions, influenced a new discipline that,
from different approaches, tried to address and resolve the various aspects of tech-
nological threats. Born in the postwar period, the disastrology and in general policies
to ensure safety, found a systematic application after the Second World War. The
increasing complexity of certain technologies used in industry, in the production of
energy, in the transport sector and especially the potentially catastrophic conse-
quences of technological accidents, imposed an additional effort in the field of
regulation, prevention and management of emergencies. In some cases, such as the
atomic energy for civilian use, an increasing role was played by national and inter-
national agencies that were created during this period. Since the 1970s but especially
in the following decade, several major accidents (Three Mile Island, Seveso, Bhopal,
Chernobyl, Fukushima, the environmental disasters caused by oil tankers) put for-
ward the need for a standardization of rules and a greater international co-operation.
The globalization of technological hazards at the time of the so-called “risk society”
has fostered a more interdisciplinary approach to the issues of technological disasters.

G. Silei (&)
Dipartimento di Scienze politiche e internazionali, Università di Siena, Siena, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 227

M. Agnoletti and S. Neri Serneri (eds.), The Basic Environmental History,
Environmental History 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09180-8_8

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228 G. Silei

Moreover, the increased number of new hazardous substances and materials and
the opportunities for human error inherent their use has determined an escalation
of technological accidents. All this factors and the more and more unstable bound-
aries between natural disasters and man-made disasters has necessarily imposed
growing efforts for harmonization policies at a national and an international level to
ensure collective security, public health and environmental protection.

8.1 Introduction

There is not a universal definition of technological hazards and accidents. Even

though some studies emphasize the complexity of the issue of individual responsi-
bility in technological disasters, literature has commonly accepted a distinction
between natural hazards (acts of god) and man-made (acts of man) hazards.
According to some classifications natural hazards are threats determined by uncon-
trollable events, while man-made hazards are threats determined by artificial (tech-
nological) factors. Natural hazards can be defined as “those elements of the physical
environment, harmful to man and caused by forces extraneous to him”.1 The term
“natural hazards” refers to all atmospheric, hydrologic, geologic (especially seismic
and volcanic), and wildfire phenomena, while the term “man-made hazards” refers to
“artificial” phenomena caused by human action, inaction, negligence or error. These
phenomena are also defined as technological hazards when determined by a tech-
nology (i.e. industrial, engineering, transportation) and as sociological hazards when
they have a direct human motivation (i.e. crime, riots, conflicts).
As threat and potential danger, hazards are strictly connected to concepts of risk,
disaster and catastrophe. The term risk (from the ancient Italian risicare) indicates
the possibility of suffering a harmful event or loss or danger. While a risk involves
uncertainty, a disaster (from the Italian disastro, literally “unfavorable to one’s
stars”) is an unexpected natural or man-made event with harmful but temporary
consequences. Disasters can be defined as the result of an extreme event that
significantly disrupts the workings of a community. A disaster is “a tragic situations
over which persons, groups, or communities have no control-situations which are
imposed by an outside force too great to resist”. This kind of events may have as a
consequence deaths, material destructions and severe economic damages but can
also determine situations of collective stress in a community and bring to the test
the level of vulnerability of a society.2 Some interpretations consider a disaster a
consequence of peculiar social conditions, some others, consider man-made
disasters mainly as socio-technical problems, as the product of a failure of foresight
and a combination of technical, social and even institutional and administrative

1
Smith and Petley (1990).
2
Fritz (1961), Quarantelli (1966) and Dynes (1970).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 229

factors. The Normal Accident Theory argues that the combination of high com-
plexity and tight coupling must lead to failures. According to this theory, that has
been integrated, empirically tested and verified, technological accidents are
“inevitable and happen all of the time; serious ones are inevitable but infrequent;
catastrophes are inevitable but extremely rare”.3
Since the mid-1980s, starting with an approach opposite to that of the Normal
Accident Theory, some researchers developed the High Reliability Theory, which
says that is possible to create highly reliable systems capable of ensuring almost
absolute security levels.
The science that deals with the study and prevention of disasters is called dis-
astrology. Born at the beginning of the twentieth century but developed especially
from the second post-war period, this discipline relies on the contribution of different
specialists: physicists, geologists, geographers, planners, engineers, sociologists,
psychologists, historians. In the 1980s it was developed a sort of new branch of this
discipline, the kindunology (from the Greek kindunos that means “hazard”). This
science is focused on the study of methods and means to know, understand, assess,
classify and represent different aspects of hazards and disasters.
A catastrophe (from the Latin catàstrofa and the ancient Greek katastrophē, “to
overturn”) is a large harmful event with great and irreversible consequences.4
According to some classifications the principal catastrophic risks can be divided into
four homogeneous classes. The first class catastrophic risks consist of natural
catastrophes (such as pandemics and asteroids) that are not directly determined by
technology or human labor. The second class consists of scientific risks as “laboratory
or other scientific accidents involving particle accelerators, nanotechnology […] and
artificial intelligence”. Instead of the first class risks these catastrophic risks are
directly caused by technology. The third class consists of unintentional man-made
catastrophes that determine phenomena such as “exhaustion of natural resources”,
“global warming” or “loss of biodiversity”. Finally, the fourth class of catastrophic
risks consists of intentional or “deliberately, perpetrated” catastrophes such as
“nuclear winter, bioweaponry, cyberterrorism and digital means of surveillance and
encryption”. Even though they are determined by the use of technology, these are
warfare risks that can be considered intentional acts of violence and not accidental.
According to the International Society for Environmental Protection classifica-
tion, hazards are physical or chemical agents capable of causing harm to persons,
property, animals, plants or other natural resources. Technological accidents are the
potential consequence of one of that events and are caused by technical, social,
organizational or operational failures ranging from minor accidents (i.e. single toxic
agents) to major accident (industrial, chemical or nuclear accidents). Some other
observers consider technological accidents in a more strict sense as “accidental
failures of design or management relating to large-scale structures, transport sys-
tems or industrial processes that may cause the loss of life, injury, property or

3
Perrow (1984).
4
Walter (2008).

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230 G. Silei

environmental damage on a community scale”. When these events have long-run

effects they are considered chronic technological disaster.
Some studies identify seven major classes of technological hazards ordered on a
three-fold scale of severity. According to this classification, the most severe tech-
nological hazards are the multiple extreme hazards (i.e. nuclear war, recombinant
DNA, pesticides). In the second level of the scale there are the extreme hazards,
respectively caused by intentional biocides (chain saws, antibiotics, vaccines),
persistent teratogens (i.e. uranium mining, rubber manufacture), rare catastrophes
(i.e. LNG explosions, commercial aviation crashes), common killers (i.e. auto
crashes, coal-mining diseases such as black lung), diffuse global threats (i.e. fossil
fuel and CO2 release, ozone depletion). In the third and lower level there are the
so-called simple technological hazards.
In late 1990s, trying to provide “technical and organizational tools for the pre-
vention, mitigation and the relief of disasters an International Working group
appointed by United Nations drafted an indicative list with different type of actions
which can constitute technological hazards:
• Release of chemicals to the atmosphere by explosion, fire
• Release of chemicals into water (groundwater, rivers etc.) by tank rupture,
pipeline rupture, chemical dissolved in water (fire)
• Oil spills in marine environment
• Satellite crash (radionuclides)
• Radioactive sources in metallurgical processes
• Other sources of releases of radionuclides to the environment
• Contamination by waste management activities
• Soil contamination
• Accidents with groundwater contamination (road, rail)
• Groundwater contamination by waste dumps (slowly moving contamination)
• Aircraft accidents
• Releases and contaminations as consequence of military actions (e.g. depleted
uranium) or destruction of facilities
• Releases as consequence of the industrial use of biological material (e.g. viruses,
bacteria, fungi).5

8.2 From the Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Century

Natural hazards and disasters are phenomena with which human societies has
always been accustomed to live since antiquity.6 But even man-made threats,
technological hazards and disasters cannot be considered a prerogative of modern

5
Krejsa (1997).
6
Kates (1971) and Nash (1976).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 231

societies. Therefore, there is no doubt that the rise of industrial society, the mod-
ernization process and the spread of technology determined, after the First and the
Second Industrial Revolution, a dramatic increase of harmful events. Hazard
management in developed societies has consequently shifted from risks associated
with natural harmful events to those arising from technological development and
application.
Since early nineteenth century, but especially after the second half of the cen-
tury, industrial accidents, maritime disasters, railway and public transportation
wrecks became unavoidable aspects of most advanced societies. According to some
studies major disasters occurred in this period can be classified into three main
categories that can also be applied to some contemporary technological accidents.
These main categories are respectively: large scale engineered structures (public
buildings, bridges, dams), industry (manufacturing, storage and transport of
hazardous materials, power production) and public transports (sea, rail, air).
Fire can be considered one of the most relevant agents in large scale structures
disasters. From the Great Fire of London of 1666 (13,200 houses burned down) to
the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 (18,000 houses burned down, about 300 victims)
and from the Vienna Theatre Fire of 1881 (850 dead) to the Iroquois Theatre
incident in Chicago (571 dead) these kind of disasters were extremely common in
late nineteenth century and early twentieth century industrial societies. According to
some of the first “disaster specialists”, at the turn of the century the death toll
resulting from theatre fires in the nineteenth century England was nearly thousand
people.7
Between other major large scale structures disasters occurred in these years there
are the collapse of Tay Bridge in Scotland in 1879 (75 dead) and the failure of
South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania in 1889 (more than 2,000 victims). For the
engineering elite, these calamities represented a sort of shock that eventually led to
a more precise codification of building regulations. Another important consequence
of these events was in the approach. “Scientific speech and the rhetoric of risk”
supplanted “the didactic language of the pulpit”: “instead of waiting for bridges to
collapse or people to be burned alive in opera houses, structural engineers and
social psychologists were employed to predict the effectiveness of design and the
psychology of the crowds in danger”.
Steam-boiler explosions, fires and other industrial accidents determined new
kinds of threats and damages and putted at risk not only safety of the workers but
also life and properties of communities close to factories and industrial plants. Even
disasters in minefields were particularly frequent during the nineteenth century: in
United Kingdom, particularly in Wales coalfields, there were recorded several
accidents such as the gas explosions at the Albion Colliery in 1894 (almost 300
deaths) and at the Universal Colliery in 1913 (439 victims). In the United States the
number of documented mine accidents with five or more deaths through 1876–1921
was 497. Many accidents occurred also in main European minefields especially in

7
Gerhard (1899).

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232 G. Silei

Belgium, Germany, Poland and Russia. One of the most deadly mine accident of
the early twentieth century was the Courrières mine disaster occurred in 1906 (more
than 1,000 victims, some of them children) near the French city of Lens.8
Besides the accidents directly caused by technical malfunctions or human neg-
ligence in using machinery or during production or extraction processes, should
also be considered those disasters and emergencies caused by environmental events
indirectly influenced by human actions. During the nineteenth century the poor land
management and the urbanization process of major industrial cities in some cases
multiplied the disruptive effects of floods and landslides causing damages and
casualties. The severe impact of the great urban and industrial agglomerations on
river basins and the lack of modern hygiene and health legislations were other
factors that determined some environmental emergencies such as the Great Stink of
London occurred during the summer of 1858, when the river Thames became a sort
of huge sewer. This episode posed the question of the urban pollution and of the
management and channeling of drinking water and wastewater to insure safety of
the population and prevent the repeated outbreaks of cholera.
Directly related to the process of industrialization can also be considered phe-
nomena such as air pollution episodes which occurred and had so much popular
echo during nineteenth century. The pollutants emitted from the chimneys as a
result of the different stages of the production process, mixed with the fumes
produced by the coal for civilian uses, repeatedly caused huge emergencies that in
some cases had dramatic consequences on public health. These events were reg-
istered especially in some great cities of the United Kingdom, in some areas of
central and Western Europe, but also in more industrialized areas of the United
States (Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati). One of the most serious epi-
sodes of nineteenth century was recorded in London between 1879 and 1880.
Despite legislation on emission of smoke (introduced since the 1960s, following the
studies of Robert Angus Smith on the effects of acid rains),9 a heavy cloak of fog
mixed with smoke remained for months on the city. The visibility was nearly zero:
people that went out of the house to walk, was forced, to not get lost, to proceed
along the walls of buildings. This phenomenon had also serious consequences on
public health. According to some sources the London smoke of 1879–1880
increased the mortality rate of 220 %. The peculiar “London Pea Soup Fog”
described in some novels by Charles Dickens or painted by Claude Monet, by 1905
was called with a new term: smog (smoke plus fog).
Besides the industrial hazards, the public transport hazards and disasters were
probably the most relevant threats to public safety during nineteenth and early
twentieth century. The development of modern mass transport systems influenced a
relevant debate on the question of the safety of the passengers of the traditional
means of transport (e.g. ships) and of the new ones: from train lines of urban

8
Karmis (2001).
9
Smith (1872).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 233

transport, to the automobiles and other motor vehicles for transporting people and
goods.
Even excluding war-time disasters and only considering those accidents occur-
red between late nineteenth century and the beginning of the 1900s, the list of
maritime disasters is impressive: from the incident that involved the Princess Alice,
a Thames river paddle steamer which sank after a collision in 1878 (about 700
victims) and the French passenger steamer La Bourgogne that was sunk after a
collision on July 1898 (about 550 victims) to the Danish steamship Norge, sank
near Rockall Island in 1904 (more than 600 victims). But the real annus horribilis
for maritime disasters was 1912. In that year, in fact, occurred not only probably
the most famous naval incident in the history of maritime civil transportation, the
sinking of the Titanic (1,517 deaths), but also the sinking of the Spanish steamship
Príncipe de Asturias (about 500 victims) and the disaster of the Japanese ship
Kirchemaru (1,000 deaths).10
The list of rail disasters is equally long. Apart from early accidents that involved
the early steam trains (in many cases because of the explosion of boilers), other
disasters were caused by clashes, derailment of trains or the collapse of bridges. To
this list must be added those disasters occurred on subway lines (e.g. the Paris
Metro disaster of 1903, 84 victims).11 From 1833 to 1918, at least 8,803 deaths are
attributed to railroad crashes, about 35.7 % of total amount of accidents registered
from 1833 to 1975.
All these disasters contributed to place the question of the adoption of safety
standards to prevent further accidents and insure the safety of persons. The pro-
tection of workers and new legislative measures against industrial risks were also
strongly demanded by trade union organizations and left-wing parties. This process
involved both private and public subjects and generated a debate on technical and
insurance matters that had a great influence on national governments and promoted
the adoption of laws on prevention and safety, thus accentuating the role of the
State in these areas.
The discussions on security and prevention and emergency management sani-
tation related to the production process were relevant aspects of the debate around
the so called “unhealthy industries” that led to the first public health legislations:
from the British Public Health Act of 1875 to the public health provisions contained
in the legislation adopted by the Italian government of Francesco Crispi in 1888,
which was in turn inspired by French legislation.
Another important indirect consequence of the industrial accidents was the
development of the occupational medicine, that had a growing importance in pre-
vention of occupational diseases starting to investigate on the relations between
some diseases and certain manufacturing processes. For example, the link between
the exposure to asbestos dust and some serious lung affections was emphasized and

10
Schlager (1995).
11
Schlager (1994).

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234 G. Silei

confirmed in observations of doctors and experts in occupational diseases since

early twentieth century up to the Merewether and Price Report of 1930.12
In most cases, however, until the second post-war years the health and the safety
of the workers during the processes of production, were still considered some
marginal issues. This was primarily because of the relationship between the
workplace and certain diseases even when had dramatic connotations—e.g.
the thousands workers that died from ancylostomiasis during the work of the St.
Gotthard tunnel in 1888—was considered as inevitable. With the result that safety
and health of the workers on the job was monetized or simply considered as a
technical matter. This approach was partly due to the difficulties (in some cases to
the impossibility) of making in the public domain the documentation of many of the
environmental disasters which occurred in that period.
In general, the emergence of increasingly sophisticated techniques of “civil
protection”, generally applied in case of natural disasters, was further facilitated by
technological and scientific progress, but also from a revision of knowledge and
approach to professionalism and skills that, since mid nineteenth century, brought
to the affirmation of the concept of expertise and of the figure of the expert, a
professional with special knowledge and skill, specifically prepared and formed to
solve technical questions, prevent and manage disasters.

8.3 The First Post-war Years

The beginning of the studies upon technological disasters is conventionally set in

the first postwar period, after the so-called Great Halifax Explosion that occurred on
December, 6th 1917.
On that occasion, the Canadian port of Halifax, a strategic stopover for ships
engaged in the supply of the troops deployed in the Great War, was destroyed by
what, at least until the launch of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, would have been
the most violent explosion ever caused by man. The explosion was the result of the
collision between a Belgian military cargo and a French ship carrying thousands of
tons of explosives, acids and benzene highly flammable.
Focusing on the disaster at the port of Halifax (the death toll was about 2,000
deaths and 9,000 wounded), Samuel Henry Prince, researcher at the Columbia
University, published a study that is considered the first contribution of a new
discipline focused on the study of disasters and their social implications.13 Even this
study contains some general claims about social consequences of a disaster that
modern researchers on disasters have challenged, this study can be considered an
important turning point. Until then, the studies that dealt with disasters, including
technological ones, almost exclusively reconstructed the events, often following the

12
Merewether and Price (1930).
13
Prince (1920).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 235

rituals and the “rhetoric of disasters” that traditionally characterize the chronicles of
these events. This literature, mainly anecdotal, which boasted a huge production
and often had a large number of readers, simply explained the technological
disasters in terms of fate, incorrect use or technical malfunction rather than attempt
to scientifically analyze the causes that led to the disastrous event.
Born as eminently sociological discipline, the “disastrology”, for the multiple
valences of its object of study, progressively developed a variety of approaches:
from those that would have deepened analyze the impact of disasters, whether
natural, technological or environmental or those that who would have studied the
dynamics of a disaster (to better identify the most suitable answers) to those that
would instead focus on the study of individual and collective reactions. During
the first post-war years began to be studied also the psychological and behavioral
aspects related to disasters, including technological ones. In this respect, these
researches were largely influenced by the first studies upon social behavior, psy-
chology of the crowds and the reactions of the masses in the face of exceptional
situations and of danger, issued during the two last decades of nineteenth century.
Focused on the collective behavior, the studies issued during these years were
characterized by extremely detailed references on various disasters, and tried to
explain individual and collective reactions to critical events occurred on environ-
mental, social and situational fields.14
In this phase, the growing presence of industrial settlements in densely populated
areas had as a consequence many serious accidents. The Great Molasses Flood of
Boston in 1919, for example, was caused by the disastrous effects of the explosion
of a tank containing molasses in a suburb of the city (21 killed and 150 injured). This
incident, as the Triangle factory fire of New York in 1911 (146 young workers’
death) contributed to the adoption of new laws on safety at work. Another serious
accident was the explosion of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer
occurred at the BASF plant in Oppau, a suburb of Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 1921
(about 600 killed and 2,000 injured). Equally tragic (130 deaths) were the conse-
quences of the Cleveland East Ohio Gas Explosion occurred on October 1944 in a
district of the city.
During this period, besides to the traditional sources of industrial accidents
occurred the more often incidents related to the consequences for the public of
erroneous procedures in production processes. In addition to the recurring cases of
poisoning from industrial food adulterated or contaminated, such as the scandal that
at the turn of the century involved the Chicago meatpacking industry, also occurred
the first episodes of mass poisoning caused by medicines. One of the most serious
cases happened in 1937 in the United States and was caused by the Elixir sulfa-
nilamide, a compound containing diethylene glycol, a highly toxic emulsifier. It
was the worst incident of mass poisoning of medicine of the twentieth century, and
claimed the lives of over 100 people. This case began in evidence all the limitations
of the previous legislation on medicines, and led in the USA to the adoption of a

14
LaPiere (1938).

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236 G. Silei

modern legislation: the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The risks to public
health directly and indirectly resulting from industrial production began to
be actually perceived by the collective consciousness as a social problem, and
gradually involved the public authorities in assuring public and health security. This
was a relevant turning point that had important consequences after the Second
World War.
During this time, the technological development and the coming of mass society
determined the emergence of new hazards and technological disasters. Particularly
important were the new threats related to transports. The large diffusion of cars and
other private motor vehicles caused, especially in the United States a dramatic
increase of accidents. Moreover, the rail disasters began to be characterized not
only, as in the past, by the clash between trains but also by explosions caused by
derailments of freight trains used to transport flammable or highly hazardous
chemicals.
The beginning of the civil aviation had also as a negative consequence some
incidents. The most serious disaster that deeply impressed public opinion between
the two world wars was certainly the explosion of the German airship Hindenburg,
burned during the docking maneuver at Lakehurst (New Jersey) on May, 6th 1937
(36 victims).
Regarding to naval disasters, the sinking of the Titanic led to the adoption of
more stringent safety standards, internationally recognized, on passenger ships: so
even though the naval disasters still occurred the number of victims was reduced
significantly. The Port of Halifax tragedy produces the same consequences for
merchant ship carrying hazardous materials. This improvement in safety levels,
however, did not prevent the recurrence of severe accidents.

8.4 The Second Post-war Years

In August 1945, the bombing of Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki dra-
matically showed to the world the terrible, impressive and destructive power of the
energy released by the process of atomic fission. For over a decade, from the
program for the building of the atomic bomb (the Manhattan Project, launched
secretly in 1942) until the early 1950s, the nuclear technology was exclusively a
prerogative of military authorities of the United States and then, after 1949, of the
Soviet Union and few other countries. During these years nuclear powers tended to
discourage any potential application for civilian purposes of the atomic energy,
fearing that this might lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The first experiments to create electricity through nuclear reactors were held in
1951. In 1953, the President of the United States, Eisenhower, announced the
intention of the USA government to promote international collaboration to exploit
atomic energy for civilian purposes. A similar statement was made the following
year by Lewis Strauss, that was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.
These declarations officially inaugurated the programs for the realization of the first

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 237

electronuclear facilities. In June 1954, the Obninsk nuclear plant was the first site to
product energy using this new technology.
The collaboration between scientists and technicians to exchange knowledge and
experiences on this new form of energy was enshrined at the first United Nations
conference on nuclear technology, which met in Geneva in 1955. Since mid 1950s
first commercial nuclear plants became operational: the first, in 1956, was that of
Calder Hall at Windscale, England, followed the next year by the Shippingport
nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.
At this stage, in order to better coordinate research programs, adopt uniform
security standards and promote the peaceful use of atomic energy, several important
international organizations were created. In 1955, the General Assembly of the
United Nations unanimously approved a resolution which established the United
Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).
Composed of an international pool of scientists, the Committee was entitled to
collect and evaluate information on the ionizing radiation. In March 1957, the
Treaties of Rome, that also created the European Economic Community (EEC),
established the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). In 1960, to
ensure to the signatory countries the regular supply of material for the energy power
production, this organization promoted the creation of a special Supply Agency.
Eventually, in 1967, EURATOM was incorporated within the EEC. A few months
after the creation of EURATOM, in July 1957, was also set up the International
Atomic Energy (IAEA). In early 1958, the Council of the Organization for Euro-
pean Economic Co-operation (OEEC), few years later renamed Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), also created the European
Nuclear Energy Agency (ENEA), whose initial task was to promote the use of
Atomic Energy for civilian use in the pioneering and experimental phase.15
The security of the exploitation of nuclear energy was obviously one of the core
issues of the major international agencies. This particular attention to possible
catastrophic implications of atomic energy exploitation derived from the character
of the still experimental technologies, and by the high radioactivity of the waste
materials produced from the process of nuclear fission, which began to be stored,
depending on their risk and time decay, in special shielded deposits.
Despite the high security procedures already adopted, in this phase some sig-
nificant incidents still occurred. Some, like the Castle Bravo test done in the Bikini
atoll (Marshall Islands) in 1954, were the result of the release of radioactive
material occurred as a result of military experiments. Other incidents involved
directly nuclear facilities. Among the most serious can be mentioned the fire and the
release of radioactive material into the surrounding environment that occurred in
1957 in the British nuclear central of Windscale and the steam explosion and
meltdown of the Stationary Low—Power Reactor Number One (SL-1) occurred in
1961 in an experimental reactor of the United States Army.

15
Sagan (1993).

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238 G. Silei

The release of radioactive substances was a problem that emerged since the early
1960s, in civilian but especially in military facilities: items of possible contami-
nation emerged in the case of US plants of Hanford, in Washington State, and
especially in the Kyshtym radiation release occurred in 1957 in the nuclear facilities
situated in Majak, near Chelyabinsk, in Soviet Union, considered the second most
serious nuclear accident in history. In both cases, however, for reasons of strategic
nature, investigations on possible effects on the environment and health of civilians
were allowed only many years later.
The extraordinary economic and industrial development that occurred after the
end of World War II led to a dramatic increase in industrial production and in
internal and international trades, but also significantly increased the episodes of
technological accidents. The impressive rise of the carriage of dangerous goods by
rail, for instance, determined many incidents, some of them particularly serious.
The list of train accidents caused by the explosion of hazardous substances is
tragically long: among the most serious occurred during the second post-war years
in the United States there are: the Meldrim disaster of 1959, when the derailment of
a train load of butane caused 23 victims and the freight train fire in Rosedale,
California, of 1960 (14 deaths). Similar accidents also occurred in Europe. One of
the most impressive was the Langenweddingen rail crash of 1967, when near
Magdeburg, at that time in the East Germany, a local train and a truck that trans-
ported petrol collided in a level crossing’s barriers (94 victims).
In these years, the development of civil aviation multiplied the number of flights
consequently rising the accidents. The air disasters occurred during this period were
generally determined by technical or structural failure, human error or clashes
(occurred during takeoff or landing) or adverse weather conditions. In response to
these disasters, in order to prevent further accidents the public and private airlines
companies and national and international authorities decided to increase safety
standards and controls on civil aviation.
The growth in commercial traffic by sea of dangerous or potentially harmful
substances caused relevant accident such as that one that occurred, in April 1947, in
Texas City. The port was devastated by a terrible explosion caused by a fire on
French ship Grandcamp, carrying a cargo of ammonium nitrate (576 victims). This
kind of accidents also had a dramatic impact on the environment. Particularly
serious were those that involved ships carrying crude oil. Among the most serious
disasters were the sinking of the tanker Torrey Canyon, that carried more than
120,000 tons of oil, which occurred in 1967 off the coast of Cornwall and the
collision in 1970 that involved the Othello tanker off the coast of Sweden. In both
cases, the oil spilled from tankers caused serious environmental damages and
contaminated the coastlines. As for the incidents of passenger ships, even in
presence of far more serious naval disasters, the naval incident that dramatically
impressed the collective memory was the collision between the cruise ship Andrea
Doria and the Swedish steamer Stockholm occurred in 1956 off Nantucket (51
victims). This was because of the sinking of the luxury passenger ship Andrea
Doria reminded the disaster of the Titanic.

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 239

Besides to these threats, the modernization process determined the emergence of

some new typology of technological disasters such as those occurred during the
development of rocket technology. This new form of propulsion, which was
experimented in the early 1930s, definitely characterized the second post-war years
and the space race. The first accident occurred during the pioneering development
of these particular technologies can be considered the one that cost the live of Max
Valier, a South-Tyrolean pilot who was killed by the explosion of a rocket in 1930.
The most serious incidents took place, however, with the first space flights during
the Cold War years and the space race between United States and the Soviet Union.
For this reason, a quantitative assessment of the accidents occurred during this
period must take into account the possibility that some events can be kept secret for
reasons of national security. Excluding those happened during test flights on aircraft
and those that involved ground staff, the most serious accidents occurred during the
testing of space vehicles or training in special places. Among them those which
involved the Soviet cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko (burned in a special oxygen
chamber in 1961) and the members of the mission Apollo 1 (Virgil Grissom,
Edward White and Roger Chaffee) died in 1967 when a fire destroyed the spacecraft
during a training exercise. Far more numerous, but with no victims, were instead
the accidents that occurred during the missions.
Apart for these factors, the increase of technological disasters during the second
post-war years was determined by the effects on public health of industrial pro-
duction. This increase could undoubtedly be considered a sort of negative aspect of
mass production and consumerism but it was also the result of the discovery (or the
confirmation) that some pathologies were directly linked to some industrial pro-
duction processes. This was particularly evident for some chronic occupational
diseases. For example, by the gradual emergence of serious syndromes in many of
those who were previously employed in the manufacture of asbestos, a mineral that
was extensively used in construction and in the naval, railway, automobile,
chemical, food, metal, plastic productions. The dramatic link between exposure to
the fibrous mineral and certain diseases emerged in these years in many industrial
sites all over the world. The long latency and cumulative effects, but delayed in
time, deriving from the exposure to some pollutant agents were also discovered
combining medicine, statistics and other important data on workers’ health and
safety collected by trade unions, social and health organizations both private and
public.
An important role in the emergence of a new attitude towards technological
hazards management was also played by the media that contributed to increased
knowledge of the public opinion of these threats. But probably the most relevant
contribution to this change was due to the complaints also of associations and
organizations representing the interests of victims and workers and, especially since
the end of the 1950s and the 1960s, to the emergence of the ecologist and envi-
ronmentalist movements.
The effects on public health and environment of pollution caused by population
growth, industrial expansion, and technological change were another relevant
problem in main industrialized countries during the so called “golden age” of

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western capitalism.16 On December 1952, for instance, a yellowish dense fog

remained for 5 days all over the metropolitan area of London, semi-paralyzing
private and public transports and causing serious damages to public health. During
these same decades also emerged a growing concern over public health and safety
associated with hazardous wastes.
Among the most impressive technological disasters registered in the second
post-war years there is undoubtedly that which occurred in a coastal station of
Japan: Minamata.17 In this village, since the mid 1950s, some medical investiga-
tions suggested the possible link between exposure to residues of the production of
fertilizer that the Chisso Corporation chemical industry usually discharged into the
sea, and the very serious disease to the central nervous system and peripheral which
affected many of the inhabitants. The so called “Minamata disease” was one of the
first documented cases of mass poisoning with mercury. As revealed by the findings
of a commission of inquiry appointed by central authorities, the inorganic mercury
discharged into the sea from Chisso, was transformed as a result of the bacteria into
methylmercury, entered the food chain, poisoning fish and consequently persons
who ate. The effects of the poisoning were particularly serious on pregnant women
and consequently on newborns. Around 3,000 persons were recognized as victims
of the poisoning, although the estimates about the number of inhabitants contam-
inated over the years ranged from 10,000 to 30,000.
The fact that these news came from a country like Japan, that in the collective
imagery was associated with the atomic bomb and its devastating effects on civilian
populations, deeply impressed the international public opinion. Associations of
the victims were able to create a movement that not only contributed to inform public
opinion on the effects of the disaster and that promoted the determination of liabilities
but also achieved positive results in terms of prevention and control. The strong
opposition of the company involved in the case but also of some public authorities and
even of some part of local population—who for instance feared that the investigation
could halt the production and even cause the closure of the factory—were gradually
overcome by a growing mobilization that reached its climax at the beginning of the
1970s, with a documentary-complaint, which was projected abroad and found
wide echo in North America. As result of this campaign for civil rights of the victims
of the disaster were then signed several compensation agreements with Chisso for
damages caused and were created centers for the study and treatment of victims.
The Minamata disease, but also the Niigata disease (both syndromes caused by
mercury), the Yokkaichi asthma (caused by the presence of sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen dioxide) and Itai-Itai (caused by poisoning from cadmium) were among
the first cases that were publicized by mass media, and that by consequence
impressed international public opinion. Equally serious incidents of poisoning by
heavy metals were also registered in other countries—notably in Iraq (in 1956 and
1971 in the so called Basra poison grain, a mass methylmercury poisoning incident

16
Hobsbawm (1994).
17
George (2002).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 241

that involved a shipment of contaminated wheat) and in Guatemala—but, in spite of

their severity, they received only a low media exposure.
Behind every industrial accident directly or indirectly caused by technological
factors in some cases there is no fatality but negligence and underestimation of risk.
These factors played a decisive role—though not exclusive—in the Kiev large-scale
mudslide occurred near a brick factory in 1961 and in Italy, in the Vajont disaster.
This accident was caused by the terrible effects of two giant waves caused by the
collapse of a landslide over a dam built below Mount Toc on Longarone and other
small villages near Belluno, in North-Eastern Italy. While in the Minamata disaster
Chisso Corporation acted for a long time in complete secrecy, denying any
involvement even after the discovery of contamination, the Vajont disaster was a
tragedy foretold. In fact, before the collapse of the dam, the electrical company that
was the owner of the site, the local and central authorities were informed about the
risks of a possible structural failure of the dam by the inhabitants, by some jour-
nalists and above all by direct signs. Notwithstanding this, the village of Longarone
and other small communities near the dam were completely swept away in the night
of October 9, 1963 (1,900 victims). In the days that followed the disaster domestic
public opinion was informed in detail by the newspapers, radio and television news
about the apocalyptic effects caused by the “wave of death”, high more than seventy
meters, that hit the villages below the dam, about the blanket of rock and mud that
had erased everything, about the rescuers and about the stories of those who, still in
shock, were pure fatality escaped the disaster. The controversies that had accom-
panied the construction of the dam on an area geologically at risk did not find that a
pale echo on the newspapers and other media. When the rituals and rhetoric of
disasters ended, the Vajont disaster gradually vanished from the media.18

8.5 From 1970s to the Early 1980s

For many reasons, the early 1970s are an important turning point in the history of
disasters. It was in fact during these years that the major international organizations
began to work, for the first time, in this area in an organic way. In 1972, for
example, the UN created a special office, the United Nations Disaster Relief
Organization (UNDRO) with special competence in rescue and humanitarian aid
and primarily operated in case of natural disasters.
Since the mid-1970s, industrial and technological disasters had a great increase
throughout the world, especially in those countries the most affected by the process
of modernization and development. This was particularly evident in Asia, where
these accidents assumed in many cases the character of a real emergency. All this
was partly the result of the development process involved in these areas as a result
of the globalization process and of the gradual relocation of industrial plants from

18
Reberschak and Mattozzi (2009) and Silei (2013).

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the more developed countries as a consequence of the advent of post-industrial

society. For instance, Vila Parisi, a favela (slums) in Cubatao (Brazil) was a site of
one of major industrial accident on February, 1984, becoming a sort of case-study,
almost an emblem (“the chemical dirtiest town in the world”) of the “destructive
powers of the developed risk industry”.
The environmental damages caused by the process of industrialization and
urbanization that were recorded during this period involved both ancient and more
recent industrialization areas. There are many examples in this regard: from the
heavily industrialized areas of certain neighborhoods and suburban areas of large
cities (e.g. Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where from early 1800s had been built large
refineries and where in the late 1970s it was discovered extensive contamination of
soil) to the huge industrial and urban areas in Asia whose harmful emissions, along
with the fires used to deforestation policies, caused the so-called Southeast Asian
haze of 2006.
It should also be considered the enormous environmental damage and health of
the population (in terms of incidence of cancer, deformities, chronic diseases and
serious pathologies) recorded in many areas subjected to decades of indiscriminate
mining or oil exploitation as the region of the Bolivar Coastal Field, the largest oil
field in South America, or the region of the Niger Delta and of natural resources
exploitation, as in the case of the Aral Sea, almost dried as a consequence of the
massive exploitation of its waters planned since the second post-war years by
central and local Soviet Union authorities to promote intensive cultivation and for
industrial and civil purposes and whose shores were contaminated the systematic
use of herbicides and pesticides.
The progressive globalization of technological hazards and therefore their nature
and the relevant environmental impact of many technological disasters led
the United Nations. In 1974, for instance, the Secretariat of the United Nations
Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) was moved
from New York to Vienna and its functions were linked with the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP).
As a result of many serious accidents that have occurred in the 1980s and
confirming the need of a growing awareness on the potential risk to people and
environment of technological hazards, the United Nations declared the 1990s, the
“International Decade for Disaster Reduction” and especially to make a reorgani-
zation of the international organisms which until then had dealt with the manage-
ment of emergencies. In 1992, the United Nations Disasters Relief Organization has
been transformed into the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), based in
Geneva and New York. The new body has new tasks to operate in a more specific
and effective way in case of disasters. In order to operate in the field of prevention
has been established a special secretariat, the International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction (ISDR). In 1994, the ISDR has organized a conference in Yokohama,
which led to the drafting of the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer
World. Although this work of prevention and response to disasters has been largely
focused on natural disasters, the ISDR has been increasingly concerned, especially
since the mid 1990s, to include the technological risks, paying particular attention

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 243

to the developing countries. This broader approach to the problems of disasters has
resulted in the report Living with Risk: A global review of disaster reduction ini-
tiatives. Published in 2004, this report has confirmed the importance, even in cases
of technological disasters, of the creation of national and international early
warnings systems and procedures to cope with possible emergencies.19
The occurrence of technological accidents was also the result of the inevitable
and unpredictable character of technological systems themselves. Increasingly
complex, these systems consist of multiple elements that because of to their
structural features make it difficult if not impossible, effective security controls.
With the result that accidents, more and more difficult to predict, have become
“normal events”. Moreover, according to some sociological interpretations, at this
stage difficulties arise not only in the perception and risk assessment but also in risk
management: the traditional external risks of the industrial society, that national
institutions were able to anticipate and manage—for example through welfare
policies or through safety legislation—in this stage have been multiplied. Compared
with the old industrial risks this new typology of threats, as result of technological
progress, the so-called manufactured risks, are much more difficult to predict and
their negative impact can be multiplied by the fragmentation of powers and
responsibilities in the prevention and management of security.20
According to some literature, the increasing impact of technological disasters has
also been caused by specific decisions of main developed countries in the man-
agement of risks. Faced with difficulties in the regulation of technological risks,
many governments adopted a neoconservative and neoliberal approach to these
issues and gradually shifted the responsibility for protecting against risks from
public agencies to individuals. This new prudential tendency is one of the traits that
characterize the society of risk and uncertainty and postmodern ethics.
Technological accidents in the transport sector are an example of the new approach
of the neo-liberal approach to risk management. Some technological accidents were
an indirect consequence of marketing strategies harmful for the safety of consumers.
An example this conduct is the case of the Ford Pinto motor vehicles models that
were produced by the General Motors industries in 1970s. For a defect in design, these
low-cost cars, that were conceived to a large segment of the market, had a high risk
of fire and explode in case of collision. Despite being aware of a defect in design, and
although this might conflict with the principle of acceptable risk, the manufacturer
decided—it was said on a cold analysis of cost-benefit analysis—not to intervene.
The model was finally withdrawn from the market only in 1978 after numerous
accidents, many of them fatal, and after that a journalist had denounced executives of
Ford motor to have deliberately produced a “firetrap”. The case of the Ford Pinto
became for some interpretations a symbol of criminal behavior of the great corpo-
rations and for other ones a classic example of bad decision-making processes.21

19
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) (2004).
20
Kates et al. (1985).
21
Dowie (1977), Strobel (1980), Gioia (1996) and Lee (1998).

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Apart from cynical assessments, in this case ethically condemnable, assumed as

a result of simple cost-benefit analysis, this peculiar approach to hazards was
characterized, also in the transport sector, by a gradual process of privatization and
deregulation. In the railways and public transportation services this led some
advantages in terms of better competition and cost of services but it had also some
negative consequences, including a significant reduction, as a consequence of the
need to reduce the operating costs, of some safety standards. An equal process of
deterioration of safety standards for the lack of control caused by organizational
weaknesses, but above all for the economic crisis even occurred, from the end of the
1980s, in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet
Union. In fact, it was here that there have been two of the major accidents ever
registered in the history of rail and subway lines: the disaster of Ufa in 1989, when a
gas pipeline exploded at the passage of two trains (at least 600 victims), and the
disaster of Baku, in Azerbaijan, in 1995, when a metro train caught fire and 337
people die.
Fire accidents in major tunnels, in the railway sector and in the transport sector
in general, represent another type of technological disaster. Particularly significant
were the Channel tunnel fire and the Ekeberg fire of 1996 and the Gotthard incident
of 1997, that severely damaged equipment and tunnel infrastructures. But the most
serious accidents can probably be considered those that occurred in 1999 in the
Mont Blanc tunnel (39 victims) and in the Tauern tunnel in Austria (12 victims). In
both cases, among the main causes of the disaster there were accidents caused by
heavy vehicles. Another dramatic disaster was the fire that occurred in an ascending
railway car in a tunnel in Kaprun, Austria, on November 2000 (155 victims). After
these incidents national governments and European Union institutions have inter-
vened to prevent the recurrence of similar catastrophic events that receive enormous
media attention and consequently have a dramatic impact on the public.
Among the most serious technological accidents in transportations there are the
so called Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosions (BLEVE): among them the
Los Alfaques Disaster occurred in 1978 near Tarragona, in Spain when a road
accident generated the explosion of a tanker truck (217 victims) and the isobutane
and propane explosions from a train derailment registered at Murdock, Illinois in
1983. This kind of disaster are very frequent in railway transportation: in 1997, in
Germany a regional passenger train collided with a freight train that carried petrol
tankers causing an explosion. Another serious accident caused by the explosion of
flammable substances carried by rail was to Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Canada, 1999.
Always a BLEVE, finally, was the cause of the disaster happened in the railway
station of Viareggio (near Lucca, Italy) on July 2009. In that case, the derailment of a
freight train determined the rupture of a tank of gas that caused several explosion and
a fire that killed 30 people. The seriousness of these incidents lies not only in the
particular dangers of the substances but also in the possibility to occur the so-called
domino effect, much feared event by those involved in technological and industrial
disasters multiplying material damages but most of all the number of victims.
The most dramatic BLEVE disasters cases involved industrial plants. Some of
them have been particularly severe: the explosion at the refinery in Feyzin, not far

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from Lyon, which took place in 1966 and cost the lives of 18 persons, for example,
is considered the first industrial disaster of recent French history. Other serious
incidents were recorded in the United States (respectively in Kingman, Arizona,
1974, Texas City, Texas in 1978, Murdock, Illinois, 1983). The most serious
disaster, however, happened in 1984 in San Juan Ixhuatepec, a center near Mexico
City. The chain of explosions of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) from the tanks of the
facilities struck the nearby village, causing death (from 500 to 600 deaths) and
destruction. Equally devastating explosions were recorded in 1989 in the Houston
Ship Channel in Texas (23 victims), and in 2000 in the Nigerian oil pipelines (over
300 victims).
Shipping casualties have continued to be even at this stage a significant part of
technological accidents related to transports. This kind of disaster has affected not
only merchant ships but also ferries and passengers ships, often with dramatic
consequences. In the latter case, the main causes of disasters are not so much been
strictly technical in nature but have often been determined, especially in disasters
occurred in developing countries, by lack of maintenance of the ferries, over-
crowding, severe negligence and errors for maneuver. In this type of disaster, the
increase of traffic by sea and especially the need for continuous supply of crude oil
by the most developed countries has added more advanced ones caused by the
sinking of the supertankers. These technological accidents are particularly feared
for their environmental consequences, immediate and in the long term.
The sinking of the Exxon Valdez in March of 1989 off the coast of Alaska, is
considered one of the most serious environmental disaster in history until BP’s
Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico of 2010. The tanker
spilled about 40 million liters of crude oil into the sea, and the oil eventually
polluted large parts of the coasts. Quite similar to the Exxon Valdez disaster were
the fire and oil spill of the Norwegian tanker Mega Borg, off the coast of Texas
(1990), the Haven oil tanker disaster in the Gulf of Genoa, Italy (1991), the Aegeum
Sea disaster, off the Spanish port of La Coruna (1992), the sinking of the Liberian
tanker Braer off Shetland Islands (1993), the Sea Express oil spill, off the coast of
Wales (1996), and the Prestige sank in face of the Spanish coast (2002), that
polluted the coasts of Galicia, as also as those of Portugal and France.22
Technological progress, the lowering in airfares and the process of globalization
have also determined the rise in the trafficking of goods and passengers by air.
Among the various consequences, this process, which began at the end of the
1970s, called into question the air safety standards. According to some interpre-
tations, policies for reducing costs of management adopted by airlines during these
years had as a consequence a reduction of the inspections and maintenance pro-
cedures and therefore a reduction of safety standards, especially in the low cost
airlines or in those in greater financial difficulties. All this would have accordingly
led to an increased risk of accidents. The disaster of ValuJet flight 592, crashed in
the Everglades in southern Florida in May of 1996 is, according to some

22
Silei (2011).

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246 G. Silei

interpretations, a direct consequence of this situation. The disaster occurred by a fire

caused by a load of flammable material placed in an aircraft of the ValuJet airlines,
a discount operator that offered services at very low prices also saving on security
procedures for boarding and maintenance of aircrafts. Trying to solve these prob-
lems, that emerged in many former Soviet bloc countries after the collapse of the
USSR, the international inspection agencies and national and international air
control authorities have responded in various ways: for example, the European
Union, has decided to periodically publish lists of blacklisted airlines, that is unsafe
companies, whose flights are subject to prohibition of operation in the European
Union.
Among the technological disasters linked to transport could also be included
those that occurred during aerospace missions. Since mid 1970s, with the success of
the lunar missions the space race has suffered a drastic downsizing. Although
reduced in numbers, the missions continued in the following years using different
technologies and spacecrafts. Since the launch by the NASA of the Space Shuttle
program on two occasions, these missions have had a disastrous outcome: in 1986,
when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in flight because of the malfunction of
a component of Solid-Fuel Rocket Booster, and in 2003, when the Space Shuttle
Columbia disintegrates during return for a breach opened in a wing. In both cases,
crew, consisting of seven astronauts died. Decision-making and risk assessment
procedures adopted by the NASA were severely criticized.23
The increase in the complexity of technological hazards was the basis for new
approaches to the study and the management of these issues. One of this is the
kindunology, a definition introduced in France during the 1980s. This “hazard sci-
ence” aims to analyze the natural disasters and those produced by both technological
and economic-financial factors, by starting with a proper risk assessment and
combining approaches from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.
This new, broader approach to the issue of disaster was also the result of some
incidents, mainly industrial, that took place between the 1970s and 1980s, and that
caused serious environmental contamination by chemicals, with equally dramatic
consequences for health populations.24
The disaster of the Flixborough chemical plant (28 deaths and 40 serious inju-
ries), an English village near Scunthorpe, which occurred in 1974, was one of the
first examples of this type of accident. It was however the serious contamination
occurred in 1976 in the small town of Seveso, in northern Italy, and in its sur-
rounding localities to represent a genuine case school. A failure in a reactor of the
ICMESA, a chemical plant of the Swiss Hoffmann La Roche company, officially
used for the preparation of basic products for the cosmetics industry, released into
the environment highly polluting substances, including the dioxin. These substances
contaminate an area of over 1,800 ha in the town of Seveso, Meda, Desio, Cesano
Maderno and other centers of the province of Milan. In addition to the serious

23
Vaughan (1996).
24
Brickman et al. (1985) and Mitchell (1996).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 247

environmental disaster, the population suffered from short-term effects (almost 450
persons were found affected by skin lesions or chloracne) and long term, since it was
recorded and proved the increase of serious diseases caused by exposure to
pollutants.
The Seveso accident highlighted the lack of adequate inspections in industries
with high risk but the need for a legislation on industrial risks prevention at a
European level.25 In fact, accidents in the production of trichlorophenol had
occurred repeatedly in the past (in Germany, the Netherlands, France) and factories
such as ICMESA were present in all countries of the European Community. After
Seveso, the European Community put the problem of dealing with various aspects
of these types of hazards and accidents: safety standards, inspections, monitoring
tools, the procedures for the determination of penal liability and of civil penalties.
The result was the adoption in 1982 of the first Seveso Directive, a set of rules
which applied specifically to the risks and consequences that would have been
registered from major industrial accidents.
Meanwhile, the growing energy needs and the oil crisis caused by the rising cost
of crude oil, led many countries to step up the exploitation of energy produced
through nuclear power. In early 1970s, the European Nuclear Agency, renamed to
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), began a new phase, by paying greater attention
to coordination of national programs but also to the issues of safety and respect of
environmental legislations that was meanwhile adopted by national governments
under the pressure of the environmental organizations. Also the United States
operated a reorganization of their structures for the control of atomic energy
industry, creating in 1974 a special government agency, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC). The old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was later replaced
by the Energy Research and Development Administration, which in 1977 became
the United States Department of Energy.
The question of the security of nuclear facilities became an urgent necessity
when some serious accidents occurred in some major industrial sites for the pro-
duction of atomic energy. In 1973 the nuclear power plants in the British Windscale
were again the scene of an accident. The best known accident, however, happened a
few years after in the United States in the nuclear power plant of Three Mile Island,
located close to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. In March 1979, a major
reactor accident at the plant caused the release of significant amount of radiations.
Even if there were not victims and were avoided more serious consequences, such
as the total meltdown of the reactor core, the Three Mile Island accident was the
most severe ever recorded in U.S. history, brought about great alarm throughout
the country and all over the world. As for the Windscale site, despite requests from
the environmental groups to proceed with its decommissioning, it remained active
and, in 1981, for reasons of image it was decided to change its name to Sellafield.26

25
Centemeri (1996).
26
Sells et al. (1982) and Walker (2004).

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248 G. Silei

Although not linked to the exploitation of nuclear energy, in 1979 there was
another serious technological disaster, the so called Sverdlovsk anthrax leak. The
accident occurred when there was an accidental release of anthrax spores from a
military facility for treatment of biological weapons located in the city of Sver-
dlovsk in the Soviet Union. The final death toll was about a hundred victims.
Although the Soviet Union authorities denied, because of military secrecy, the
Sverdlovsk incident was one of the first documented cases of contamination by
biological agents.

8.6 Technological Disasters During the World Risk Society:

From Bhopal to Fukushima

The accident in Bhopal, the worst technological disaster ever happened instead was
the first example of industrial disaster in the age of globalization. On the night of 2
December 1984 a deadly cloud of methyl isocyanate, leaked from the Bhopal
chemical plant in India, owned by American multinational Union Carbide, and
resulted in the following days about 20,000 deaths and a number of intoxicated that
was calculated between 200,000 and the half-million. That of Bhopal has been
considered a component failure accident, a disaster caused by a series of deliberate
omissions, disorganization and of sloppy management. Despite some earlier epi-
sodes, in fact, the plant continued in producing and stocking large quantities of
highly toxic chemicals that were later the cause of the disaster.27
The case of Bhopal has thus helped to develop a different sensibility towards this
type of disasters that lead to the adoption of some legislation that impose an
assessment of the possible harmful consequences of the processing of toxic
chemicals, taking into account the so-called worst-case scenario. Moreover, despite
the resistance of Union Carbide, the incident has raised the issue of the proper
taking of responsibility by the large multinational corporations for accidents with
catastrophic consequences for the population and the environment occurred in their
industrial facilities.
Apart from being one of the most serious technological accidents ever occurred
in history, the accident at Chernobyl, in its dynamics, was also a paradigmatic event
not only from the point of view of the emergency management. The incident
happened April 26 1986 in the nuclear power station at Chernobyl, in Ukraine, then
in the Soviet Union and was caused by overheating of a reactor during a test. The
heat and the excessive pressure caused an explosion then a fire. In the same time, a
cloud of highly radioactive material was released in the environment.28
Although Soviet authorities were aware of the seriousness of the accident, they
organized operations of fire containment and control the leakage of radiation from

27
Shrivastava (1987).
28
Mould (2000).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 249

the central without informing and evacuating the civilian population living in cities
close to facilities, so that thousand people were exposed to the effects of the
radioactive cloud. It was only after the reporting of an excessive level of radiation in
the atmosphere by Swedish nuclear central and international diplomatic pressures
that the Soviet government officially admitted the accident. The inhabitants of the
town of Pripyat and areas contaminated (about 350,000 people) were then evacu-
ated, but much later than it would have been necessary. The leakage of radioactive
particles caused an increase in the levels of radiation in Scandinavia, Eastern
Europe and Central Europe but also in the West, forcing the authorities to carry out
stringent checks on the level of radioactive substances in the air, in the environment
and especially in food.
Apart from the heavy economic loss resulted from the explosion of the plant and
especially by the complete evacuation of entire highly populated residential areas
within a radius of tens of kilometers, the death toll caused by the Chernobyl
accident cannot be quantified precisely. The official reports drawn up by the main
organizations involved in the assessment of radiation exposures and health effects,
about 65 victims, in large part the so called “liquidators”, people who participated
in containment operations near the reactor and at least another 4,000 presumed
dead. But it should be considered that the estimated amount of people directly
contaminated is about 600,000. Given the long-term effects of radiation on human
health, it is impossible to know how many people have been (or will be) affected by
serious illnesses (malformations, tumors, leukemia) for exposure to radioactive
materials released to the environment at the disaster.
The Chernobyl accident had a dramatic impact from many points of view. First,
it put in evidence in the eyes of world public opinion of risks arising not only from
nuclear weapons but also from the exploitation of nuclear energy.29
In many countries, environmental and anti-nuclear movements made Chernobyl
as a symbol of the catastrophic consequences from the exploiting of this source of
energy. In Italy, after a referendum held in 1987 it was decides to abandon the use
of nuclear energy for civilian use and proceed with the decommissioning of all
nuclear site that were built up to that time. The accident also influenced a systematic
review of all procedures so far adopted to deal with nuclear emergencies. The first
consequence was to put the need to avoid in the future omissions or reticent
behavior by the authorities and to inform the public and the authorities of the
neighboring countries of possible threats. Chernobyl pose perhaps for the first time
the problem of the adoption of international measures for monitoring and for early
warnings to prevent and facing major technological disasters.
Moreover, in order to assess the severity of accidents in nuclear facilities and
radiation sources and transport, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
adopted a classification system by considering three different areas of impact
(people and the environment to exposition radiation; radiological barriers and
control, defense-in-depth) and developed an International Nuclear Event Scale.

29
Cameron et al. (1988) and Beck (1992).

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250 G. Silei

According to this scale each event is classified at seven levels: level 0 indicates
anomalies without safety significance, also called “deviations”, levels 1–3 are
defined “incidents”; levels 4–7 “accidents.” Every increased level on the scale is ten
times greater of the previous one. In this scale, the Chernobyl disaster has been
considered a “major accident” (level 7), the Kyshtym disaster of 1957 is defined a
“serious accident” (level 6), while Windscale (1957) and Three Mile Island events
has been valuated as “accidents with wider consequences” (level 5).
The medical research conducted by national and international (e.g. activities of
the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) also
promoted specific medical and scientific knowledge to face the consequences of the
accident. The biggest consequence of Chernobyl was also in law and of interna-
tional security. In fact, the disaster exposed the serious deficiencies of international
legal safeguards. The result was the signature, under the auspices of the IAEA, of
two international Conventions on the subject of nuclear safety and a more general
change in the provisions concerning the safety of power to exploit atomic energy.
Moreover, even in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc, the main inter-
national organizations on nuclear energy began to concentrate their efforts in
monitoring the safety levels of plants to produce energy as well as deposits of waste
storage in the world. In spite of these efforts the occurrence of new accidents was
not avoided. Among these events, could be mentioned the incident occurred in 1999
in the central Japanese Toikamura, the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Sweden in
2006 and the dramatic Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster (classified
as level 7 accident according to the International Nuclear Event Scale) occurred on
March 2011 as a consequence of the tsunami of the Tōhoku earthquake.
Besides this type of disasters it should be added those events occurred in other
areas that previously were shown to be particularly at risk of serious accidents. The
mining sector, especially in China, Soviet Union and later in Russia and other
countries of the former Soviet Bloc, but also in many developing countries, continued
to record incidents cost the lives of dozens and sometimes hundreds of miners. Even
the dams and ponds, despite the improvement of construction techniques and safety
procedures, have maintained a high level of risk. The collapse of Banquiao and
Shimantan reservoir dams in China, which took place in 1975 (but that Chinese
authorities confirmed only after many years), with its 26,000 dead is probably one of
the worst disasters in history. Serious incidents of this type have been registered also
in western countries. In Italy, despite the serious Vajont disaster experience, in July
1985, the collapse of two retention basins and the resulting landslide of mud, sand and
water was the cause of the disaster of Stava (268 victims). The disaster of Stava, as
previous accidents, such as the Aberfan disaster of 1966 in Wales, which claimed 144
lives or the Buffalo Creek disaster happened in the United States in 1972 (125 vic-
tims), placed in evidence weaknesses in control procedures and the bad management
by the authorities responsible for management of invaded that led to talk of the
inevitability of the disaster to institutional and even cultural reasons.30 In this respect,

30
Mclean and Johnes (2000) and Stern (2008).

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8 Technological Hazards, Disasters and Accidents 251

the proposal to prevent the recurrence of incidents of this kind has been to promote the
creation of special authorities for the regulation, monitoring and control of techno-
logical risks for occupational safety, health and the environment. In the United States,
for example, Congress has entrusted this task to special federal agencies like the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health (NIOSH) and in particular the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) who operates on the principles of the so-called whistle-
blower protection, or rigid capillaries and safety standards.
The major technological accidents occurred in the early twenty-first raised again
the issue of increasing environmental impact of such events. A prime example of
these accidents was the disaster occurred in Baia Mare in January 2000 with the
release in the Danube river of cyanide and heavy metals from a gold processing
plant in Romania and the subsequent poisoning of the water, flora and fauna in vast
areas of Romania, Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria. Another case of a serious
industrial accident was the Enschede fireworks disaster, which occurred on the
same year in a warehouse in the suburbs of the Dutch city. The explosion killed 22
people and injured about 950. Equally relevant was the explosion occurred in a
fertilizer factory near Toulouse, in France, in 2001. The explosion, according to
some reconstructions accidental, according to other sources result of an attack of
terrorists, caused 29 deaths and 2,500 serious injuries, significant material damages
and serious environmental consequences.
These disasters have called into question the EU legislative framework on
environmental and industrial risks. The European Parliament has begun a review of
the Seveso II Directive, which in the meantime had been adopted in 1996. It has
thus come to the Directive 2003/105/EC, which has broadened the scope of pre-
vious directives to other potentially hazardous industrial facilities and tightened the
procedures to be taken in the event of an accident. To better monitor the possible
industrial accidents, the European Commission has therefore established a special
system of reporting and complaint, the Major Accident Reporting System (MARS)
managed by a special body, the Major Accident Hazards Bureau (MAHB). The
debate on these rules is then taken up with the progressive enlargement of the EU
Member States. The discipline of industrial risks in the enlarged Europe is one of
the central issues in the debate on technological risks at Community level.
The release of poisonous chemicals continued to be cause of recurrent emer-
gencies: major accidents occurred in these years has been the Camelford water
pollution incident, occurred in 1988 in Cornwall; the release of huge quantities of
sulfur dioxide into the environment from the Al-Mishraq sulfur plant near Mosul,
Iraq (2003); the Jilin City and the Formosa Plastics chemical plant explosions both
of them occurred in 2005 respectively in China and in Texas.
Apart from potentially catastrophic environmental impact not only of man-made
disasters, but more generally the model of global development (above all the issue
of global warming caused by emissions of CO2) and the increasingly tenuous
boundary between natural and technological disasters, the actual debate over these
topics is focused on whether to consider technological disasters also events such as

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252 G. Silei

the extensive black outs and power outages or other technological failures in
communications.
The discussion is still open; what seems certain is that the constant technological
development, the globalization of economies and societies will have as a conse-
quence a further increase of the technological risks, making it necessary timely and
effective answers by national and above all international authorities in order to
ensure collective and environmental security.

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