Blog
ResourceS for Adaptation to rising sea levels and sinking cities.
This is a blog containing images, stories, songs, rituals and traditions related to flooding and flood protection from the cultural heritage of coasts worldwide. It is continuously expanded and meant as a free repository to be used by anyone working to increase resilience and well-being for front line communitiies.
Please browse through the posts or search for themes, places or centuries using the Categories. Any email comments, hints or repostings are very much appreciated by the author.
Storm surge events on the North Sea
12/26/838First documented storm surge in the North Sea; Approximately 2,500 deaths in what is now the Netherlands. 2/17/1164First Julian flood:...
A living thing – the Barrier Islands of North Carolina
The only constant is change, that's the creed of the Barrier Islands of North Carolina according to marine scientist Orin Pilkey. In his...
River as a landscape – Nilotic landscapes
The "Palestrina Mosaic" or "Nile mosaic of Palestrina", a town near Italy's capital Rome, is a late Hellenistic floor mosaic depicting the Nile in...
Alexandria III
The God Abandons Antony by C.P. Cafavy When suddenly, at midnight, you hearan invisible procession going bywith exquisite music, voices,don’t mourn...
Alexandria II
This is the introduction to "Pharos and Pharillon" a book by British writer and literary critic E.M. Forster about Alexandria. The book was...
Alexandria
This famous poem is by the poet Constantinos Petrou Cafavy who was born and died in the ancient port city Alexandria. He lived from 1863 to 1933 and...
Political flood images
In Germany, the imagery of flood or flooding and of Noah's Ark is frequently used in the political discourse to refer to undesired migration. Since...
medieval flood in Europe
Date and title of this wood print are unfortunately unknown to me. This is the source.
The Wave in Architecture
It's a rather popular architectural motif, particularly of course in coastal and riverside cities. I wonder if there ever has been a historical...
The yellow skies of New York
In June 2023 massive wildfires in Canada caused air pollution in New York to a scale not known to New Yorkers. Besides the serious health issues the...
Tides (2021)
"Tides" (alternative title "The Colony") is a sci-fi movie from 2021 about a post-apocalyptic world at the moment the first human communities are...
Flood Memorabilia
In Germany as well as in many other countries, images of extreme floods often found their way on postcards. Here is a selection of postcards. (click...
Street Scene on the Rhine
A street in the city of Bonn with the Rhine river in the background, January 2024.
Raising a City
There are only a limited number of options to deal with SLR and land subsidence. One of the more obvious ones is raising buildings. There is of...
The “Lost River”
Ryan Goslings 2014 movie "Lost River" is most of all a portrait of urban decay and our fascination with decay in a broader sense. The film...
Children of the Sea
2019 Japanese anime movie "Children of the Sea" (original title: 海獣の子供, which translates roughly as "Children of Sea Monsters") is set in a...
Breach of St. Anthony Dike in 1651
Jan Asselijn (1610–1652): "Breach of St. Anthonis-Dike near Amsterdam", 1651. "During the night of 4-5 March 1651 the Saint Anthony’s Dike was...
Vesuvius – the most beautiful disaster
The erupting mount Vesuvius in Italy is one of the most popular motives in modern art history, particularly throughout the 18. and 19. Century - at...
Kota Ezawa: Flood (2011)
Kota Ezawa (*1969)Flood, 2011, from the gallery website by FRAENKEL Gallery.
Nürnberg flooded, 1909
The Bavarian city of Nürnberg (Nuremberg) has been flooded quite often over it's history. The flood of 1909 is particularly memorable and the most...
Drawing Extreme Conditions – Emma Stibbon
In an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 2023, contemporary British artist Emma Stibbon exhibited her own wood carving "Collapsed Whaling...