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.
Lisbon after the destruction
After the famous earthquake of 1755 that destroyed much of the city and could be felt all across the Mediterranean and much of continental Europe,...
The Lisbon Disaster
Contemporary etching of the Lisbon harbour during the 1755 earthquake and tsunami. Artist unknown.
Atlantis by Donovan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMYGzwUTK4
Atlantis on a map from 1664
Map by German scientist Athanasius Kircher (1602 - 1680)
Atlantis as a ship
In the final episode of the Sci Fi series "Stargate Atlantis" the city vessel Atlantis eventually lands in the San Francisco bay. Atlantis here is a...
Atlantis: The Hotel
Atlantis in Dubai
Burchardi Flood or Grote Mendrenke
German annalist and farmer Peter Sax (1597 - 1662) wrote about the North Sea flood of October 11th 1634: „Um sechs Uhr am abend fing Gott der Herr...
New York 2140
In Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "New York 2140" the flooded New York has all the big city charm and dazzle and fascination it ever had: "From here,...
The Water Creature of New Orleans
Artist Carole Alden led the design and creation of this 30-foot floating sculpture, working primarily with salvaged materials. The sculpture swam in...
Diodorus (1. Century BC) on the Destruction of Helice and Bura
"When Asteius was archon at Athens, the Romans elected six military tribunes with consular power, Marcus Furius, Lucius Furius, Aulus Postumius,...
Rebuilding Mankind out of rocks
In the Greek myth of Decalion and Pyrrha, the couple recreates mankind after the universal deluge by throwing rocks over their shoulders to let them...
All things have turned into a boundless sea – The myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha
In the ancient Greek and Roman mythologie there is also a story of the great deluge and of an arch. Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 18 AD) retells it in...
Olphaert den Otter: Beauty without well-being
One of many images from the "World Stress Painting" series Dutch visual artist Olphaer den Otter began in 2019. He calls it: "A never-ending series...
Etude of Drowning
Gédéon Reverdin: Étude dessinée d'après le tableau d'une Scène de Déluge peint par A.L. Girodet (1828). Here is the original painting by Girodet...
Burmese Water Libation
In Burmese Buddhism, the water ceremony, called yay zet cha, which involves the ceremonial pouring of water from a glass into a vase, drop by drop,...
The rescueing flood
This painting shows a scene from early buddhist texts from the 3. and 4. Century AD: When Mara, the God of Death, attacked Siddhattha, Siddhattha...
Edouard Lalo: Le Roi D’Ys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnDxZsxHzdw "Le roi d'Ys" is an opera by French composer Édouard Lalo (1823 – 1892), to a libretto by Édouard Blau,...
Iconic Image from “Planet of the Apes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvuM3DjvYf0 Thanks to Stephan Wagner for the reminder. USA; 20. Century; Christian; film; City: New York
Nature does not know disasters
“Only man knows natural disasters, so far as he survives them. Nature does not know disasters.” "Katastrophen kennt allein der Mensch, sofern er sie...
Benjamin Britten’s Opera about the flood of 1953
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ughJeJ4LJD0 "Noye's Fludde" is an opera by british composer Britten from 1958 based on the Noah myth. It premiered...
Strabo on the flooding of Helice
Strabo, a Greek geographer and historian whol lived from around 60 BC to 20 AD writes in his Geographica: "For the sea was raised by an earthquake...