RHI Seminar: ''The geography of water marginalization in Amsterdam, 1690-1840''

This presentation delves into the urban environmental history of early modern Amsterdam through the examination of water access. In this coastal city, environmental change combined with the late 16th and especially 17th century urban growth made ground and surface waters brackish and polluted. As a result, access to clean drinking water required substantial efforts. A combined system of mainly rain containers (cisterns) and surface water imports from upstream made for a complex and continuously changing water infrastructure.

In the context of the NWO project ‘Coping with drought. An environmental history of drinking water and climate change in the Netherlands, 1550-1850’, I collected data on the different ways in which people accessed potable water to explore the neglected spatial and environmental inequalities of early modern Amsterdam's water access. I have mapped and analysed the unequal access to water on a city-wide level, on the level of individual streets and on the level of individual households and their everyday practices.

Accessing clean water for consumption, industrial and household use was a labour-intensive challenge all over Europe, and local variety in terms of geographical and environmental contexts led to different outcomes. Water was used for consumption, cleaning, cooking, and different types of water were used alongside each other. We are really only at the start of systematically charting Europe's early modern water plurality. My article is an effort to do so for Amsterdam, mapping out the complex and layered spatial characteristics and differences of water access throughout the city. Furthermore, this provides the opportunity to discuss issues of environmental inequality and (in)justice.