Metabolism and Waterscape in an Industrializing City

In this paper we adopt an urban metabolism perspective to investigate the transformation of Vienna’s waterscape. We show how deeply the city’s metabolism is intertwined with the urban waterscape and how this relationship changed during industrialization. The central focus of this study is a quantitative assessment of urban resource use using material and energy flow accounting methods. We present data on input flows of energy (1800 to 1914), material (1830 to 1874) and water (1860 to 1910) and household wastewater (1800 and 1910), as well as a critical discussion of the important sources for this research. Our findings suggest that the transformation from an agrarian economy to an industrial society profoundly affected the waterscape within the city and its surroundings. Functions traditionally filled by rivers and creeks ranging from transport, electric power, fresh water supply and wastewater treatment became increasingly provided by new fossil fuel based technologies and separated from the bodies of water. Ecological changes and pressures on water quality generated complex hydrological interventions that deeply altered the urban waterscape and its role in urban operations. Legacies of this transformation still influence the functioning and the metabolism of the city today.