About

The EUCOR-chair for "Water and Sustainability" is held by Karl Matthias Wantzen.

UNESCO and EUCOR chair holder

EUCOR Chair “Water and Sustainability”

UNESCO Chair “Rivers and Heritage/River Culture”

Full professor in Aquatic Restoration Ecology

Institut Terre et Environnement de Strasbourg (ITES)
(CNRS/ENGEES UMR 7063), University of Strasbourg, France

Institute for Water and Environment (IWU), Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), Germany

Environmental and Urban Planning department (DAE) Ecole Polytechnique de l'Université de Tours, France (on leave) 

 

Karl Matthias Wantzen holds the UNESCO Chair on “Rivers and Heritage” (River Culture, since 2014) and the transboundary Chair on “Water and Sustainability” by EUCOR – the European Campus (since 2023).

His expertise covers ecology, biodiversity and human nature-interactions, specifically in freshwater socio-ecosystems and their floodplain wetlands. The River Culture Concept (2016), provides an eco-social framework on sustainable riverscape management, documented in the book “River Culture – life as a dance to the rhythm of the Waters” (2023).

As of 2023, he has been appointed by the University of Strasbourg and the Karlsruhe Institut for Technology to coordinate research and training on international and transdisciplinary hydrosystem management, including a MSc. course on “Continental Water Sustainability”.

The Chair follows a transdisciplinary approach, collaborating with different scientific disciplines and private-public partnerships, forming a ‘network of networks’.

Since 2023 EUCOR Excellence Chair “Water and Sustainability”, Earth and  Environmental Science Institut at the University of Strasbourg, France & Karlsruhe Institut of Technology, Germany

Since 2014 UNESCO Chair for “Rivers and Heritage/River Culture”, University of Tours, France (renewed in 2018 and 2022)

Since 2010 Full Professor in Aquatic Ecology, Department of Urban and Landscape Planning, PolyTech Tours and Interdisciplinary Research Cluster for Cities, Territories, Environment and Society (CITERES-CNRS UMR 7324), University of Tours, France

2007-2010 Assistant professor, University of Konstanz, build-up of the work group “Aquatic-Terrestrial Interaction Ecology”, lecturer for 9 courses.

2004-2007 PI for the subproject on organic matter processing, DFG Collaborative Reseach Center SFB 248 “Littoral Ecology of Lake Constance” , University of Konstanz,

2003 DFG Position, Project “Global organic matter processing project”, University of Konstanz and Max Planck Institute of Limnology, Plön

2002 Max Planck Research Fellow, EAWAG - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Sciences and Technology, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland

1998-2014 Honorary professor, Federal University of Mato Grosso, Dept. of Lifesciences (MSc. and PhD course in Ecology and Conservation of Biodiversity)

1994-2001 Executive coordinator “Pantanal Ecology Project” (staff: 40) and researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Limnology, Plön

1993-1996 Doctorate research fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Limnology, Plön.

1988-1992 Research assistant, Natural History Museum at Mainz, University of Konstanz, Bundes­anstalt für Gewässerkunde at Koblenz and Max Planck Institute of Limnology, Plön

1985-1987 Civil Service (Environmental education, conservation strategies, excursions, workshops, public relations) at DBV/NABU Naturschutzzentrum Rheinauen, Gaulsheim, Germany

As EUCOR Chair for “Water and Sustainability”, Karl Matthias Wantzen's task is to build bridges, between the academic institutions in the Upper Rhine Valley, to foster joint research in European and global projects, to develop interdisciplinary lecturing, in the currently developing EUCOR Master Course “Continental Water Sustainability” (CWS), and to co-develop conservation and sustainable management projects together with regional, private and public stakeholders.

These activities focus on four different thematic fields being (a) increasing efficiency in hydrosystem restoration and conservation practice, (b) harmonizing human and nature’s needs in urban hydrosystems, (c) a better understanding of human-hydrosystem-relationships, and (c) finding ecosocial justice in water-related governance (WEFE: Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem nexus).

The EUCOR Chair is hosted by the University of Strasbourg and the Karlsruher Institut für Technology KIT, with a strategic partnership by the French National School on Water and Environmental Engineering at Strasbourg, ENGEES. The Chair is financially supported by these schools and EUCOR-The European Campus, by regional authorities and an increasing number of private and industrial partners.

As UNESCO Chair “Fleuves et Patrimoine – River Culture“, Karl Matthias Wantzen is working for the North-South-South dialogue, i.e., I try to facilitate communication between scientists, students and hydrosystem managers all over the world. This includes lecturing, joint research projects and networking all over the world. Based on the River Culture Concept, which serves as a scientific baseline to learn from both, non-human biota and cultural human activities for a harmonious co-existence and sustainable development in riverscapes, I have recently gathered more than 120 researchers in interdisciplinary teams from all over the planet to answer the questions: What are the drivers for biological and cultural diversity in riverscapes, what are the menaces, potential solutions to problems and examples for a successful implementation of sustainable approaches? You can read their answers in the UNESCO book “River Culture – Life as a Dance to the Rhythm of the Waters”.

 

Specific objectives of the UNESCO Chair:

1. Research and training thematics. To analyze the state of the art of the research undertaken on the relationship between human activities and the ecological functioning of rivers and to highlight the major problems in this field. Identify training needs by the practitioners responsible for the management of river territories.

2. Develop comparative research (doctoral theses and research projects) made on similar thematics in different countries/river systems, using an innovative approach crossing ecological and social sciences with engineering approaches for the sustainable management of hydrosystems.

3. Develop and organize international and transdisciplinary training programs referring to water management or policies, land use, or conservation of rivers, lakes and wetlands, and management of heritage sites.

4. Develop and disseminate good practice guides: methodological materials will be developed and distributed to actors and practitioners in the field of management of aquatic socioecosystems.

 

This UNESCO Chair work is done within the frameworks of the UNESCO Water Family, the IHP (and its Ecohydrology branch), the MABGlobal Water Museums network and the Global Water Museums network.

 

Since 1993, Karl Matthias Wantzen has uninterrupted scientific cooperations with Latin American countries, mostly in Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. As he lived in Mato Grosso, Brazil, for 8 years, he feels deeply connected to my Latin colleagues and friends. Therefore, he is deeply worried about the fast and irrecoverable destruction of rivers, floodplains, savannas and forests, executed locally, but sustained by greed and commercial incentives coming from the Global North, such as the Hidrovia Project (read: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723063787).

Sustainability is only feasible if the entire planet was considered.

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