Tijdschrift voor Historische Geografie - Volume 10, Issue 4, 2025

Maps contain accumulated knowledge. Rediscovering and reusing watermill landscapes

Even before the appearance of windmills in the Netherlands watermills were shaping the landscape. Unlike windmills, which could be placed anywhere where there was enough wind, watermills required a constant water flow. This led to significant alterations in existing streams and the surrounding land, creating reservoirs, sluices and millponds. This in turn made fertile floodplains used for agriculture and grazing. Over centuries, this interaction between mills, farmers, and water management profoundly influenced settlement patterns and land use.

Historical maps, particularly the 19th-century Waterstaatskaarten, provide detailed insights into these mill-driven systems, showing how landscapes were structured and managed. As steam engines and later motorized pumping stations replaced the watermills, many disappeared, and their role in shaping the landscape was gradually forgotten.

Today, with climate change causing extreme rainfall and drought, these historical systems are being reexamined. Old maps and knowledge of watermill landscapes now serve as valuable tools for sustainable water management and climate adaptation.

Old and new rights of watermills

Centuries old rights protect watermills and the mill habitats necessary for their operation. In this brief reflection, we journey through time to explore the current state of rights surrounding watermills. Traditionally, mill and weir rights have enabled the operation of watermills. Even today, these old mill and weir rights provide a powerful safeguard for the watermill itself and the operators or millers against potential infringement of their property by the government in its role as water manager. This allows operators to enforce the economic viability of their watermill by a water authority – usually a water board. Given its monumental status, both the watermill and its surroundings (habitat) must remain untouched so the mill can continue to function. New legislation, the Environmental Act, offers new opportunities to protect and enhance the watermills, their habitat and their functioning and the watermill landscapes.

Watermill landscapes: rediscovering a climate-robust water system

The large numbers of watermills from the Middle Ages to the 19th century declined rapidly after 1850. Even now, weir devices at watermills are still disappearing. Nowadays, however, there is a policy-based revaluation of this cultural heritage. In addition to the value of the mill, the wider surroundings of the mill, the ‘watermill landscape’, are increasingly involved and seen as valuable. The watermill landscape unites heritage, water, landscape and ecological values. How this works in conjunction, is explained in detail in this contribution. Governments are increasingly using the concept of watermill landscape in spatial planning and future water management of stream valleys.

The water miller and the watermill. Symbiosis of craft, waterpower and landscape

For centuries, watermills and their millers have played a crucial role in the water management of the stream, the stream valley and the surrounding landscape. The values of a watermill consist of technical milling values, type of mill and drive, cultural-historical values, the history of and activities at the mill, landscape values (the immediate mill habitat and the entire watermill landscape) and intangible values, the miller’s craft, the stories and other expressions about the mill. Currently, policymakers often reduce watermills to isolated objects that obstruct or disrupt nature, fish migration and ecological systems. Recognizing their importance for the landscape and water management is crucial for the preservation of the watermill and the craft of the water millers.

Essence of the watermill landscape in the Mosbeek Valley. Dynamics in the interplay between earth, humans, and nature explained

The Mosbeek Valley in Twente is a unique example of a watermill landscape where centuries of interaction between earth, humans, and nature have resulted in a unique cultural-historical and ecological system. This article highlights how unique ecological values have emerged in uneven terrain with headwaters and watermills since the Middle Ages but have also come under pressure. Understanding this requires a broad perspective on landscape. Through in-depth geological, (paleo)ecological, and historical research, it becomes clear how human interventions, such as deforestation, watermill construction, peat development, and later land reclamation, have created and put pressure on a complex and valuable ecosystem. Understanding the past also allows us to better anticipate the future. Principles such as soil and water management are essential to improve resilience to climate change, environmental problems, and biodiversity loss. The analysis emphasizes the importance of an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to landscape research and management, and the results of restoration measures.

Watermill landscape and watermills on the Itterbeek

In the past, 15 watermills stood along the Itterbeek stream. The mills influenced the surrounding landscape. The water millers collectively ensured the optimal functioning of the stream or river. The goal was to operate the mills and pump water when needed, but weirs and pumping had several other effects. Water was stored and retained, and fish could migrate. Or water was used to irrigate meadows and fields, fertilizing them with organic nutrients, or protecting them against flooding. For a long time, this watermill landscape functioned with few complaints or disputes from local residents. The water board should recognize this positive contribution of watermills to the landscape and hydrology and can benefit from it.

Learning from the past: water history and water heritage in estate landscapes

Due to climate change, spatial planning and heritage professionals are exploring new approaches to water management. Studies of landscape history can reveal continuity and change in the hydrological nature and use of water, thus providing knowledge, inspiration and opportunities for contemporary water challenges. How can we learn from the past? Historical knowledge must go beyond simply recognizing historical water structures in the landscape. This article focuses on estates and analyses these heritage sites as ensembles within larger water- and landscape systems where the use of water and water-systems was a given.