Filling the Knowledge Gap in Water Heritage: A Case Study of Greater Nanning's Multi-ethnic Water-related Cultural Landscape Heritage in the Upper Pearl River Basin

Abstract

The Pearl River is an important birthplace of Chinese civilization and one of the most concentrated areas of China's water heritage. More than 20 ethnic minorities live in its upper basin, covering the area of most of Guangxi Autonomous Region, southeastern Yunnan Province and southern Guizhou Province. Diverse ethnic cultures, unique karst geological forms, dense water networks and long-standing water trade and cultural exchanges have jointly created a rich and diverse multi-ethnic water heritage here. Different from the famous "Jiangnan water town" on the east coast of China and the great water engineering projects in Europe, it is a system of physical and spiritual water heritage based on multi-ethnic culture. The “physical water heritage” includes water buildings, water facilities, water relics, waterscapes, etc., and the “spiritual water heritage” includes water god beliefs, water festivals, water rituals, water arts, etc. Both of them contain lots of practical experience of "human-water harmony" and the “codes” of wisdom, which can provide reference solutions for today's water conflicts, water wars, water actions and water management in the world. However, it has not got enough attention, nor been fully understood. "Multi-ethnic water heritage" is still a blank category in the framework of "water heritage".

As a multi-ethnic settlement like Nanning, water heritage here has a history of formation and continuation for thousands of years, covering almost all forms of physical and spiritual manifestations of ethnic water heritage in the upper Pearl River Basin. Various elements of water heritage together constitute the foundation of Nanning's cultural heritage system and urban cultural development. However, due to the common influence of urbanization, land economy and evolution of modern transportation, Nanning this city has been:

(1) Ignoring the systemic of multi-ethnic water heritage and its significance.

(2) Ignoring the important values of multi-ethnic water heritage.

(3) Developing improperly the multi-ethnic water heritage, resulting its isolation and fragmentation.

(4) Over-emphasizing on economic benefits and ignoring its conservation and sustainable utilization.

The jointed effects of these issues ultimately lead to the fact that the values contained in the multi-ethnic water heritage has not been appropriately transformed into the motivation for urban social development.

So, the goal for the current research is:

Proposing a concept named "Multi-ethnic Water Heritage” to fill the gap in the understanding of “water heritage”, building up its system, identifying its content, understanding its significance through value interpretation, and building up a framework to understand the significance of water heritage in multi-ethnic areas.

In order to achieve this goal, the following two objectives will be achieved:

(1) Understanding the outstanding universal values (OUV) and local values of multi-ethnic water heritage in Nanning, based on summarizing its system and content, which would be applied to understand the water heritage significance for the cities/towns in multi-ethnic areas in upper Pearl River Basin, even in “upper Pearl River Basin - Red River Basin - middle and upper Mekong River Basin” region.

(2) Proposing the theoretical basis and heritage framework for "multi-ethnic water heritage" on the basis of its current situation of conservation and utilization in Nanning.

Based on the goal, this research adopts the Mixed-methods Research Methodology, combining the elements of both quantitative and qualitative research. The Quantitative Research Methodology will be adopted to identify the system, framework, content, category, quantity and distribution of multi-ethnic water heritage system in upper Pearl River Basin cities like Nanning. Qualitative Research Methodology will be adopted to achieve: Typicality, Values and representativeness of Nanning’s multi-ethnic water heritage, its conservation and utilization, and its contribution to the sustainable development of local communities. Cultural Mapping and Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach will be also adopted to help the proposing of development models for the "dynamic management of cultural heritage conservation and utilization" of Nanning’s water heritage.

The findings of the current research include:

(1) Multi-ethnic water heritage is a cultural heritage system with a complete theoretical logic of cultural heritage category, containing the unity of tangible and intangible water heritage on the basis of “water”.

(2) The multi-ethnic water heritage in Nanning contains all categories of tangible cultural heritage system, including sites, buildings groups, monument, and waterscape (landscape).

(3) The multi-ethnic water heritage in Nanning contains all categories of intangible cultural heritage system, including oral traditions and oral expressions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, traditional craftsmanship.

(4) The multi-ethnic water heritage in Nanning contains the OUV of “an outstanding example of a type of landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history”, illustrating the homology, ecology, diversity, harmony, integration, regionality of “human-land-water” relationship.

(5) The multi-ethnic water heritage in Nanning contains the local values of historic, artistic, scientific, social and cultural.

Water is one of the most important source of life, but currently the security is threatened. The global water actions call for the realization of SDGs through conservation and utilization of water heritage, but people tend to turn to world heritage properties for help and ignore the local wisdom hidden in the multi-ethnic water heritage system in upper Pearl River Basin, even the area of “upper Pearl River Basin - Red River Basin - middle and upper Mekong River Basin”, where precious multi-ethnic water heritage is hidden.

Nanning has nearly all the manifestations of multi-ethnic water heritage. Its multi-dimensional human-water harmony, the evolution history of human water using for tens of thousands of years in this city and its diverse physical and spiritual forms would jointly provide a “Chinese Plan” for the global water protection and development.

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