Putting water to work anew? The ecological modernisation of the environment in Leipzig, Germany

Abstract Leipzig, like many cities worldwide, is navigating a complex process of ecological modernisation amidst an accelerating polycrisis, characterised by the imminent collapse of the Holocene climate niche and severe ecological degradation, exemplified by its deteriorating floodplain forest. Successive extremely hot and dry years since 2018 have heightened the urgency of this process as they have been profoundly affecting both residents and the increasingly fragile silvo-riverine ecosystem with which the city has historically co-evolved. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2021–2024) with municipal water managers, environmental scientists, conservationists, and historians, I explore how water has been and continues to be repeatedly endowed with new meanings and functions within Leipzig’s urban metabolism. Specifically, this paper traces how historical practices of river and forest management, originating from a period when Leipzig was envisioned as an industrial port city, continue to shape its contemporary urban-regeneration efforts aimed at reinventing and branding the city as a “water city”, as well as ongoing initiatives to restore its urban nature. Building upon Simon Schaupp’s theoretical framework of metabolic politics (2024), I propose the concept of the ‘ecological modernisation of the environment’ to analyse how water is re-mobilised as a versatile agent in preparing the city to address the intensifying impacts of the widening metabolic rift driven by capitalist production. I will demonstrate that contemporary water management, despite appearing innovative in addressing local manifestations of the climate and biodiversity crises, remains entangled with fantasies of maintaining control over Leipzig’s urban nature.