This article explores the historical emergence of the Danube Delta as part of the larger story of hydro-modernity—that is, the creation of political and scientific representations of dynamic landscapes comprised of waters, silt, plants, animals, and humans. The transformation of the Danube Delta started with the first staging of the landscape as an undeveloped “green sea” in the mid-nineteenth century and then evolved in the twentieth century into a mixed ecological-economic model, reimagined by developing and implementing “stuficultura,” a new techno-science of reeds. Socialist biologists and engineers attempted to modernize the Danube Delta by transforming reeds into an industrial resource, but ultimately, their efforts failed as the reeds proved to be too heterogeneous and difficult to separate from their aquatic ecology. This failure had consequences, providing the backdrop against which other modernization projects would unfold.
Cotoi et al. (Wed,) studied this question.