Mapping human impacts on river landscapes, past and present. Starting in July 2026, we are excited to start a new collaboration supported by the UVA 3Cavaliers program, that considers rivers as key conduits for navigating landscapes over centuries. This interdisciplinary collaboration will use maps as a common language to trace the evolution of mid-Atlantic riverscapes from the colonial period to the satellite era. The work will focus on two processes – construction of mill-dams along rivers, and mountain-top coal mining in the Appalachian Mountains – that have dramatically reshaped the region. We are partnering with S. Max Edelson (Dept. of History), who studies the origins of geographic knowledge during the colonial period, who will use archival research in the UK to curate a set of historical maps that document North American river valleys circa 1500 to 1800. To help synthesize the perspectives of present and past, Prof. Brian Davis (Dept. of Landscape Architecture) brings a unique perspective to interactions between humans and the environment that bridges disciplinary gaps. Together, this project will establish a new collaboration between faculty in science and humanities, and will strengthen UVA’s rich scholarly community connecting people, rivers and landscapes.
Upcoming talks
October 2026: Environmental Futures Forum, University of Virginia
Thomas Jefferson and the reshaping of the Rivanna River in central Virginia. After the Virginia Assembly created the County of Albemarle in 1744, one of the first orders of business was to make the rivers navigable. Access to the county came through the James River and its tributary nearest to the coast: the Rivanna River. Peter Jefferson helped lead the legislative effort, which eventually streamlined the construction of mills and enabled wheat and tobacco from Jefferson’s plantation at Shadwell to float down the Rivanna River by boat. But first, the river had to be systematically deepened by removing bedrock and reshaping gravel deposits. In 1763, 20-year-old Thomas Jefferson organized more than 200 men to complete the re-engineering of the river. Thus, the younger Jefferson’s efforts on the Rivanna River cleared the way for batteaux to transport the agricultural products from the Albemarle plantations to market in Richmond. Yet the planning and execution of this engineering project remain obscure. What models influenced Thomas Jefferson as he designed the project? Who were the laborers who completed the work, and were they enslaved? And how did this engineering transform the topography of the surrounding Rivanna River? This work integrates archival research with high-resolution topography data to reconstruct a visual timeline of the Rivanna River from the colonial period to the satellite era. Extending beyond the Rivanna, I will consider how Jefferson’s early experience on the Rivanna may have informed his later interpretations, in Notes on the State of Virginia, of dramatic river landscapes at Natural Bridge and Harper’s Ferry.
Upcoming talks
December 10, 2026: International Center for Jefferson Studies Fellows Forum, Charlottesville, VA
Abstract submitted for the American Society for Environmental History Conference, Richmond, VA (Late March / early April 2027)