IN-PERSON ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Long forgotten beneath modern cities, subterranean water infrastructures continue to shape environmental vulnerabilities such as flooding and urban heat (Lamb & Vale, 2025; Ruggles, 2000). Yet historic systems are typically treated as fragile heritage to preserve rather than as active resources for climate adaptation. This paper addresses this gap through Palermo’s Arab-Norman Genoard, an “Earthly Paradise” of orchards, fountains, and subterranean hydraulic systems (qanats) developed during Islamic Sicily in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Although largely erased by twentieth-century urban expansion, the Genoard persists in buried water pavilions, underground channels, and scattered green remnants embedded within the contemporary city. As Palermo faces intensifying heat and water rationing affecting more than 200,000 residents, the study asks whether the spatial afterlives of this landscape can inform urban resilience strategies. Methodologically, the research combines historical GIS, archival cartography, and on-site temperature sensing. By overlaying Genoard remnants with municipal flood-risk maps and urban heat-island indices (Tucci et al., 2023), it produces the first comprehensive cartographic reconstruction of the Genoard’s ecological functions and their uneven distribution across Palermo. Findings suggest that these neglected infrastructures continue to moderate microclimates and absorb stormwater. Importantly, indirect ecological benefits accrue most to adjacent low-income neighborhoods, even as access remains constrained by privatization and enclosure. By conceptualizing these remnants as climate inheritance, the paper argues that historic infrastructures offer operative knowledge for contemporary climate adaptation and design, reframing heritage as a living resource for twenty-first-century cities.