The Priority Programme aims to answer the questions of when and why humans became a significant controlling factor in floodplain formation and how humans in interaction with natural processes modified floodplains. It will clarify the extent to which short-term and long-term natural floodplain dynamics together with early human impacts affected subsequent developments and led to path dependencies. The Priority Programme encourages project proposals from archaeology, the geosciences and history that analyse the interaction of humans and their environments in the emergence of the Fluvial Anthroposphere through multidisciplinary and cutting-edge methodological approaches.

The spatial focus of individual projects must be on the Elbe, Rhine and Danube river systems, either one system, two systems or all three, in order to compare specific pathways of the gradual build-up of anthropogenic impacts on the floodplains as well as the development of interrelated fluvial societies. From a spatial perspective, projects must strictly focus on socio-natural sites in the floodplain itself with an emphasis on large to medium-scale tributaries (second and third order). In the second funding period (2026–2029), the focus should be on in-depth analysis and comparative perspectives of case studies, categorisations and transferable models at both intra- and inter-basin scales, particularly building on the results of the first funding period. Projects must focus on the medieval and pre-industrial modern periods and be based upon the systematic overlay of historical, archaeological and geoscientific data that requires the methodological expertise of at least one discipline in the natural sciences and one in the humanities. However, earlier and later dimensions may be added to complement the medieval and pre-industrial focus in order to identify, quantify and assess anthropogenic changes and develop parameters and their related boundary levels towards and within the Fluvial Anthroposphere.

Each project must contribute to and theoretically reflect the concept and key hypothesis of a pre-modern emergence of a Fluvial Anthroposphere in the context of the global Anthroposphere/Anthropocene debate. All projects must contribute to innovative thematic and/or methodological developments of this research field and commit to a systematic cross-project classification framework based on (semi-)quantitative indices of anthropogenic impacts and their further joint development. This should particularly build on the results and research data management infrastructure of the first funding period.

Our specific thematic objectives are:

• recovery and modelling of social response mechanisms to abrupt events in floodplains (e.g. extreme flood events). We particularly encourage systematic studies that focus on palaeohydrological and socio-cultural key control variables;
• recovery and modelling of long-term social responses towards medium- and long-term changes in flood regimes and floodplain accessibility (e.g. social adaption and wetland colonisation strategies);
• reconstruction and modelling of floodplain land use and direct human impact on modifications of riparian vegetation by new multi-proxy approaches;
• reconstruction and modelling of the effects of fishing, hunting, hydro-engineering and floodplain habitat changes on faunal biodiversity by means of diachronic synthesis;
• cross-period syntheses of the history of hydro-energy exploitation and related socio-natural sites, path dependencies and impacts;
• reconstruction and modelling of impacts of craft, manufacturing and mining on floodplain dynamics and pollution;
• recovery of socio-ecological and environmental significances of river crossings, especially approaches that recover the diachronic history and path dependencies of river crossings and associated socio-natural processes;
• cross-period syntheses of the history of land reclamation and related socio-natural floodplain sites;
• cross-period syntheses of the history of channel engineering and inland navigation and related socio-natural floodplain sites, especially the interplay with floodplain environments and socio-economic strategies and the conflicts between parties with competing interests; and
• recovery of the interaction of rights and conflict management by systematic and comparative approaches that study floodplain evolution and the associated fluvial societies.

Projects should explore new methods and approaches that are critical to understanding the transition to the Fluvial Anthroposphere.