This book represents a major step towards a truly holistic landscape history. It takes as its theme the management of water in the agricultural landscape and brings together approaches of scientists on the one side and economic historians and archaeologists on the other. In each of the main sections an ecologist, soil scientist or hydrologist begins by setting out the scientific dynamics of each system. The archaeologists and historians then reassess the historical evidence for water management since the Roman period. The result is an important reinterpretation of some of the key questions in British landscape development. Throughout the writers investigate the implications of their findings for current conservation practice and for the management of historic landscapes.