This archive report was first published on 6 July 2019.
Located in Bavaria, Germany, Augsburg boasts a 2,000-year-old water system that has provided clean drinking water and sanitation since the Middle Ages.
As of 2019, the old town centre of Augsburg, situated on Germany's Romantic Road, features over 500 bridges, more than in Venice, according to the city.
"The history of water in Augsburg is linked to the cultural and artistic wealth of this city," said Thomas Weitzel, the city's cultural affairs director, in an interview with AFP on 2019-07-06.
"Augsburg considered water such a precious asset that it has always sought to protect it," Weitzel added.
Engineers in Augsburg were European forerunners in damming and redirecting river water from the Lech, Wertach, and Singold streams.
Water flowed via an aqueduct and into water towers from 1416, making the waterworks at the city's Red Gate the oldest in Germany and central Europe.
The water system also featured ornamental fountains, including the Mercury and Hercules fountains, and supplied water to the Stadtmetzg, the city's butchers house, where it helped cool meat and dispose of waste.
Later, water power was used for industry, driving mills and pumping stations as Augsburg became a centre of textile and paper production.
With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, the city saw the creation of the first large hydroelectric power plant at nearby Wolfzahnau.
One of the waterways, the Ice Canal, was designed to keep free floating ice from entering the city and became the world's first artificially created whitewater canoe course in 1970, used for the 1972 Olympics.
