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Mountainscapes are commonly regarded as the water towers of the planet, but water is all too often conceived as a simple natural resource, without sufficient reflection on the ontological characters of this element in its various states of matter. The inseparable tandem of water and mountainscapes is based on a common history, because water is part of both the geosphere and the biosphere. Their interactions, however, cannot be fully explained by focusing on "nature" alone. Decisive is considering the anthroposphere, converging nature and culture, and understanding the social perceptions of water in mountainscapes. This requires a transdisciplinary approach and global comparison in space and time. While modern societies emphasize the crucial importance of water to meet the needs of growing urban populations around the world, ancient mythologies stress the value of the world of the ancestors and the need to maintain a spiritual relationship with them through the preservation of the sacred world, converging nature and culture in a dynamic way of thinking.

This book, the third volume of the Montology book series by Springer, collects essays on how natural and cultural dimensions of water converge in the (1) environmental patterns and processes, (2) social beliefs and attitudes, and (3) human perceptions and uses of mountainscapes.

Chapter "Taming the wild rivers: River regulations in the central part of the Alps between Lake Zurich and Salzach, Ticino and Tagliamento" (Author: Oliver Bender) is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.