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Martin Schmid is an assistant professor for environmental history and interdisciplinary communications at Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt-Graz-Wien in Austria, where he has been a member of the Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies since 1999. Since 2010, he has served as the director of the Center for Environmental History (ZUG) at the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna. He has worked as an archaeologist for several years. He holds an MA in History (2002) and a PhD in Environmental History (2007) from the University of Vienna.
A historian by profession, Schmid is fascinated with environmental history as an interdisciplinary field, crossing the "great divide" between humanities and natural sciences. He has published on the history of agro-eco-systems in the early modern period, Austria's environmental history after World War II, and on theoretical concepts for environmental history ("colonization of nature" and "socio-natural sites"). His current research focuses on European environmental history before 1800, and focuses in particular on rivers.
His project at the Center examined the environmental history of the Danube from 1500 onwards.
RCC Research Project: An Environmental History of the Danube (pdf, 10 KB)
Film Interview with Martin Schmid
Selected Publications:
- With V. Winiwarter and G. Haidvogl. "Legacies from the Past: The Danube's Riverine Landscapes as Socio-Natural Sites." Danube News (International Association for Danube Research) 21 (June 2010): 2-5.
- "Die Donau als sozionaturaler Schauplatz: Ein konzeptueller Entwurf für umwelthistorische Studien in der Frühen Neuzeit." In Die Natur ist überall bey uns. Mensch und Natur in der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Sophie Suppel and Aline Steinbrecher, 59-79. Basel: Chronos, 2009.
- Ed. with V. Winiwarter. "Umwelt Donau. Eine andere Geschichte." Katalog zur Ausstellung des Niederösterreichischen Landesarchivs in Ardagger Markt, 5 May-November 2010. St. Pölten: NÖ Institut für Landeskunde, 2010.
- With G. Haidvogl. "Coupling the Long-Term Dynamics of Natural and Social Systems: Towards an Environmental History of the Danube." In Human Nature: Studies in Historical Ecology and Environmental History, edited by Péter Szábo and Radim Hédl, 64-73. Brno: Institute of Botany of the ASCR, 2008.