Introduction: Imperialism and the riverine environment in modern Asia

Abstract Many pressing riverine problems in Asia today can be traced back to the development of a set of new conceptualizations, technologies, and institutions of river management between roughly 1800 and 1945, a period moulded by the expansion of modern imperial powers on a global scale. This special feature investigates the multifaceted entanglements between rivers and imperialism in modern Asia by bringing together cases in Japan, India, China, and Vietnam. Building on the understanding of the dual potential of rivers to support and resist imperial ambitions, the articles in this special feature reconstruct the complicated human-river interactions across Asia that confounded anthropocentric expectations and show how imperial ethos, technologies, and institutions of river management were carried out, resisted, or transformed in varied local contexts by human and non-human actors alike. Understanding the unruly history of rivers in imperial Asia can help us to better understand the precarious future of rivers and their management on the warming continent.