Category: research

More Underground D.C.

Jason Kingcanals, city, history, infrastructure, maps, places, research, washington dc1 Comment on More Underground D.C.

A favorite precedent of mapping around water was the DC Water Atlas by John Davis, which explored historical waterways and some of the hidden layers of the hydrology of Washington D.C. in an interactive way.  A recent mapping effort, The D.C. Underground Atlas by Elliot Carter takes a slightly different stance and approach, both in content and delivery, augmenting this previous effort and expanding the breadth and the way it is communicated via a series of interactive Story Maps.  The thrill of peeling away perceptual layers of history and infrastructure interests many, which is reinforced from Carter’s introductory text:

“Washington sits atop an interconnected layer cake of transportation, utility, and pedestrian tunnels extending three dimensionally beneath city streets.  Given their importance to daily life in the nation’s capital, it’s surprising to find that the full picture of Washington’s various tunnels remains unpainted. This project aims to complete that picture.”

While the previous effort by Davis was focused specifically on water, the new effort focuses on ‘tunnels’, in the sense that they are accessible.  As mentioned by Carter “In order to limit the scope of the project, “tunnels” are defined as fully walkable passageways – no sewer pipes, culverts, or crawlspaces. All the tunnels depicted can accommodate standing adults, assuming that they have proper access credentials.”  What are included are maps of multiple transportation modes, water, steam and sewer infrastructure, as well as pedestrian tunnels and the specialize subterranean elements supporting the Capitol Mall.

With a short intro page, the interface gives you the option of Maps or Text, each taking your through a narrative with images, text, and maps that shift and zoom and layer additional information to tell a story of each of the particular types of tunnels.  For instance, the Sewer story starts with historical mapping with some information on the early sewage system, and then moves along a timeline, showing early infrastructure and how it evolves into more contemporary systems.

The sequence expands to show, with historical imagery, such as this showing the building of the combined sewer system in 1882 along with the major lines that were built at that time, and more recently a larger scale modern tunneling for new treatment facilities.

Obviously the focus on tunnels gives it a specific scale, and it’s not necessarily capturing the total water story, but showing the amount of subsurface infrastructure that exists, under our feet. The Aqueduct mapping leads more through the path of movement of water from source, with stops at major point, showing how you can adapt the Story Map to fit the particular type of infrastructure, in this case following a path.

For selected categories, the essays are more expansive, such as the breakdown of Aqueduct Tunnels, which expands the spatial narrative with some more rich history.  One of those points is the use, like many other cities, of wooden water pipes, in this case one from around 1810.

A wooden water pipe from Pennsylvania Avenue, installed circa 1810. Photo: Army Corps of Engineers/Public Domain

Another is the great historical images of the brick aqueducts, such as these 9 foot diameter pipes leading to the Dalecarlia Reservoir.

Photograph in Peale album, Washington Aqueduct. PG.66.25.41.

And more diagrams showing cool images of some of the documents, in this case coded to show the type and material of tunnels and their depths as the Tunnel traversed the landscape.  (click to enlarge)

Cross-section of the Lydecker Tunnel topography. The tunnel was advanced via vertical drop shafts at Foundry Branch, Rock Creek Park, Champlain Avenue, and McMillan Reservoir. Illustration: Washington Aqueduct/Public Domain

The story has multiple parts, remnants of abandoned infrastructure as well has a unique quality, such as the Sand Filters near the McMillan reservoir, in which “The underground vaults created their own weather systems when the sand filters were still in use, with internal clouds and condensation”

Photo: NPS/Public Domain

Lots more to explore here for sure, and if your thing is other, non water- types of infrastructure, this has lots and lots of layers.  While the DC Water Atlas, as I pointed out had an exploratory, video-game like quality, this D.C. Underground Atlas has more of a linear spatial narrative that is more direct.  Both have merits in making something that may be less compelling in an essay more engaging an accessible in map format.  As a form of storytelling it’s great, and perhaps the best story comes in the form of daring subsurface navigation, mentioned in the article in CityLab,

“…Carter says the “single most epic Washington tunnel story” might be the adventures of Don Bloch, a Washington Star reporter who wrote for the paper for about a year. In 1934, Bloch convinced the inspector of maintenance at the pumping station to let him cross the city through its sewers for a Sunday feature. Equipped with a flashlight, rubber boots, and a gasmask, he hopped down manholes from street to street, with “cloud watchers” who would warn him if a storm might pose a risk from rising waters. Bloch’s tour guide shoved him in a trunk lid for a ride on the waters leading into Rock Creek. Carter says it might be the “best thing in stunt tunnel journalism Washington has ever produced,” but Bloch’s story remains sort of an enigma to Carter. One of the few details he has been able to verify about him: He co-founded the Speleological Society of the District of Columbia in 1939. No mystery there, it’s not much of a leap from tunnels to caves.”

HEADER: Historical Sanitary System – via D.C. Underground Atlas (www.washingtontunnels.com); this and all images in this post via the site

Geoarchaeology and Lost Rivers

Jason Kingarchaeology, city, creeks, geology, history, landscape, london, maps, places, precedents, research, riversLeave a Comment on Geoarchaeology and Lost Rivers

Our understanding on the arc of history around hidden hydrology is informed with maps and accounts from early explorers and settlers to areas, augmented with records, diaries, and oral histories. Often this neglects and misses the valuable stories of indigenous inhabitants of areas, and leaves us with a significantly shorter timelines for reference. The role of archaeology is vital to unlocking the layers of hidden hydrology that don’t emerge from these illustrative written histories, so I was really intrigued with a recent tweet from the Museum of London Archaology (MOLA) (Twitter: @MOLArchaology) that told of their current work, called London’s lost river: the Tyburn.  From their site, the project is the result of “…a team of expert geoarchaeologists  whose work is helping us to understand London’s lost rivers. As an educational charity, we want to share what we’ve learnt, so please join us to explore the story of this long-lost river.”   

Using the interactive ESRI Story Map, MOLA developed a narrative to describe the process and some of the key findings.  Much of the work is conducted along with construction sites, which gives an opportunity to look below the surface while excavation is happening.  The River Tyburn flowed on the north bank of the Thames, and most famously, was routed and defined the space called Thorney that Westminster Abbey was located, seen in this view circa 1530.

The origins of the river are tied to the longer history of the Thames, which is illustrated (see header image) and reaches back to the last glacial period of 11,500 years ago.  From there in, “…this new epoch, known as the Holocene, the Thames began to take the shape we know today, but many channels still criss-crossed the river’s floodplain within the wide gravelly valley. One of  these channels was the Tyburn, which flowed into the Thames.”   In this zone, there are hundreds of sites, or ‘deposit logs’ that are recorded, and these are modelled to create a snapshot, particularly focusing on the depths of land (depicted below as green – high ground and purple – low ground.  From this model, “projected possible courses for the River Tyburn, following the lowest-lying areas of the modelled 11,500-year-old topography.” with a caveat that “the river would have migrated over time.”

Drilling down (literally) into the specificity of the deposits shows the ranges of material and how it can inform, looking at “ancient flora and fauna” and focusing on things like Diatoms, Pollen, and fossils of things like “Ostracods, the remains of small crustaceans, can indicate salinity, water depth, temperature, water acidity/alkalinity”.

Below is “…a cross section, or transect, running north–south from Westminster to Vauxhall Bridge, along the north bank of the Thames. This connects deposit sequences recorded in trenches and boreholes, and helps us look at these sequences over wide areas.”

They also connect their study with the work of Barton and Myers 2016 book ‘The Lost Rivers of London‘ (see here for a post on the same), which speculated on a number of scenarios for the Tyburn, and various routes.  There’s some graphic things I’d change here (namely it’s hard to read the Barton and Myers layers) but the concept is interesting, to overlay varying studies and ‘proof’ the concepts of routing. In essence, does the data reflect the speculation on routes, either reinforcing or disputing what was speculated?  The below map is a composite of this

There’s links to some coverage in London Archaeologist, such as a 2014 article in which “… Tatton-Brown and Donovan used historic documents and maps to suggest that the medieval waterways separating Thorney Island from Westminster were man-made and that the Vauxhall Bridge route was the original and only course of the river.”  The 3D views of the route and the illustration of the provide a speculative view of the area.  From the site:  “Our topographic model supports Barton and Myers’s suggestion that discussing two distinct branches (towards Westminster and towards Vauxhall Bridge) is an over-simplification of what was probably a more complex delta-like network, as shown [below] (artist Faith Vardy).  This geoarchaeological study provides a baseline for reconstructing the evolving landscape; when combined with historical records and archaeology, even more detailed models could be created. The research done by others, such as Tatton-Brown, which focuses on later periods, may be supported by geoarchaeological work undertaken in the future.”

The concept of geoarchaeology is pretty fascinating as well, and worthy of some further exploration.  In the interim, you can check out the MOLA site for what their team does, which focuses on using “…auger or borehole surveys and interpret the archaeological soils and sediments retrieved, allowing us to reconstruct past landscapes and environments.”  The reason for this particular subset is to pick up “…where the archaeology is too deeply buried for traditional excavation techniques to succeed. It is also a cost-effective archaeological evaluation tool and geoarchaeological deposit modelling, which maps buried landscapes and deposits.”  This is relevant as the surface remnants of these, but the underground deposits, so they work in a “…wide range of depositional environments, including alluvial floodplains, fluvial environments and estuarine/intertidal zones. Using palaeo-environmental proxy indicators, such as pollen and diatoms, we reconstruct past environments. Our specialists also use a range of sedimentological techniques.”

These techniques don’t answer every questions, but coupled with expertise and interdisciplinary research, enables us to see further, and deeper than previousl.  The role of archaeology and geoarchaeology in hidden hydrology is vital, as shown above. While we often rely on maps, photos, sketches, and written histories to reconstruct places,

HEADER:  Artist’s reconstruction of a cold climate, braided river, such as the Late Glacial Thames (artist Faith Vardy) – via

Underground Energy for London

Jason Kingcity, climate, creeks, energy, history, infrastructure, london, research, rivers, streams1 Comment on Underground Energy for London

A recent story picked up by multiple sources focused on the potential for hidden hydrological systems to provide heat and cut carbon emissions through tapping into underground lost rivers.  The crux of the argument is that heat pumps could extract heat from these now piped subterranean waterways, and this heat could be used for buildings and other uses, offering an alternative power option for London.  The Guardian offered the potential for heat to “cut capital’s emissions”, and the Times and The Londonist echoed this, focusing on Buckingham Palace as a visible example for the potential for heating buildings.   Mother Nature Network and Earth.com a took a slightly different slant, focusing on helping curb carbon emissions, similar to the coverage from the Daily Mail about using heat from underground rivers to “tackle climate change”.

The specifics come from a group called 10:10 Climate Action, and a recent report highlights ‘Heat seeking in London’s lost rivers’, and looking at the variety of now-buried rivers as a source of power:

“But what if we could use them to power our city once again? Through the magic of heat pumps, London’s lost rivers could provide low cost, low carbon heating and cooling to the buildings above. They could help us solve the big challenge of decarbonising heat.  There’s huge potential for London’s lost rivers to provide clean, efficient and reliable heating for the city – tackling climate change and air pollution. And of course the same technology can be used in other underground waterways like sewers in towns and cities across the country.”

 

y for heat pumps to transfer heat from one place (the subterranean pipes) to another, specifically buildings or other areas via refrigerant, where it is compressed to form heat at the top of the loop, and then expanded to cool down and capture more of the heat.  A primer on heat pumps, as well as a video showing how heat pumps work also helps explain the concept, along with this diagram.

This is already happening in some areas, including Borders College in Scotland, tapping into local wastewater, and the State Ministry Building in Stuttgart, Germany, which is tapping into flow from the Nesenbach, a buried river.  A map extracted from the report (image below) shows a number of the potential sites in London, including The Effra, Stamford Brook, The Tyburn, and the Fleet, all of which have potential sites for the use of these technologies.  Specific places include Buckingham Palace (mentioned in a few of the articles above), which would tap the Tyburn, Hammersmith Town Hall which flows above Stamford Brook, and other buildings like schools and site elements like heated swimming pools, which is currently being done in Paris.  [click to enlarge map below]

A video from 10:10 explains this in a bit more detail, showing an example of a London pub sits atop a lost river and uses this heat pump technology and for it’s heating and cooling.

There’s questions on the cost-benefit, and each of these systems would require some infrastructure to be viable, however it’s pretty exciting to consider the potential of these systems to contribute to energy savings and reduction of carbon emissions, giving back some of their benefits to the city, even while still being buried underground.  I’m sure we’ll hear more about this process in cities around the globe, all of which could utilize similar techniques, as we search for expanded tools to battle climate change and rising energy costs.

HEADER: Image of the now subterranean mouth of the Fleet, via The Guardian

Atlas for the End of the World

Jason Kingcase study, history, landscape, maps, parks, photography, places, precedents, researchLeave a Comment on Atlas for the End of the World

The Atlas for the End of the World is a great model for a compendium of research and mapping on a focused topic, which has relevance to my endeavor here at Hidden Hydrology.  While the content, scale and goals are different, the structure of information in the format of the ‘atlas’ and the combination of mapping, data, and critical inquiry through essay all resonate as a great precedent.

The project was conceived by Richard Weller from The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), with collaborators Claire Hoch and Chieh Huang.  A summary of the project, launching in 2017, comes from the site:

“Coming almost 450 years after the world’s first Atlas, this Atlas for the End of the World audits the status of land use and urbanization in the most critically endangered bioregions on Earth. It does so, firstly, by measuring the quantity of protected area across the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots in comparison to United Nation’s 2020 targets; and secondly, by identifying where future urban growth in these territories is on a collision course with endangered species.  By bringing urbanization and conservation together in the same study, the essays, maps, data, and artwork in this Atlas lay essential groundwork for the future planning and design of hotspot cities and regions as interdependent ecological and economic systems.”

Some background on the project is found in both Précis which provides a roadmap to the site, as well as an essay “Atlas for the End?” which alludes to the first modern atlas of Ortelius, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Epitome of the Theater of the World) and the dawn of a new, albeit already populated, world, ready for exploration and exploitation.  As mentioned: “In 1570, when Ortelius published his atlas, the European imagination could literally run wild with whatever might be ‘out there’. Now, a mere 450 years later, that vast, mysterious world of diverse peoples and species is completely colonized and irreversibly altered by the material and conceptual forces of modernity. Whereas Ortelius marked out modernity’s territorial beginnings, this atlas—by focusing on the remaining habitat in the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots —rakes over its remains.”

The extensive essay lays a formidable foundation for the research, touching on the impacts of the past 450 years and the loss of biodiversity through urbanization, and the identification of hotspots, as well as how cities play a huge role.  As quoted:

“Although it is not yet well monitored, it is increasingly appreciated that the metabolism of the contemporary city, no matter how divorced it might feel, is interconnected with the sources and sinks of the broader landscape. It follows then that environmental stewardship is as much a matter of urban design as it is landscape ecology. As Herbert Giradet insists, it is in cities “that human destiny will be played out and where the future of the biosphere will be determined. There will be no sustainable world without sustainable cities”.7“

The themes touch on the foundations of the shift towards the Anthropocene, and our changing ideas about nature, stewardship, and it’s relationship to the profession of landscape architecture, touching on McHarg’s environmental ethics of the 1960s and also discussing the work of biologist Daniel Janzen and work on restoration of biodiversity using a metaphor of the garden.  “Janzen’s ‘garden’ is not an idyllic scene constructed for contemplation, nor does it trade in images of pristine wilderness. Wildland “gardenification” as he refers to it, is just damn hard work. As Janzen explains, it involves “fencing, planting, fertilizing, tilling and weeding … bioremediation, reforestation, afforestation, fire control, proscribed burning, crowd control, biological control, reintroduction, mitigation and much more.”36 Janzen’s garden is a continual work in progress.”

The ideas continue in discussions on the role of protected and connected ecosystems, and metrics, in this case, using the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).  From the text: “The overarching framework for the project of protecting and reconstructing a biodiverse global landscape is provided by the United Nations Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. The key mechanisms of this plan are brokered and administered through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), one of the three ‘Rio Conventions’ emerging from the UN Conference on Environment and Development (the ‘Earth Summit’) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The primary objective of the CBD is that “[by] 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”.   To this end, the focus on hotspots provides a locus for where these values intersect globally, as represented with ideas of protection (and lack there of) and the ability to access massive quantities of data collected through remote sensing and being able to map it using available technologies (while cautioning against the objectivity of mapping as a practice).

A concluding essay “Atlas for the Beginning” talks about the shift to our new reality of the Anthropocene.  A globe view shows “What’s left: the world’s protected areas as of 2015” which illustrates a bleak view of the fragility of the worlds ecosystems.  The takeaway is a research agenda that includes more data and analysis, as well as developing methods of action, including a  “…longer term research agenda is to establish a knowledge sharing network of demonstration design projects across the hotspots which bring landscape architects, environmental planners, conservationists, economists and local communities together to focus on areas of conflict between biodiversity and development. These SEED (systemic, ecological and economic design) projects will show how landscape connectivity can be achieved and how urban growth can be directed in ways that support all forms of life.”

The use of data visualizations, or datascapes, allows for unique comprehensibility of issues, as seen above. “The datascapes show that if the global population were to live (in material terms) as contemporary Americans do, there would be a major discrepancy between levels of consumption and what the earth, according to today’s technologies, can reasonably provide.” One such visual on Carbon Forest (below) shows the theoretical sequestration potential and equivalent size of forest to accommodate current populations, or, in actual numbers, “The 216 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted by a hypothetical global population of 10 billion such Americans would require 9.9 trillion trees to sequester its emissions. 2

“

The series of world maps are both beautiful and informative, spanning a range of topics both physical and social… a wide array of topics.

Each comes with a short blurb and reference.  The map on Ecoregions is described as: “The World Wildlife Federation defines an ecoregion as “relatively large units of land or water containing a distinct assemblage of natural communities sharing a large majority of species, dynamics, and environmental conditions” 1. An ecoregion is a biome broken down even further. There are 867 ecoregions comprising the world’s terrestrial and marine ecology. Nearly half of the world’s terrestrial ecoregions (391) are within the hotspots.”

 

Another interesting subsection is a feature Flora & Fauna, with “the photography of Singaporean artist Zhao Renhui, Director of the Institute for Critical Zoologists, from his 2013 artwork Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World 1. The guide presents a catalogue of curious creatures and life-forms that have evolved in often unexpected ways to cope with the stresses and pressures of a changed world.”  The species are both amazing and somewhat disturbing, such as the bionic AquaAdvantage salmon (below), “…a genetically modified salmon that can grow to its adult size in 16 to 18 months instead of three years. The AquaAdvantage salmon has been modified by an addition of a growth hormone regulating gene from a Pacific Chinook salmon and a promoter gene from an ocean pout.”

Read more on the project via this post on the ASLA Blog, as well as a relevant article by Weller from the innaugural issue of LA+ Journal, entitled ‘World Park‘

All images and text: © 2017 Richard J. Weller, Claire Hoch, and Chieh Huang, Atlas for the End of the World, http://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com 

HEADER:   Hotspot Cities: cities of 300,000 or more people projected to sprawl into remnant habitat in the world’s biological hotspots