#California landscapes

[supersonicart]

Brooks Anderson.

Stunning realist works from Northern California-based artist Brooks Anderson.

With an underlying divine essence, Anderson's contemporary landscapes capture the beauty of land, sea, and sky with a haunting and powerful presence. Immersed in the painting process, he skillfully layers vivid, translucent colors while sustaining a dynamic composition. Through his exploration of the subject matter, Anderson unveils a deeply profound and captivating essence in his art.

THE SUPERSONIC ART SHOP | FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM

[wanderguidehub]

Unleash Your Adventurous Spirit: The Ultimate Hiking Guide to Pinnacles National Park, California

Welcome to the magnificent Pinnacles National Park, the hidden gem of California! Discover the thrill of hiking through untouched wilderness, climbing steep terrains, and immersing yourself in mesmerizing landscapes that leave you breathless. This comprehensive guide will equip you with all the information you need to make your hiking experience unforgettable. From trails that challenge seasoned…

[marleneleestudio]

California Landscapes

As we are driving on the highway to various places, these are scenes that I photographed quickly to use as references. These paintings reflects the wide open fields, houses on top of many rolling hills while going through Fairfield to the Bay Area, and a view of the capital of Sacramento across the Sacramento River. A Row of Eucalyptus Trees, 10 x 20 x 3/4 inches, oil on stretched canvas Houses…

[rosechata]

late august evenings in the sierras

[leahberman]

as the wind blows; antelope valley, california

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[reasonsforhope]

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024

[hiddengemsreal]

Discover California's secret places! Watch our video to see the special and beautiful parts of California that many people don't know about. We'll show you quiet beaches, pretty forests, and small towns in the mountains that are not famous but are really nice. Join us to find out about the secret places in California that are amazing. 🏖 Find hidden beaches with clean sand. 🌲 Walk in quiet forests that are very peaceful. 🏞 Visit small towns in the mountains that are not crowded. 🌅 Watch beautiful sunsets in places not many people know about. 🛤 Explore paths with great views that not everyone knows about. Come with us to learn about the secret and wonderful parts of California that you might not have seen before. It's time to see something new and special in the Golden State! #HiddenGems #DiscoverCalifornia #SecretPlacesCA #ExploreMore #QuietBeaches #HiddenTowns #BeautifulSunsets #EasyExploration #CaliforniaAdventures #NewDiscoveries

[aimeekb]

Yosemite comes to life at sunrise

[vintagehomecollection]

California Cottages: Interior Design, Architecture & Style, 1996

[the-w0nder-beards]

Pescadero State Beach

[vangoghcore]

by desertarrowphotography

[aestum]

(by Vasilis Karkalas)

[wanderguidehub]

Hiking Guide to Mammoth Lakes, California: Discover the Splendors of Nature

Embark on a thrilling adventure amidst the tranquil beauty of Mammoth Lakes, California. Our comprehensive hiking guide offers you the chance to explore the majestic peaks, serene alpine lakes, and breathtaking landscapes that this place has to offer. Each trail is a journey into the heart of nature, a trek that reveals the awe-inspiring geology, diverse wildlife, and the clear, azure skies of…

[rosechata]

august light and birdsong

[expressions-of-nature]

Kelp Forest by divindk

[leahberman]

teal cove

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