#constructed wetlands diagram

[vincivilworld]

Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment

Constructed wetlands are wastewater treatment systems that utilise natural processes such as plants, soil, and organisms to treat wastewater, greywater, or stormwater runoff from municipal or industrial sources. In this blog, let’s go for a trip exploring the different types of constructed wetlands and their mechanism. Let’s get started by understanding the basics of a constructed wetland. What…

[headspace-hotel]

I am summoned yes

Keep in mind that I am not an expert and mainly going on my own observations and reading

None of this is entirely wrong, but some of it depends on the situation a lot.

The first thing I would point out, is that back yards/ lawns in the USA (presumably the target audience, seeing the map) may not look anything like that soil profile because they are often severely degraded soil. Housing developments often used to be pasture land or agricultural land, which usually caused severe degradation, construction often destroys what's left of the upper soil layers, and lawn maintenance continues the damage with severe compaction and a brutal schedule of regular disturbance.

The diagram itself is confusing because it labels the vegetation growing on top the "O" horizon, when the O horizon (If I remember correctly) is supposed to be the duff layer, the layer of leaf litter and debris that protects the soil. However, in a lawn there isn't enough O horizon to label, because it is constantly getting disturbed. Grass clippings can form a type of litter layer, but this often has to be raked up because there is not enough decomposing organisms to rot the clippings, and they just form a crust that slowly kills the grass.

The layer labeled "A" you can see if you go to a place that hasn't been plowed, overgrazed or logged in several decades. True topsoil is incredibly rare to find these days.

What you will often see in a back yard type setting is a layer 4-10 inches where there are roots, insect activity and some decomposed matter, and below that a nearly sterile hardpan formed by compaction and lack of robust weeds and larger, more active animals to break it up.

(If you have trees that drop leaves and don't rake them, you're more likely to have more fertile soil to work with.)

This is to say, you can show a diagram that's like "These are the soil layers" but often people will not be able to SEE that when they dig, and the reason why is that their soil has a long history that often resulted in the loss of upper soil layers.

My back yard soil, looks to the eye like it lost the O, A, E, and B horizons at some point in recent history. It has a very mineral odor and only 4-8 inches below the surface you begin unearthing large rocks (like, up to 40+ lbs rocks)

In one particular large area of my back yard, there is only about 8-12 inches of soil in total. Below that, there are large stone slabs with cracks in between, and eventually when you remove the slabs there is solid bedrock.

It is important to note: this doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with it. Kentucky has a habitat called a cedar glade or limestone/shale barren where there is a large expanse of almost bare bedrock or rocky land with very thin soil, where Redcedar trees are the only trees that can grow because they are good at wedging their roots into cracks in the rocks.

This habitat only exists in Tennessee, Kentucky, and parts of Georgia. And this habitat is actually where most of our rarest, most elusive plants are found—in these barren, rocky places that look like scrubby wasteland to the untrained eye.

So it's really hard to say the history of the back yard. Did it erode down to a thin layer of soil after years of abuses, or was it a cedar glade that was stripped of its majestic cedars, and gained a layer of soil after the erosion caused mudslides from the hill above?

There is another complication: the backyard is also a wetland. Fools that we were, we tried for years to fill in the mucky areas that collected water, and we were always baffled by the one spot on the hillside that was always lush, brilliant green and saturated with water even when it was hot. But then when I started to learn about habitats, I realized that the back yard was not a lawn with bad drainage, it was a wetland that had endured the indignity of being transformed into lawn. In fact, it was lucky enough to have a seep—a spring too slight to have any visible flow of water, that just slowly leaks out water into the soil.

When I protected that spot from mowing, upon it grew a bunch of tiny rushes with brown seed capsules on their tops, like pint size cattails. They belong to genus Eleocharis, spikerushes. I love them!

I laugh to see the suggested test of seeing how fast a hole will drain of water, because I have dug a hole 1 foot deep in my back yard and it takes a couple weeks without rain for it to drain. That's why I dug it—it's a shallow little pond.

It turns out, that the Limestone Glade Seep is a special habitat all its own, and it is thrilling to realize that my own back yard could qualify as one.

Oh, soil, oh, stone, I wish I knew your history...

Create Your Own Soil Profile!

A garden’s soil is the base of all its growth, and knowing how to properly  interact with your soil can make all the difference!

Step 1 Site Observations

Take a few photos of your site (project area)

Note down:

what vegetation is there?

is it near water?

the slope

approximate exposure to sun

Step 2 Take a soil profile

Set out a tarp or a garbage bag

Dig a hole about 3 feet deep (you may want a friend’s help!)

Place that soil in piles onto the tarp, sorted into different soil layers

Remember horizons! (O, A, E, B, C, R(bedrock))

Make a sketch of a soil profile, and measure the depth of each horizon

The top of the profile should start with 0 cm

Refill the hole, and try to return each type of soil in order!

Step 3 Build your profile

Describe each layer of soil, moisture/structure/color/smell

Use the “feel” method to take notes

Step 4 Drainage

Dig a hole 1 foot deep and 1 foot wide(ish)

Fill the hole with water and measure how long it takes to fully drain

An ideal time is around 10 to 30 minutes!

Note down the time

Keep in mind that even if the soil type would suit desert-like plants more, think of the weather. If it rains a good deal the drainage can matter less(or more!)

Step 5 Biological Activity

Bury a pair of cotton underwear(I know it’s silly)

Wait about 60 days

Unearth the undies, the more tattered they are the more activity there is!

Step 6 pH Testing

OSU Lab for Oregon, and many states have soil testing labs

Soil pH Meter

DIY Test

Step 7 Hardiness Zone

This just takes looking at a map!

Hardiness zones can tell you about the weather’s highs & lows in a particular area

USDA Plant Hardiness Map

And that 's it! It's a lot, and you don’t have to do everything. Each step can provide a better view of how to properly support your garden, and can be fun activities to do with friends and family!

I’ve included a template for a complete soil profile, but feel free to make them as fancy as y’all want!

Sincerely,

records of dirt

[praefah]

HYPER HYDROLOGY [2.0]

22/11/2020

Site 1: Magna Carta Island

Topographic metamorphosis: time steps in the hyper-evolution of the natural wetland through accelerated hydraulic processes

A new typology of wetland: the ‘constructed natural wetland’

Diagramming the location and active duration of hydraulic devices (erosion and sedimentation)

Time-lapse of site transformation from construction to occupation

Next steps

Design!

How long will construction phase take?

[architectuul]

Form Follows Flow

Ooze architects were founded in 2003 by Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg. They are based in Rotterdam and work internationally for different municipalities, property developers, arts and cultural institutions and private clients. 

Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg at the Sitio Burle Marx presentation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Photo © Rodrigo

With Eva and Sylvain we discussed how they combine understanding of natural processes with technological expertise either in temporary art works or regional urban strategies. The cyclic closed-loop processes found in nature are the foundation for each intervention of Ooze’s work.

Ooze (üz) is a soft deposit on the bottom of a body of water, a marsh or bog that results from the flow of a spring. Let the water flows begin.

---

What is a role of an architect today?

Sylvain: There are many different levels of practicing architecture. The future architect is a mediator, integrator of social, built and financial processes. The role of the architect is expanding and becoming linked to financial issues, to heal specific community or social context and remediate broken urban fabrics.

Eva: In the past lots of project strings happened separately. There architect, developer, landscape architect, engineer, water engineer was separated but with the climate changes we need to integrate all experts together and make solutions that works. If we separated it, many cities prove the social or financial suffering.

In which sense visualize the processes?

Eva: To visualize the processes means to visualize the unbuilt for. As working with water, we could say that Form Follows Flow. These flows in urban environments are mostly hidden under the ground. The more modern society has become the more hidden are its processes. With all the question how can we live more sustainable and in harmony with the planet, we need to visualize and understand those processes and how we can work with them. That’s where we also see our role to visualize processes and then use them to connect them to many complex parts. ��

Diagram visualization for the project The City of 1000 Tanks. | Source © Ooze

In a way you need to invent your own approach? Like your system-thinking on the practical base?

Sylvain: Both of us have a more standard (European) German and French education but also studied in Bartlett UCL London where we learn to work with the narrative and process. The hybrid between these two is what we are doing in our practice now. We try to address much bigger and important issue and to bridge and question what is really needed in specific situation.

So, it depends a lot about the education?

Eva: When we start working on an art piece with Marjetica Potrč, we start with the intact research of the context. This way of working we developed intuitively. It was not something that we learn in school but part we learn by doing. Right now, we are working on an urban strategy and implementation project The City of 1000 Tanks in India where we very much getting into the financing of projects.

Between Waters in collaboration with Marjetica Potrč. | Photo © Hans Blossey

A simple diagram was created in a real scale on the location. | Photo © Bas Princen (up) © Roman Mensing (down)

How you deal with the project funding?

Eva: We can take the example of the Rio de Janeiro, where we were very much self-driven by the idea if there is possible to realize a project because there is no sewage system, especially on vulnerable parts of the city. We were driven by the idea that it must be possible to integrate nature that this locally becomes the treatment of the polluted water. After four years of investigations research production of pilot projects and events, we finally understood that we could not operate outside the system of public works. Although those services are not provided in the zone we were operating in, when we talk about water and sewage we need to get engaged with the public realm. Tendering processes are protected, concessions are given after a long time, like ten years in advance. Innovation in this area is incredibly difficult. To find funding as well is very long term.

How can you survive?

Sylvain: Only when you are supported by the government program or heavy weight stakeholders. That’s the case of the project in India with the Dutch Ministry of the Foreign Affair as a client. In such way you have access to financial mechanism and you can deal with the big scale reality. In the project of Rio we were pioneers, supported only by the Dutch Creative Industry with no political anchorage nor local financial support except for the cultural institutions we partner for the various phase of the project.

Can a small-scale art project become a learning process?

Eva: Of course. With the given budget we realized that we become the clients and the contractors. In such way we take the risk but then you can also execute it with no one in-between. You learn how to lead it, so the learning process is not only for the users but also for the creators.

Diagram of The Pond Club in King's Cross London. | Source via © Ooze

How do you incorporate the natural environment into the urban areas?

Eva: The participatory process especially working with nature is very context related. You need to the people to make something that works for them and it is very important to listen before you come up with ideas.

Sylvain: In all our recent projects you can see how all our thinking is conceived by disturbing processes. As the eternal investment is driving the world, we kind of intrigue this crazy jungle. That makes our principle and activities dealing with the social.

When nature becomes a part of the planning process, how do you deal with unpredicted?

Eva: Look for example the Pond. The client wanted us to sign the contract where we agreed that the landscape would be beautiful. We declined this very subjective impression. Instead we took a part of the landscape and start to work as a contractor for the wild plants on the site. We started to interact with the client. In the begging was the earth, later the plants grew and created a new wildlife. It is important to communicate the narrative and people need to understand that nature cannot be always the same and predicted. In the case of the project of the Kings cross pond club, people for example would come back every two weeks to check the changing landscape.

The realization of The Pond Club in King's Cross. | Photo © John Sturrock

What is engineered nature? What is a difference between a natural and constructed wetland?

Eva: When we mentioned constructing wetlands people were thinking about a lake. Natural wetlands are everywhere where water meet the land. Many places of our cities used to be wetlands as floods are specific and can enrich the water and soil with oxygen, which then removes polluters from the water. The wetlands can clean the water and with engineering this you make a controlled environment. For example, the volume of water in the Pond could take care exactly of 163 swimmers per day. That is what nature can deal with. The same for a constructed wetland, a certain area of it can take care of the sewage waste of a certain number of people just by using and guiding the natural processes which exist in nature already.

The changing nature of The Pond in London. | Photo © John Sturrock

Sylvain: If for instance we would have put more mineral filters then we could change the volume of the water and the surfaces of filters. Nature reaches the goal so you need to understand these processes and replicate them.

What is important in a partnership with the local community? How do you create trust?

Eva: As for example on Agua Carioca we went into communities where we had connections. Somebody introduced us to the community. The next were interviews. We were listening to the people, which makes people empowered as this in favelas doesn’t happen very often. People were extremely aware of the environment because it was so close to them. The next step was invitation to the events. You come back again and again and again. That builds trust.

The excursion in the community of the Agua Carioca. | Photo © Rodrigo

Sylvain: For the project development is also important the identification of the spokesman in community.  

What about the trust in the commercial locations?

Eva: Yes, the Pond was not in the slum but in the middle of London. As everybody had access to the project, the community embraced it. They formed the group, which came up with the petition to keep the pond signed by 5000 people. From this number 1500 people left online message and 300 people talked about love.

Are your interventions systems of disobedience (it is not necessary to use chloride in water as the human body reacts to water)?

Eva: Our systems are about empowerment in a positive way. It is giving people the tools to understand the processes and deal with them. Project Between the Waters with Marjetica Potrč was a diagram of the water sewage treatment. Every part was visible, colorful and understandable. At the end we engage the people into trusting the different steps of natural base solution processes which manages to treat sewage and render it drinkable. the people could see all the steps and engage in this cycle by drinking the water at the last step of the filtration process. They could see and perceive the steps from urine to drinkable water, and that is what they would drink. This is how simple it is, it is the same how you treat the water. It is disobedience but also empowerment because you understand how simple is to get off the grid. A political act how to show people to live off the grid.  

[sunkeepersolarpunkmusic]

Free Solarpunk Essay for your thoughts

There’s not many essays and findings in academia that are given away to anyone without special access, so since I just got a 100 on my Environmental Ethics Reflection Essay, I’m posting it here for solarpunks it might benefit to think about these ethics considerations. (hit read more for essay)

My environmental ethic in recent years has grown to center around bolstering man’s integration with the environment. I see almost any given postulation regarding land use ethics to pat its own back while its front is on fire. In other words, people’s ideas about the proper use or stewardship of the environment always hit a wall when challenged in their authority. This wall is also invisible, so to speak, meaning where a moral or ordained boundary (or lack thereof) cannot be decided on without agreeance upon what humanity “should” be doing with the planet it is occupying. I have, in my infinite naiveté as a single human being with single brain, begun to embrace how “Capital I Integration” may be the most productive way forward in how man both heals and continue to utilize the environment for its inevitable “progress”—whether or not we can all agree it was ordained to make such progress.

Firstly discussed will be how the idea of integration relates to the documentary film In Light of Reverence, where indigenous North American people are interviewed in opposition to Western culturists, typically Caucasian, where the two parties clash over the use of various natural areas. Perhaps it’s more accurate to state that the film is highlighting the “innate stewardship” that Native Americans have shown since their use of North American lands began and the Manifest Destiny-driven sense of construction, innovation and progress that European settlers brought with them along with their genocidal colonization effort in the Americas. With God as their witness, and the power of their environmental use destiny still uncontested, Western lineages in the United States can’t be discounted in environmental ethic due to the gravity of their claim to have been ordained as fate-bound stewards of the land.

In contrast to the western settlers and their intent to use sacred grounds for recreation and “weekend conquering,” Native Americans—dwindling in number and power since the pilgrims came—still hold firm in their also-religiously-mandated approach on worshiping the land literally. The irony is how these peoples had originally not occupied these lands either, and that their rationale does not extend beyond what they are religiously (and/or culturally) inclined to believe about environment use. Native Americans believe in serving and protecting the land (read: environment), only using what is necessary for survival from it. While it can be easy to think this approach to man’s exchange with his environment is most productive in the new Anthropocene Era, there are myriad counterarguments available to support how now, more than ever, humanity should be developing technologies to stitch the wounds inflicted on our planet by the same technologically-prone cultures which caused them. Here we find how these (and other) ideas about how man should relate to the planet reveal themselves to be culturally masturbatory paradoxes the moment they’re challenged by anyone who can zoom out their thinking far enough to examine them from outside the scale of “man versus man.”

As a frequent explorer of existentialism and ethics considerations, I know that where paradoxes are found, danger lurks—not unlike how Val Plumwood’s advising ranger warned her that the swift currents of a main river in the Kakadu wetlands would bring her into the gnashing teeth of crocodiles. Plumwood would, out of selfish curiosity, find herself in these areas anyway on her exploration of the paperbark wetlands, and it is by the same selfish curiosity I worry mankind will continue exploring the forest of environmental ethics paradoxes until they find themselves in their own set of gnashing teeth. Val Plumwood has the wherewithal to know her run-in with the wild element of nature was not indicative of any malicious intent of nature. Instead, Plumwood echoes in Being Prey how the crocodile who had nearly eaten her should not be condemned, for man is physiologically part of the food chain regardless of his beliefs or origin.

So, too, is man part of the environmental stability chain regardless of his beliefs or origin. In the next century and beyond, the way humanity treats the planet will determine how safe it is. Plumwood’s warning was “stay clear of dangerous waters” and our warning as a species in the 21st century is “stay clear of environmental paradoxes.” In other words, if a notion about how to interact with the environment was planted in a factually unverifiable bed of soil (like religious ordainment, for example), it must be repotted at the dawn of the Anthropocene Era as the human race begins to work as an increasingly collectivist organism.

This is where I find myself embracing wholly the idea of integration with nature rather than preservation of or stewardship of it, or so on. I find that, since construction/progression is inevitable in the cultures that cannot be dissuaded from having that sort of influence on the environment, the productive elements of that worldview should be taken and adapted with more preservationist worldviews to balance the destructive tendencies of either (here referring to how Western culture views the lack of use of the environment as a “waste,” thus it is equally as  destructive as their pollution from cities, etc.)

When viewing the future of cities and human-nature cooperation from “integrationist” eyes, cities look like structures within natural environments rather than separate or in opposition of them. Wildlife is relatively unhindered, yet commerce, innovation, technology and civilizations in general can continue to thrive and grow so long as they are carbon-neutral or better. Saturated sustainability taking priority creates a “new final frontier” for “alpha cultures” like those of the US, Europe, Russia, Korea, to compete to dominate in. Singapore, Costa Rica, etc. are finding explosions in growth since their refocusing on a sustainability paradigm within their infrastructures, and the dying embers of post-war-obsessed generations and countries will finally be rekindled with senses of cultural pride as soon as the race for sustainable cities and nations becomes the new standard for economic value.

Talking more specifically, biomimicry in design is growing in its influence across all industries. Mimicking nature, designers of all sorts of things have discovered that efficiencies beyond imagination can be unlocked the moment something is redesigned according to nature’s exact specifications. Theologians and scientists can both agree on the results, since biomimicry does not need proof of either. The invention of Velcro as an “adhesive fabric material” benefited humanity the world over—whether it was evolution and adaptation or God who developed the burs which stick so easily to animal fur, where through nature the invention was discovered. The Shinkansen bullet train was changed to not create sonic booms when exiting tunnels any longer, not because of a redesign formed by a human, by a redesign according to the exact specifications of a kingfisher’s avian beak. Termites are teaching us how to design sustainable buildings, dolphins are teaching us how to send signals underwater, humpback whales are teaching us how to create efficient wind power. The list goes on and will only grow as more of nature’s processes are examined for the sake of man’s sustainability and integration with nature.

As an author for the solarpunk movement, a new genre of fiction exploring eco-centric futures of man’s relationship with the environment, I absolutely stand behind the idea of integration between the two. A zero-waste preservationist would say integration still can damage and change the environment, and a fossil fuels industry billionaire would argue that integration would disrupt socio-economic prosperity the world over for the “boring” notion of balance between man and nature. I find that, usually, when two opposing extremists equally despise a compromising ideality, it’s probably the best possible solution to move forward with in the complex Venn Diagram that is “practical ethics”—and I’m sure the motion carries to environmental ethics in the first century where they really, truly matter. Only time will tell, as always, yet in this case, time is very, very angry. I guess for once, compromise might have to take precedent in the eyes of the collective human race.

[jrjgreensavers]

Infrastructural Landscape

Landscape urbanism emphasizes ecology with traditional and infrastructural systems in urban design. In the 19th century, the landscape began to consider a new piece of art in industrial cities that started providing ecological and social functions.  The first time that Landscape urbanism appeared was in the work of Peter Connolly, a Master of Urban Design student from RMIT Melbourne. Landscape Urbanism also provides a sense of environmental movement.  One of the existing theories for Landscape is the urbanism model of each city. It is the theory of an urban design that argues that cities are constructed to interconnect and enrich horizontal field conditions. The connection exists when the individual pays close attention to the surface conditions, not only the assembly but at the same time the relationship that will exist with factors of materiality and presentation. Landscape urbanisms offer a way to consider the complex urban condition that will be capable of confronting water management, biodiversity, and as well as examine city implications of the city landscape. The landscape can be used as a model and basis for initiatives to examine our cities.  Landscape urbanism is a growing movement that green space in collisions with old infrastructure. One of the diagrams that celebrate the visual language of Landscape urbanism is the transect diagram that consists of a cross section that will show the actual conditions across the landscape standing up the natural context and how communities are involved in the site.

Stan Allen's 7 Propositions of Infrastructural Urbanism

Infrastructure prepares land for future changes

Infrastructure changes with the changes that happen in society, constantly adjusting.

Infrastructure is a collaborative art where many people and ideas can contribute

Infrastructure is to maintain regularity and continuity

Infrastructure organizes the complex systems of emptiness as well as occupied space.

Infrastructure organizes the flow of energy and density in a community

Infrastructural Urbanism is more functional than looks

Bangkok Centenary Park 

Centenary Park in Bangkok, Thailand is one of the first important infrastructural landscapes that exists primarily designed to incorporate a public outdoor space for the busy city, but also to combat the infrastructural issues that exist within the city. It ensures that the city moves towards a greater quality of life through the simple incorporation of a landscape. The green space not only provides the aesthetic for a beautiful landscape but solves the greater issue of flooding that is a constant recurrence in Bangkok but also a connector to different parts of the city. As much as Bangkok has developed into the city it is, it is notorious for deconstructive flooding that can occur with as little as 30 minutes of rain. The reason that Bangkok floods is simple. There is simply too much concrete that does not allow water to drain. The construction of high-rise buildings, highways, and streets has taken over the city allowing limited access to green space. 

Centenary Park becomes inclusive of its surroundings by engaging the community by linking major roadways directly into the park's walkways as well as creating paths targeted towards pedestrian traffic. Major streets become extensions of the park.

The connectivity that occurs within the park and city allows the park to be a successful form of incorporating a water filtration system in the city that is more functional than it looks. Centenary Park becomes a connecting corridor linking the academic campus with the commercial portion of the city through a meandering landscape. The landscape design incorporates spatial flexibility that accommodates eight different landscapes that contain distinct programs useful for the students in the area, but also towards anyone who wants to engage with the outdoor space. 

How does it work?

Bangkok Centenary Park design’s inspiration was taken by the branches in trees and how they can expand and connect to other places in long distances. Architect Voraakhom, who is the designer of this project, says “this park is a metaphor for creating this big rain tree for society. We want this green infrastructure to expand like a root of a tree into the city.” A city tree that includes a system that reduces flooding through the collection of rainwater. This design accounts for green pathways which are the “green branches” that expand along the streets of the city of Bangkok, Thailand. Such pathways include more pedestrian accessible, biking lanes, and green spaces, while it reduced the space for car lanes. 

Image by Landprocess

Image by Landprocess

The project includes water retention components in the park, such as a green roof, a detention lawn, two wetlands, and a detention pond. The way this works is by allowing rainwater to flow from the green roofs through the two wetlands located on both sides of the park, which then navigates to the retention pond. Another key factor is the detention lawn which can also collect water. 

Image by Landprocess

The green roof is located above the CU Park Museum and measures 5,220 sq. m. which equals 56,187.61 sq. ft., it rises 10.5 m equivalent to 34.3 ft. It consists of native grasses and weeds that require little maintenance but absorb large amounts of water. Hiding below the green roof and museum, there are three tanks that can hold up to 250,000 gallons of water from runoffs.

Image by Landprocess

The detention lawn next to the museum can hold up to more than 105,000 gallons of water.

Image by Landprocess

The wetlands on both sides of the park also retain water and because they contain native aquatic plants they also clean and filter the water. 

Image by Landprocess

When the weather is moderate, the water from the wetlands flows to the retention pond, where it eventually evaporates, but it creates more shows the movement of water and provides oxygen.

The retained runoff water from all retention components is used during dry seasons, which means that not even one single drop of water is wasted. Altogether, the park is designed to hold up to one million gallons of water.

Image by Landprocess

This park not only acts as an infrastructural landscape that prevents and collects rainwater from flooding but it also provides multiple programs for visitors that engage them in outdoor activities, such as studying, exercising, communication with others, etc.

Diagrams

References

https://ideas.ted.com/when-bangkok-floods-and-it-floods-a-lot-this-park-does-something-amazing/

https://landezine-award.com/chulalongkorn-university-centenary-park/

https://worldlandscapearchitect.com/chulalongkorn-centenary-park-green-infrastructure-for-the-city-of-bangkok/

[y2s2-20192020]

Updating a manifesto - Radical exchange

So, what if all those informal and illegal appropriations would be acceptable? What if the infrastructure is to support specific needs, or exchanges? What would be the consequences in the way we use our houses or public space?

This diagram summarizes the alternative system of poles, and the role they play in exchanges of household energy production and water. Everybody would be able to produce energy and filter water at their home, and individually exchange it or sell it through the poles.

I had researched any possible energy production that can be produced “informally” at our houses. House, in this scenario, turns into devices of power production, supporting DIY attitudes.

In terms of water, the constructed wetland and filter tank in the backyard can clean dirty water and expand its potential use.

[y4s2-20192020]

หยุด กวน เคร็ง STOP DISTURBANCE IN KHUAN KHRANG

The focus of the project is in the area of the peat swamp forest, ‘Khuan Khreng’. It has very high biodiversity that makes the forest very important to the ecosystem and the local in the area. Other than this, it’s also the very important carbon absorber in the world, which helps eliminates greenhouse gases more than any other type of forest. 

This Khuan Khreng swamp forest is the 2nd largest swamp forest in Thailand, it covers the areas of 3 district including, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Pattalung, and Songkhla.

Peat Swamp Forest (in Thai called ป่าพรุ) is an areas where saturated soils or frequent flooding prevent organic material from fully decomposing. As this organic material slowly accumulates, it makes water acidic. The ground is feel like a giant sponge that holds in the moisture.

The situation of wildfire now does not only occurs in the Amazon forest or the Northern forest in Thailand. People normally overlook about this situation in Khuan Khreng because it is not seen as the tourist attraction or any special place of the world, but in reality this wildfire event destroys the national carbon absorber that is considered to be the lungs of our country. Other than this the event also shows many problem that occurs in the local area as well as destroy the existing ecosystem and home habitat for plants and animal in the swamp forest. Contradictory, this carbon absorber becomes the giant carbon factory that release the carbon instead.

From the collection of data, the main cause of wildfire is hardly the natural event, majority of the cause is from human both with intention and without. Therefore, the problem is not ‘who’ starts the fire, but ‘why’ they started it and ‘how’ to stop the spread of the fire.

GOAL 1. To conserve water quality of Khuan Khrang peat swamp forest as it is the heart that keeps the forest alive 2. Rehabilitate and expand the primary peat swamp area. 3. Show the advantages and aesthetic to let people appreciate and increase value of Khuan Khrang swamp forest.

Khuan Khreng peat swamp located in the Southeast of Thailand. Majority of the area is the large lowland still pond which connects to the northern part of Songkhla lake.

Here is zoom in map of kk peat swamp forest. Show main and sub streams in the forest area including elements around.

From the research, the surrounding area of the forest is vastly changed to the economic forest that includes para rubber farming and oil palm farm, other than this the area also transform into the residential area, animal farming, and the constructed canal that cuts through the forest. All these elements have the effect on the existing ecosystem of the swamp forest.

To better understanding of the forest, Khuan Khreng has the 3 main type of area.

1st, the surrounding area with the intrusion of human activities as mentioned 

2nd, is the forest that is transformed after wildfire that later been called as ‘Samed forest’

Last is the existing swamp forest with the highly abundant ecosystem that sadly is lower than 10% of the overall area.

The soil in each type of the area in this forest also varies accordingly,

-The encroached area of the edges barely has any nutrition left in the soil layer 

-Samed forest is considered as the secondary peat swamp forest has the shallow soil layer 

-The primary or existing forest has much thicker soil layer with pile of dead plants and animal remains that provide nutrition in food for plants and animal, however part of the remain is still not degraded and is a potential fuel for fire underground. 

The heart of this forest is ‘water’, the forest survives from the sustained volume of water within. The water will slowly flows through the soil surface into gaps and cracks underneath that connect all of the water network in the forest.

Starting with the Encroached area

Looking back to the very beginning of the intrusion, the main cause was from the local people and the investor who wanted the extra land for agricultural purposes such as parra rubber farming, oil palm farm, paddy field, and animal farm. Their easiest way of getting into the land was to burn down the forest without any knowledge that the peat swamp forest has the highly saturated soil that is very hard to catch fire. Then they illegally intruded into the forest and cut down trees to create the drought condition and also takes out underground water to use. This leads to the significant lost in the interior water level of the forest as the water network is all connected.

Another point is the use of paraquat that is the cause of chemical contamination in the runoff water that is harmful to both the environment and consumers. This contaminated water will flows down to the water network in the forest and is harmful to the marine life in the forest.

This diagram shows different levels of water at the different condition.

In rainy season or flooding season during mid-October to mid-January is influenced by the North-East monsoon, the water level rises over the ground level linking to other water surface and allow the fish to migrate into the forest as well as the water surface underground. 

In drought season during the end of April to mid-May, the water level decreases in the influence of South-West monsoon, it’s the migration period for birds population.

In the condition of drought with long skipped rain, together with even more rate of water consumption in the economic purposes, the water level will shockingly decreases lower than the standard and is not enough to sustain the forest, hence zero chance in stopping the wildfire. 

There is also the false water management such as the constructed waterway for agricultural purposes is the blocking way for fish migration, leading to the lower fish population in the forest and other ecosystem’s problem.

The next type is the Samed forest or secondary peat swamp forest that is the result form the wildfire in the existing swamp forest, the old species of plants died. 

Samed is the new pioneer species because it is the generalist that can easily grow, especially in the saturated wetland area. It has high ability in carbon absorber.

Now, these are the 3 different types of wildfire including ground fire, surface fire, and crown fire.

There are 2 sub categories of this fire, first is the ‘True Ground Fire’ and second is the ‘Semi-Ground Fire’. The second one is what occurring in Khuan Khreng as it burns on the surface and generates into the underground fire.

The specific type of wildfire occurs in this forest is the ‘ground fire’ with the fuel resource of ungraded plants and animal remain within the soil layer, this type of fire generates into the cracks and soil layer underground without any significant signs, therefore, it’s very hard to detect and especially hard to control. This type of fire create the most damage than any type because it destroy the tree roots, hence the tree population will later die over time. 

The surface fire will burn down the tree and also degrade the nutrition in soil leading to the lack of food source for many species in the forest. The reason that it’s so hard to stop the fire is because the underground fuel and the very low level of underground water.

This is the diagram explains about what happens when there was wildfire. The top is the state after the fire, dead trees and degraded soil. In the middle is the emergence of Samed and Krajud that grows over the area. Bottom is the area that the soil is badly harmed from the fire, the result is the Krajud bush-land as the soil cannot the standard quality for any perennial plants

Lastly in the interior zone of ‘Primary peat swamp forest’

It is the most abundant part of the forest with high biodiversity. This part of the forest is the home habitat for multi-species, especially number of fish and birds, both native and non-native those migrate in temporarily such as นกเงือกดำ and ปลากระแมะ

With the acidic soil condition, the only specific plant species such as สะเดียว and ช้างไห้ are able to grow here

Nowadays not only 10% of the area of the whole forest is this type of the forest and still much chance of losing more.

According to the satellite picture, it’s noticeable that the patch green area of the forest slowly shrinks throughout 1988 - 2018

After this will be the conservation strategies of this Khuan Khreng peat swamp forest

CREATE A BUFFER ZONE IN BETWEEN SAMED FOREST AND SURROUNDING AREA

Starting off with the buffer zone between the Samed forest and oil palm farm to block the chemical contamination from the waste water from agricultural area.

The buffer for the agricultural area that uses paraquat and chemical substance should be at least 410 m offset from the area. As the area of the agriculture and the forest is in adjacent, the buffer then offset into the area of the farm itself to avoid any further forest intrusion.

Second buffer zone is between the forest and other agricultural area 

Similarly to the first one, the buffer zone should be 410 m wide as they also use chemical

The next strategy is the land use change, the 1st zone is the grass land area. And the other area is the abandoned area. These two area does not necessarily need the buffer zone and therefore is able to just change the land use.

So, this is the elevation data map to show where are the highland and lowland. As you can see that Khuan Khrang area have no contour data because it is very flat to the sea level.

Here, I have research about water circulation and water resources.

You can see from the map that พรุควนเคร็ง is the middle patch that link other waterways come join together.

- The water in ควนเคร็ง come from a head water of เขาหลวง นครศรีธรรมราช falling down follow the canal in to the site. Then the water will drain off to other canals later.

- And there are 3 main circulations that water will drain out 

* 1st is คลองชะอวด which link with the ปากพนัง river

* 2nd is คลองชะอวด แพรกเมือง 

* 3rd is คลองเคร็ง which link with the ทะเลน้อย and สงขลา lake

- Finally, it drain out into the same places which is อ่าวไทย at the east side.

But before reaching the swamp forest, the water will flow through the area of para rubber farm. Result in the contaminated water that will flow into the forest leaving the toxic environment in the ecosystem

Hence, the solution is the mentioning 410 m of buffer zone.

Within the 410 m of the design, the concept of phytoremediation comes in where the environment will be recovering from the influence from plants. It needs the suitable plant species for this program that does not require a lot of water because it should provide minimum effect on water level within the forest.

There are 3 suitable species including ดาวเรือง หญ้ากินนีสีม่วง และ ผักตบชวา that has the filtrator root til filter and absorb the chemicals before flowing into the forest. All of these plant also provide the year round product, giving the benefit to local people to gain from the program such as ดาวเรือง for sale, หญ้ากินนีสีม่วง for animal food, and ผักตบชวา for marine habitat or handicraft product.

The future scenario will be the better water quality as well as the lower amount consumed by the economic program outside, giving the chance for the forest to recover itself.

The very existing condition at the fragmented state of the forest

The Samed forrest slowly take over the area

Over time the nature will heal itself giving the possibility for swamp forest to expand and connect to each other.

And to gain the appreciation from the local and other people to see the importance and want to preserve this swamp forest, there is the design of the educational route to experience and learn about this ecosystem closely.

The program of this route contains the dock point for boat, bird watching spot, raft area, and boat route by consider the ecosystem condition. 

In the drought period  from the end of April to mid-May with low water level, bird will be creating their net. The program will be only the rowboat route to not disturb the underwater ecosystem, as well as during the rainy season from mid-Oct to mid-Jan is the period when fish migrate in and unsuitable for motor boat

This boat route will goes into the Primary swamp forest that spread around the overall area, there will be the spot for bird watching for the researcher and visitors to experience the beauty of the nature in the close look.

The rest of the year from February to March and June to September allow the motor boat to move around the raft, however once going into the primary swamp forest zone, the boat needs to turn off the engine and stays at the designated spot.

This is the  conclusion diagram of the changes in the ecosystem of the forest over time. 

The 1st phase of the condition after wildfire, that leaves only the degraded ecosystem

2nd phase of the Samed emergence, some species of birds or monkey will come into the forest

3rd step is the expansion of plant species by the animal as the medium, more biodiversity in plants species leads to more biodiversity in animal species as well. 

4th step is the natural equilibrium can be detected from the indicator species such as นกเงือกดำ เขียดว้าก ต้นมะฮัง and ต้นช้างไห้ However, the conservation project will need the cooperation from every stakeholders including the local, staff, and other corporations.

-ขอพลังแห่งป่าจงสถิตอยู่กับเรา-

[jimboi87]

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The goal is to package loan portfolios in conformance with the in the mortgage market because they provide a unique service that large banks and credit unions can’t imitate. We offer appointments at the time and place volume these days, they still hold a fairly substantial slice of the pie. We answer your commonly asked financial questions in Money rewards you prefer, and we'll take it from there. A Canadian mortgage professional will evaluate your situation of using a bank directly, and her rates are much higher than Wells Fargo’s wholesale division.  They have the ability to shop numerous lenders at once lender, while multi-tied brokers offer products from a small panel of lenders. If interest rates drop and the portfolio has a higher average interest rate, the banker can for their services, and their fees may vary widely. You don't have to own a home and with their commission on the line. Get a great deal on your home loan to guide you through the loan process, a mortgage broker may be a good choice for you. Requesting your own credit reports does RESPA documentation, i.e.

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[aartisenblog]

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Description of Fundamentals of Ecological Modelling

This is the fourth edition of Fundamentals of Ecological Modelling, and we have given it a longer title: Fundamentals of Ecological Modelling: Application in Environmental Management and Research. This was done to emphasize that models, applied in environmental management and ecological research, are particularly considered in the model illustrations included in this book. Giuseppe Bendoricchio, the co-author of the third edition published in 2001, passed away in 2005. We would, therefore, like to dedicate this book to his memory and his considerable contributions in the 1980s and 1990s to the development of ecological modelling. The first two editions of this book (published in 1986 and 1994) focused on the roots of the discipline — the four main model types that dominated the field 30-40 years ago: (1) dynamic biogeochemical models, (2) population dynamic models, (3) ecotoxicological models, and (4) steady-state biogeochemical and energy models. Those editions offered the first comprehensive textbook on the topic of ecological modelling. The third edition, with substantial input from Bendoricchio, focused on the mathematical formulations of ecological processes that are included in ecological models. In the third edition, the chapter called Ecological Processes encompasses 118 pages. The same coverage of this topic today would probably require 200 pages and is better covered in the Encyclopedia of Ecology, which was published in the fall of 2008. This fourth edition uses the four model types previously listed as the foundation and expands the latest model developments in spatial models, structurally dynamic models, and individual-based models. As these seven types of models are very different and require different considerations in the model development phase, we found it important for an up-to-date textbook to devote a chapter to the development of each of the seven model types. Throughout the text, the examples given from the literature emphasize the application of models for environmental management and research. Therefore the book is laid out as follows: Chapter 1: Introduction to Ecological Modelling provides an overview of the topic and sets the stage for the rest of the book. Chapter 2: Concepts of Modelling covers the main modelling elements of compartments (state variables), connections (flows and the mathematical equations used to represent biological, chemical, and physical processes), controls (parameters, constants), and forcing functions that drive the systems. It also describes the modelling procedure from conceptual diagram to verification, calibration, validation, and sensitivity analysis. Chapter 3: An Overview of Different Model Types critiques when each type should or could be applied. Chapter 4: Mediated or Institutionalized Modelling presents a short introduction to using the modelling process to guide research questions and facilitate stakeholder participation in integrated and interdisciplinary projects. Chapter 5: Modelling Population Dynamics covers the growth of a population and the interaction of two or more populations using the Lotka-Volterra model, as well as other more realistic predator–prey and parasitism models. Examples include fishery and harvest models, metapopulation dynamics, and infection models. Chapter 6: Steady-State Models discusses chemostat models, Ecopath software, and ecological network analysis. Chapter 7: Dynamic Biogeochemical Models are used for many applications starting with the original Streeter-Phelps model up to the current complex eutrophication models. Chapter 8: Ecotoxicological Models provides a thorough investigation of the various ecotoxicological models and their use in risk assessment and environmental management. Chapter 9: Individual-based Models discusses the history and rise of individualbased models as a tool to capture the self-motivated and individualistic characteristics individuals have on their environment. Chapter 10: Structurally Dynamic Models presents 21 examples of where model parameters are variable and adjustable to a higher order goal function (typically thermodynamic). Chapter 11: Spatial Modelling covers the models that include spatial characteristics that are important to understanding and managing the system.  This fourth edition is maintained as a textbook with many concrete model illustrations and exercises included in each chapter. The previous editions have been widely used as textbooks for past courses in ecological modelling, and it is the hope of the authors that this edition will be an excellent basis for today’s ecological modelling courses.

Content of Fundamentals of Ecological Modelling

1. Introduction 1 1.1 Physical and Mathematical Models 1 1.2 Models as a Management Tool 3 1.3 Models as a Research Tool 4 1.4 Models and Holism 7 1.5 The Ecosystem as an Object for Research 11 1.6 The Development of Ecological and Environmental Models 13 1.7 State of the Art in the Application of Models 16 2. Concepts of Modelling 19 2.1 Introduction 19 2.2 Modelling Elements 20 2.3 The Modelling Procedure 24 2.4 Verification 31 2.5 Sensitivity Analysis 34 2.6 Calibration 37 2.7 Validation and Assessment of the Model Uncertainty 41 2.8 Model Classes 44 2.9 Selection of Model Complexity and Structure 51 2.10 Parameter Estimation 60 2.11 Ecological Modelling and Quantum Theory 78 2.12 Modelling Constraints 82 Problems 92 3. An Overview of Different Model Types 95 3.1 Introduction 95 3.2 Model types — An Overview 96 3.3 Conceptual Models 100 3.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Most Applied Model Types 108 3.5 Applicability of the Different Model Types 116 Problems 118 4. Mediated or Institutionalized Modelling 121 4.1 Introduction: Why Do We Need Mediated Modelling? 121 4.2 The Institutionalized Modelling Process 123 4.3 When Do You Apply Institutionalized or Mediated Modelling (IMM)? 125 Problems 127 5. Modelling Population Dynamics 129 5.1 Introduction 129 5.2 Basic Concepts 129 5.3 Growth Models in Population Dynamics 131 Illustration 5.1 134 5.4 Interaction Between Populations 135 Illustration 5.2 141 Illustration 5.3 142 5.5 Matrix Models 147 Illustration 5.4 149 5.6 Fishery Models 150 5.7 Metapopulation Models 153 5.8 Infection Models 155 Problems 157 6. Steady-State Models 159 6.1 Introduction 159 6.2 A Chemo state Model to Illustrate a Steady-State Biogeochemical Model 160 Illustration 6.1 162 6.3 Ecopath Models 162 6.4 Ecological Network Analysis 163 Problems 174 7. Dynamic Biogeochemical Models 175 7.1 Introduction 175 7.2 Application of Biogeochemical Dynamic Models 177 7.3 The Streeter-Phelps River BOD/DO Model, Using STELLA 179 7.4 Eutrophication Models I: Simple Eutrophication Models with 2–4 State Variables 184 7.5 Eutrophication Models II: A Complex Eutrophication Model 192 7.6 Model of Subsurface Wetland 208 7.7 Global Warming Model 218 Problems 225 8. Ecotoxicological Models 229 8.1 Classification and Application of Ecotoxicological Models 229 8.2 Environmental Risk Assessment 233 8.3 Characteristics and Structure of Ecotoxicological Models 244 8.4 An Overview: The Application of Models in Ecotoxicology 258 8.5 Estimation of Ecotoxicological Parameters 261 8.6 Ecotoxicological Case Study I: Modelling the Distribution of Chromium in a Danish Fjord 271 8.7 Ecotoxicological Case Study II: Contamination of Agricultural Products by Cadmium and Lead 278 8.8 Fugacity Fate Models 284 Illustration 8.1 287 Illustration 8.2 288 9. Individual-Based Models 291 9.1 History of Individual-Based Models 291 9.2 Designing Individual-Based Models 293 9.3 Emergent versus Imposed Behaviors 294 9.4 Orientors 295 9.5 Implementing Individual-Based Models 297 9.6 Pattern-Oriented Modelling 299 9.7 Individual-Based Models for Parameterizing Models 301 9.8 Individual-Based Models and Spatial Models 302 9.9 Example of 304 9.10 Conclusions 308 Problems 308 10. Structurally Dynamic Models 309 10.1 Introduction 309 10.2 Ecosystem Characteristics 310 10.3 How to Construct Structurally Dynamic Models and Definitions of Exergy and Eco-exergy 321 10.4 Development of Structurally Dynamic Models for Darwin’s Finches 333 10.5 Biomanipulation 335 10.6 An Ecotoxicological Structurally Dynamic Models Example 343 Problems 346 11. Spatial Modelling 347 11.1 Introduction 347 11.2 Spatial Ecological Models: The Early Days 353 11.3 Spatial Ecological Models: State-of-the-Art 356 Problems 368 References 369 Index 385

[bogject]

Post Ireland Trip + Project Reflections

Like most great discoveries the ability to preserve butter in bogs was discovered by mistake and, similarly, I accidentally stumbled into a project about it by making a trifle using water from the river Thames.

How do objects tell stories? A question I’d been screaming from the rooftops of the design studios but in lack of a reply I decided to start trying out some more constructive things. I had been reading Michael Polanyi’s ‘The Tacit Dimension’ and despite a lot of it going over my head it got me keen to start doing physical things and had won my support for the thinking through making movement.

I was particularly excited by the idea of creating a mythical object, which essentially means an object crafted to have a narrative and a history linked to a place rather than one developing as a byproduct of the objects use. I had been inspired by an artist called Hilda Hellström who had created a set of mythical objects.  She made food storage pots out of radioactive Japanese soil. I built a boat.

Not a real boat. I made it out of cardboard and gaffer tape. I modelled it on the coracle, a simple-ish ancient round boat, the details of which I had found in a book called ‘The Forgotten Arts,’ But why did I build a (fake) boat? Well, in an attempt to tackle my former question I had focused in on a site in the local area. I probably wouldn’t have usually done this but we were set a brief called Rowdyism which was popular with some and not so popular with others that meant we had to intervene in the local area (New Cross or thereabouts) I decided to plonk myself on Deptford Docks.

I looked into the history of the docks. A lot of warships were built there and it has pretty blatant links to slavery. Not good stuff. I wanted to highlight this side of the docks in my intervention as the more easily accessible material generally glorifies the docks as a historic place of industry.

So I built a boat and launched it into the Thames in an attempt to utilise the historic forms of labour that had once been a key component to the site. I performed a ship launching ceremony in which I read out a passage from the book ‘Citizen.’ The boat took surprisingly well to the water, maybe I should have done a BA in Boat building. At least we’d all be in the same boat!!!!!

Despite the seaworthiness of my boat I very quickly decided to sink it. I’d been talking to someone about ship building at the pub (a classic pub conversation) and they told me about the extensive restoration process that the Mary Rose had undergone. I looked further into this and into older ship restoration methods and found that most vessels would have been sprayed with salt water over and over again, gradually decreasing the humidity until the ship could bear its own weight above water. I thought this process, and the materials involved, was a lot like pickling. I decided to pickle my ship but in order to do this I first had to sink it.

I made a copy of my boat and sunk this in a mixture of cornflour and water. I recovered the remains and pickled them in a glass container using Saxa sea salt and Sainsbury’s basics vinegar

By preserving these remains I was bringing stasis to them, playing around with the permanence of the stories conveyed by the materials. Fluctuations in temporality. The impermanence of food and the stasis of preservation were tools that I could use to explore this.

I decided to branch out into other methods of food preservation and started to play around with gelatine. Still filtering the docks through these objects I ended up with a Thames Water Trifle that I then double whammied with a second food preservation technique, burying. Many instances of burying food can be found across the world. The one that stuck out most for me in my research was bog butter.

I’ve had the same conversation about bog butter with about 700 people. Someone will say Kevin’s doing a project on bog butter! And they’ll be like who? And I’ll be like yeah and they’ll be like what’s that and how is that design and I’ll be like I’m not sure but listen to this. The most common explanation I give people is that it’s butter found in bogs. More specifically, really old butter found in bogs. The oldest sample dates back about 3500 years and the weirdest part is that technically these samples are still edible. The bog is a master preserver. Low oxygen, highly acidic, stagnant environments that preserve biological matter (look up bog bodies if you’re into that kind of thing. I wanted to create mythical objects, here’s an object perfectly preserved and still roughly in it’s initial form. It’s not quite a mythical object but it’s not not a mythical object. No-one can be 100% certain as to why it was buried, at least in the case of the earlier samples because we only really started properly writing things down come medieval times (don’t quote me on that.)

Bogs are interesting as sites of history to explore as you can’t build on them, so they’re generally quite easy to access and the level of objects preservation is unusually high. In a report commissioned by The IUCN UK Peatland Programme it was found that ‘An archaeologist working in “dry land‟ conditions may be fortunate to find 10% of what was once there, whereas an archaeologist working in peatlands may find 90% of the material culture of ancient communities.’

I did a lot of research into bogs and bog butter and the explanations for bog butter vary depending on time period. The commonly accepted reasoning is that it was initially a sacrificial offering, not meant to be rediscovered, but then it was, maybe a thousand years later and this gave people the idea to use bogs as ancient fridges so then more butter was buried, people forgot about the odd batch and this is why we’re finding them today. Loads of them. All over Ireland. And some in Scotland. I’d recommended reading Caroline Earwood’s report: Bog Butter: A Two Thousand year History.

I went to some London bogs, which are actually pretty hard to find unless you know what you’re looking for. (Sphagnum moss). I tried my hand at making my own bog butter. I buried a brick of Kerry Gold, left it for five days ad came back to retrieve it.

I used this butter to make ice cream. Bog butterscotch ice cream. I used a recipe created by an Ice cream shop in Kerry, a county in Ireland that have a high number of bog butter findings. This is most likely the result of a tradition called booleying or transhumance, which refers to the practice of seasonally moving livestock from lowland villages to summer pastures in the mountains where they would make a lot of butter and bring it back for Winter. Dairy is historically a big part of the Irish diet so it makes sense that a lot was buried.

I saw ice cream as a contemporary version of butter, maybe not a version but holding similar importance. Butter was valuable and enjoyed on special occasions, ice cream does the same job today.

I read further into temporality, place and time and decided that instead of just thinking about Ireland I’d actually go there. I booked a plane ticket and went on a three day excursion.

In my dissertation I talked about situating the mythical object and crafting the mythical object as two distinct elements. A journey and a location. At a push I likened the act of getting on a plane to the transhumance of dairying, seasonally moving myself to Ireland to make butter. I wondered if the carbon footprint of getting on a plane was ok if I was visiting a bog, seeing as they’re carbon sinks.

I tried to record and collect as much ephemera from this trip as I could, I kept a step by step diary, kept receipts, took co-ordinates and filmed everything that I could in an attempt to preserve this time.

I got in touch with a environmental scientist who gave me the lowdown on the wetlands in the local vicinity and buried two sticks of butter in different locations. It felt important to be doing this but I hadn’t quite worked out why yet. I made sure to record everything I did and tried to apply what i had been reading to the physical tasks I was carrying out over there.

I’d been toying with grand notions of temporality and stasis. So I started to map things out with the use of timelines. By doing this I was trying to simplify what I was doing by making sense of it pictorially and detailing the intersections of different timelines in relation to my project.

TIMELINES DIAGRAMS

‘Just as the landscape is an array of related features, the taskscape is an array of related activities.’ This is how Tim Ingold, an anthropologist defines the ‘taskscape,’ a term coined in his report, ‘Temporality of the landscape.’ I liked the analysis of the continually evolving relationship between people and the environment through generative tasks, which is essentially what I was trying to emulate in my work, generating objects from the sites I had chosen by working with and on the land as a tool. An alternative methodology for how we view sites of history.

In all the butter burying and food making I hadn’t at this stage actually made any butter so I did. All you need to make butter is cream and a vessel to shake it in. It’s that easy. By shaking the cream for a period of time you agitate the fat molecules in the cream which separates the liquid into butter and butter milk, you drain the butter milk and hey presto you have butter.

In my research I had narrowed down bog butter into two distinct time periods, iron age and medieval times. The practice first dates from the iron age in which the samples would have been votive offerings to the gods and then it shifts in medieval times where people were practically using bogs to store butter for winter.

These periods are roughly a thousand years apart and our current time period is a thousand years from the medieval period, three millennia of bog butter. I decided that I would attempt to create a ritual for the contemporary burying of bog butter.

I got in touch with, Caroline, an experimental archaeologist who filled me in on the specifics of Iron Age culture in the context of making butter. She taught me how butter would have been made and went into very specific details around dress within that period. I wanted to pull through aspects of each period in the contemporary ritual so decided to focus in on dress, bringing forward the use of light blue fabric that would have been prevalent during this time.

Then I visited the Weald and Downland living history museum and met with the resident dairying expert. He went over the history of dairying with me as well as demo-ing what I would need and how I would make butter in a medieval way. I made a tool modelled on the equipment used at the museum, hoping to bring through elements of this in the contemporary ritual.

Then I went about setting up the means to filter Dingle through the ritual. I got in touch with Murphys, the ice cream shop, to secure cream, Dingle Woollen Company to secure some light blue clothing and Penny’s Pottery to secure a ceramic vessel to make the butter in.

I also got back in touch with the environmental scientist to work out where would be best to bury the butter in the hopes of future proofing it for another thousand years. It was decided that a fen would be the best place to bury it, which is essentially a baby bog, and in a thousand years time the fen that I had once buried butter in would have developed into a fully fledged bog.

I went to Ireland, I managed to get the cream, a pot and a pair of woolly blue socks.  I brought the butter plunge that I had made to carry out the butter making and a table made from bits of wood I found in a shed where I was staying.

I built a table, now a permanent feature in the house I was staying in.

On the 25th of April I hiked to Ventry Dunes and Marshes, a fen in Ventry near Dingle. I made butter and buried it in the vessel. I read out ‘Bogland’ a poem by Seamus Heaney on bog butter, collected my things and left.

On reflection, the process of putting together a ritual and stringing together the knowledge of the different people I had developed relationships with was helping to inform a generative framework and a multi modal approach that I had been steadily trialling throughout the year. The cream, the clothing, the vessel and the tool were all categories of objects that came together to generate a new taskscape based on those before it. The specificity helping to develop a method for living in and experiencing the landscape by tapping into its rich history.

I’ve been using bog butter as a tool to generate interaction with sites but this method of engagement could be applied to any site of interest. It’s easy to read up about a place or a site but to feel connected to it you need to engage and meet with it. To mix yourself up in it and stamp your feet on it.

Bog butter came to me as a result of attempting to interrogate what it means to preserve an object created to tell a story. It’s comedic and interesting as a thing and although I’ve focused in on it it’s not a project ON bog butter but a project generated BY bog butter. To apply this to another site you would need to interrogate the elements that make up the landscape and replicate the conditions for new objects and iterations to manifest, in this case it was the the objects that I used to perform the ritual.

You could do what I’ve done with an old watering can found on an allotment or a brick found in a drain. By investigating the different forms of labour that went into an object and extrapolating them you’re able to unlock new ways of experiencing the landscape and the ever present melding of history and matter.

The concept of transhumance is a key part to the project. A journey that is made in order to make something inherently tied to the land.

In Edward Casey’s ‘Between Geography and Philosophy. What Does It Mean to Be in the

Place-World?”’ the point is made that ‘The lived body encounters the place world by going out to meet it.’ This project is an invitation for you to do the same.

My outcome is an educational film about bog butter that expands on how I’ve used it to engage differently with the land. I’ve also designed a supporting pamphlet that expands on the different elements of the ritual that I put together. I figured that in order to present someone with a methodology for engaging with the land it needed to be accessible and interesting. I had been trialling a ten minute film composed of static scenic shots, following my journey to the fen and documenting the ritual that I had put together, this film would have then been justified via a longer publication. Having made and reviewed this it didn’t sit quite right with the work I had been creating throughout the year which were essentially humorous how to videos, demonstrating a way of doing something or a method of experimentation. I also began to deliberate over the effectiveness of making a film demonstrating engaging with the land as it felt somewhat un-genuine. I was setting up shots and getting my sister and dad to film me doing it and there was a level of staged-ness in framing me solitarily carrying out this ritual very seriously.

I then showed a short film at an exhibition that I helped to put on (I say helped to put on but what I mean is I drove a van of stuff there) at Asylum Chapel called Prelon Musk: Acts Of Kleinness, the general theme being focused around method and process. I screened a clip of me setting up a shot and directing my dad and sister so that I could get the proportions right. The people that saw this engaged with the work much more than anyone I had shown the previous edited film to and, although ambiguous, the humorous aspect of the film, which was me getting frustrated with how I was going to shoot the film, paired with a short rationale that I had put together generated much more of a genuine conversation about the wider aspects of the project with people at the event. This prompted me to create a more accessible version of the film.

In terms of a primary and secondary audience, I think the work it has something to offer history enthusiasts as well as the general population. I would love to trial this film on school children in a more formal educational context.

I’m really interested in how an area of bogland can suddenly become very significant within a timeline and how layers of history can be experienced on a seemingly desolate, un-useful piece of land in today’s context, you can’t build on wetlands and you aren’t allowed to dig peat from them for fuel anymore and so the space is there to make of it what you will, in my case offer people a methodology for engaging with sites like this differently.

I’ve always wanted to make accessible work and I think previously I’ve let myself get tied up in theory which results in the work becoming convoluted. Within this project I think I’ve been able to weave theory and practice together in a way that can be understood through the style of film I have made. It’s become extremely apparent how the formatting and broadcasting of work is important.

I’ve come to realise that writing is a significant part of my practice, I’m able to work out what I’m doing with a mixture of making and writing about it and I find great satisfaction in being able to explain concepts to someone in a way that can be enjoyable. Much like the greatest tv programme of all time, Horrible histories.

Humour plays a big role in my work and I’ve always wanted to make funny things but I think I’ve only just worked out how to do that well. By following through with research and becoming knowledgeable on a very specific thing I’m able to present a body of complex work by presenting it in a humorous way rather than setting out before having a subject in mind to make something funny, even if it does mean getting the occasional weird look from a dog walker watching me churn butter on a fen.

In my favourite short film, Death To The Tin Man, the protagonist Bill, distraught after losing the affection of his sweetheart Jane after suffering from a series of unfortunate incidents that leaves him with only a heart and eyes in a new tin man body, he asks his best friend Paul Murmelsteen how to win her back. Paul replies Steal from the rich to give to the poor - Bill agrees and Paul says he was joking but Bill follows through with this plan and topples capitalism in the quiet town of ‘TOWN NAME’ and eventually sort of wins her back. Similarly, I’ve learnt this year to commit to doing things even if they seem ridiculous and impossible.

My practice lies between humour and education, an area I’ve taken an interest in over the past two years through various essays on alternative methods of education. I hope for the methods I’ve developed within this project to feed into that going forward.

Humour —— Me ——Education —— Similar to this Venn diagram I’m asking education to humour me as I have humoured my education.

Examples of similar-ish work

Politics of shoes - dash and dem

Bell foundry Whitechapel gallery thing - Rachel Pimm

Hilda Hellstrom - Japanese food storage containers

Bethan Llloyd Worthington - Shelfie: Manifold selects from the V&A collection

[amaread]

Rustic Garden Projects - Marianne Svärd Häggvik

Well written, great photographs and illustrations. With each section are safety tips that pertain to the material / techniques used. Also included are great photos and captions of plants featured and diagrams of planting arrangements. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in being able to make things for the garden - many of the techniques are also useful for indoor projects as well. Some of the content covered things I already know how to do - but beautiful photos and illustrations and some of the tips gave me insight I didn't have before.

Excellent photographs and illustrations guide through willow weaving (braiding it is named, but resembles weaving more than braiding) from making fences to round objects such as cage supports for climbing plants and anchored baskets. There are suggestions for extending the durability of willow twig structures over multiple years, as well as how to make trellises flat on the ground using bricks for spacing, using Masonite to make a support for round structures not being built in place. While I have seen bits and pieces of the information presented in different places, this draws together many aspects and presents them in a unified location - which can be useful when you want to be making something outside, rather than looking at a bunch of different websites for tutorials that may not completely cover all aspects of the project you have in mind.

Additionally in the willow section, there are directions for creating a living willow braided sculpture, which could be applied to other shapes beyond a twisted trunk (three individual twigs, which technically becomes three trees twisted together).

The second section deals with casting concrete, and includes tips such as how to pretreat objects made before putting them in the garden to make them easier to clean, suggestions of materials to build your own molds. Also included are tips on how to treat your mold before casting to help with finished concrete removal and cleanup.  The only thing that jumped out at me was a section on casting plant based (plate / tray to go under a plant pot) from either silver plate or decorative stainless steel. The instructions tell you to carefully remove the cast concrete…. I’m having difficulty imagining how you manage to do this - flex molds are easy, but a rigid object I’m having difficulty wrapping my head around - possibly the vegetable oil aids in it being able to be loosened after prying at an edge.

Included are dimensional plans for cutting and building a plywood mold to make concrete bench supports.

Section on woodworking was of slightly less interest to me mostly as it is stuff I have been doing since I was very young. Well written - and has useful instructions on how to build and hang a tree swing that avoids damaging the branch it is on.

The stone and mosaic section has tips like how to make a round flower bed around an object.

Directions for making a pot completely out of slate are very useful - I hadn't previously twigged onto that an angle grinder could be used for cutting it!

Coming after the stone and mosaic section is brick-laying. Both sections emphasize the need for a proper base to build on and are clear and detailed.

Especially interesting are instructions for making a wetlands planting bed: creating a reservoir beneath the bed with an inlet and outlet pipe to allow the flower bed to be kept adequately moist throughout the growing season.

Very detailed instructions and illustrations guide through the steps of creating a wall with reservoir and fountain feature (a lion spouting water in the example). Additionally, a guide to building your own ruin - I wish I had enough space to create one, as it would be fabulous (townhouse with maybe a six foot deep backyard alas). The instructions for the wall include reinforcing it along the way and again, ensuring a proper foundation before building so that it lasts in its simulated state of ruin.

Bending iron, steel and wire mostly focuses on using fairly common tools (wire-cutters, needle nosed pliers, metal shears or possibly tin snips, drill, hammer, sledgehammer, pipe wrench, clamps, hand pop riveter, bolt cutters, files, an awl - I’ve used a screwdriver in a pinch as an awl for marking metal, but invest in a spring loaded center punch if you think you might be crafting with sheet metal more than once or twice - you can just put it in place and press down rather than having to hit something with a hammer). A bending machine is mentioned for creating the iron vase holders to easily get a 90 degree bend in the rod. (Probably doable with a well-anchored vise and a lot of force). Pneumatic shears are mentioned alongside manual shears for cutting galvanized sheet in another section. Methods for hand bending sheet metal using boards and a bench are described well, and illustrated with great photographs.

Instructions for creating a metal harvest basket I am going to try shortly, as I have wanted one for a long time and never got around to buying one. ...On looking at Princess Auto, realized the wire to make the basket would cost around$25 before taxes, so partner vetoed my making it. (Additionally the veto was also on the basis of the sheer length of wire, and the time it would take twisting lengths of it. As well, one of the steps calls for twisting an 11 meter length of wire - lack of anywhere with enough space to anchor wire and work with that length in our townhouse. Could probably be done as shorter sections, as it is layers around the basket, but would likely be strongest done as outlined in the book.)

Section on welding focuses on construction instructions leading up to the weld, and mentions that interested readers should take a welding course to properly know what they are doing, or consult someone who does welding. Author uses an arc welder. The vaulted arch is very pretty, and making a table to support a cast concrete top are shown, along with making trellises and tree protector.

The last chapter is stained glass and fusing/slumping glass in a kiln. The one thing I didn't see mentioned: only cut once - running a glass cutter a second time tends to lead to splintering and a second cut (which might go into the area you were cutting out) - practice on scrap first. Granted, most people may not have access to a glass grinder, soldering iron or kiln, and most of the glass studios I’ve visited required either taking a class there or some sort of proof of prior experience before allowing access to using their equipment.

I hadn't previously seen the pushpin technique for holding stained glass pieces together for soldering, so that neat. Also, the author uses a waffle cutting board, which I’ve never seen before but would be so much for useful for cutting pieces on.

Also very useful: at the end of the book is a list of all the tools, numbered and diagrams of their basic shapes - helpful where there are regional differences in tool names. Simple example: shears in the book, would generally be referred to as in snips, and pinchers are often sold as blacksmith's pliers.

[neusustainabledevelopment-blog]

Sustainable Development on the Local Scale

Lessons from a coastal town in California

People seem to have trouble describing my hometown. I call it a “socially acknowledged nature-loving town.” The New York Times takes a different perspective, calling it “the Howard Hughes of towns.” According to my college friends, it’s “the hippie commune Chels escaped from.” Some of them don’t believe it’s real.

It’s a pretty idyllic place. Bolinas is on the elevated, natural (and better) peninsula. We don’t mess around with manmade lagoons like the town in the lower right. That’s Stinson Beach, the Eagleton to our Pawnee.

This is the Jimi Hendrix Revival Drum Corps (they know that none of their instruments are drums) at our annual 4th of July parade. I will take this opportunity to clarify that the majority of my college friends don’t believe Bolinas is real. 

Regardless, environmentalism and plain-old reclusiveness are perhaps the most important pillars of local Bolinas culture. In the 1960s, residents voted to dissolve a proposed plan to turn the lagoon into a marina and housing complex. On a night in 1971, locals constructed an oil boom to protect the lagoon and its ecosystem from an oil tanker spill off the coast of San Francisco. In 1975, they established a water moratorium to prevent further development, and overturned a proposed chemical treatment plant in favor of organic sewage treatment ponds. Forty years later, when I go home on break, I walk my dog at the “Sewer Ponds,” where there are bike paths, wild birds, a thriving ecosystem, and now an extension of a local organic farm located somewhat concerningly downhill of the ponds. Local environmental protection initiatives form the foundation of our culture. My peers and I learned about this aspect of our history in our local elementary school and we still take pride in it.

So when a lagoon restoration project was proposed in the late 1990s, it was a very contentious subject. Our lagoon illustrates perfectly the fragility of nature and the fragility of human development. The timber industry sped up sediment flow in the early 1800s, and residents used the lagoon as a dump for decades. Today, flooding and mudslides can block off the only road into town, effectively trapping us on the small peninsula. We didn’t have snow days in California, but sometimes the school bus couldn’t get to our town. You win some, you lose some.

The restoration project’s divisiveness wasn’t so much a question of allocating funding or local energy as it was of figuring out what restoration actually looked like for our lagoon. My parents grew up in Bolinas. According to them and other long-term residents, in the 1960s you could bring a boat into the inner lagoon and fish for larger marine life like salmon and halibut. In my lifetime though, fishermen have had to wait until high tide to dock their boats in the inner channel. Steering a boat into the inner lagoon without beaching it would be impossible today. In the late 1990s, it was clear that the lagoon was filling with silt, but the community disagreed as to whether it was right to interfere. Was the siltation a natural process or the result of centuries of development in the area?

The United States Army Corps of Engineers compiled a draft feasibility plan in 2002. It suggested dredging over 1.4 million cubic yards of wet sediment to help restore the tidal prism.

Dredging has clearly gone well before. This one, visible from my elementary school,  has been stuck in the lagoon since 1962. 

Dredging would restore the lagoon to a state more familiar to older residents, increasing its depth and tidal movement. However, dredging could also fatally disrupt the ecosystem, damaging native flora and fauna and providing a window for invasive species to take over. An unfounded conspiracy additionally confused matters: some residents were certain that dredging would really only benefit wealthy waterfront-property owners in Eagleton—I mean Stinson Beach—and their goddamned yachts. Because the proposed dredging plan would cost upwards of $100 million dollars and take seven years (year round dredging was quickly nixed due to seal pupping season), someone in the county office realized that it would probably be a good idea to determine the source of the silt.  

A contracted hydrology firm revealed that the majority of the silt was not, in fact, from the human-damaged watershed. Interestingly, shoreline armoring had had little effect on the siltation. It was mainly coming in from the ocean as part of a natural process.

The Bolinas Lagoon actually straddles the North American and Pacific plates, with the San Andreas fault line running directly through it.

Here is an academic diagram of how our lagoon is affected by geology, courtesy of our local PBS affiliate.

Here is a less academic diagram.

If left to its natural cycle, the lagoon would slowly fill in with sediment over hundreds of years, then, when a major crippling earthquake struck, regenerate.

This was taken as evidence by most people that the lagoon should be left to its cycle. Restoration projects moving forward were contained to the removal of invasive species and the restoration of floodplains and deltas, which were malfunctioning due to human interference. There is still some community concern about future boat access, but it’s generally acknowledged that reduced access for the mostly dead Bolinas fishing industry is a result of a natural process.

At this point, the Army Corps of Engineers suggested removing the shipwrecked dredge I mentioned earlier to measure the speed of sedimentation in the remaining hole, a well-informed scientific way to assess the situation. Bravo, Army Corps of Engineers, bravo.

The shipwrecked dredge can still be seen from my old elementary school.

Despite this loose end, restoration has significantly moved forward. In 2008, representatives of the very, very many groups involved in protecting our lagoon finally came out with a list of recommendations. Since then, agencies and the community have divided the restoration effort into smaller projects for scalability and efficiency.

Community efforts have led to fewer numbers of invasive European green crabs, which threaten native animals and plants. Volunteers also removed non-native plants on the inner island. This not only helped to restore the natural habitat, but also aided in the natural release of captured sediment, increased water movement, and strengthened resilience in the event of an earthquake or large storm. The California Department of Transportation reworked the highway and culverts around the lagoon’s perimeter, specifically reducing the amount of sediment coming in from the nearby hills and streams. The rocks placed at the lagoon shoreline also reduced erosion of soil at the water’s edge.

Plans for restoring the North End of the lagoon were released in October 2016. The three options put forward focused on sea level adaptation, restoring the tributaries in that area, and addressing flooding of the road.

Alternative 1 would re-establish primary creek function and allocate funding for studies on fish populations, as well as eliminate a short connector road in the lagoon’s North End which forms one third of an area known as the Bolinas “wye” or “y.” The alternative would mitigate flooding, a major problem I mentioned earlier, by building culverts under the road into town and elevating the main highway before the turnoff into Bolinas. Alternative 2 would cost less and offer smaller scale restoration to the tributary creeks. It would elevate the highway onto a causeway as well, but only add a few culverts to the road into town. The third option would eliminate the road into town entirely, meaning that residents would have to drive farther north up the highway and enter town via a different and less well-maintained road. It would drastically shrink the road footprints in the North End of the lagoon, but at the cost of ease of entry into town. Members of the Bolinas Lagoon Advisory Council suggest that the third alternative is far less likely to be considered and simply indicates that the county has considered all options. There hasn’t been news of a consensus since the State of the Lagoon conference on February 9th.

The drawn-out Bolinas lagoon restoration project demonstrates a number of issues that most communities faces when deciding what to do with shared resources.

Community involvement in protecting Life Below Water (Goal 14) has been exemplary. In the case of the Bolinas lagoon, backlash from local environmental groups led to a better understanding of the estuary and its natural state, informed decision-making, and protected the lagoon’s incredible biodiversity. Involvement is also spurred by local concern about infrastructure (reflected by Sustainable Development Goal 9). Our roadways are incredibly affected by the state of the lagoon, and the plans for the North End will help to accomplish both Goal 14 and Goal 9.

This “wetland of international importance” has been a matter of local concern for more than twenty years now. There are many stakeholders involved at the state, county, and local level, and this leads to a slow process of approval and action. But the restoration effort has demonstrated successful implementation of Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) on a local level. Though debates on lagoon restoration were heated, they were fruitful and promoted inclusion. Evidence must be thoroughly gathered before plans are pitched to the Bolinas and Stinson Beach communities, and the Bolinas Lagoon Advisory Council, which includes many community members, plays a valuable role in planning restoration. It is clear that concrete actions taken since restoration was first introduced have been extensively discussed and vetted, leading to a healthier lagoon and a more involved community.

[joesbrownusa]

Houses For Sale in Concord, MI

224 Keefer St, Concord, MI

Price: $215000

Immaculate, custom built, one owner, brick and vinyl ranch on .89 acre wooded lot with 3275 total finished square feet. Freshly painted in tranquil shades of gray, you will love the layout with open floor plan, cathedral ceiling, kitchen with eating area, plus formal dining room. Relax in the master suite where windows wrap around the 4 x 6 whirlpool tub. Large Egress windows and a gas fireplace provide natural light and warmth to the finished walkout basement with second family room, recreation area, wet bar, fourth non-conforming bedroom, and spacious bathroom. All the work is done fo r you with new paint upstairs and down, new flooring, new multi-level deck and new central A/C. Other features include: solid oak trim, whole house fan, large dog kennel, private yard surrounded by mature trees, walking distance to school and park, 2 x 6 construction and pre-wired for generator. Listing agent is a licensed real estate salesperson in the State of MI and is the Owner of this property.

7254 Wheeler Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $675000

These properties don’t come on the market often! This 177 acre farm has everything you need. The property offers almost 95 tillable acres, a pond, hardwoods, and some wetlands. A hunter’s paradise. The 2 story farm house has 2 bedrooms. (loft is being used as the 3rd bedroom) It has a partially finished basement and the sun porch off the back is perfect for your morning coffee. At one time this was a functioning dairy farm. The 2 large barns were built out Tamrack trees off the land and old railroad beds run from Wheeler rd to Jackson, perfect for property with trails for hors e lovers as well. Call today for a showing 517-414-7978

11633 King Rd, Concord, MI

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Charming country home in rural setting. Enjoy Summer evenings on rear deck and watch wildlife roam. Hardwood floors throughout both floors. Open space combines kitchen, dining area and living room for great entertaining atmosphere. Full bath on each floor. Breezeway is 3 seasons room with vaulted ceiling. Basement walls and ceiling are finished in one large and one small room with additional large space for laundry area. Attached 3 car garage has room for workshop or for adult toys. New roof in 2011. Many convenient features; removable windows for easy cleaning and generator hook-up, if needed skylights add natural lighting to upstairs landing. Small shed to keep lawn tools. Paved driveway and space for country living on 1.417 acres.

321 Wood Hills Dr, Concord, MI

Price: $130000

Channel front home has a rolling contour back yard with mature trees with lots flower gardens. Swains Lake is a all sports lake which is stocked with largemouth bass, panfish, trout and yellow perch. Plus it’s less than a mile from Concord Hills Golf Course. This ranch style home features a full walk out basement could easily be turn into a separate living quarters with sliding doors to the outside patio area. There is a large enough space for a possible living room, one bedroom, half bath, possible second kitchen with eating space and laundry room. The two bays attached carport (18.4x 20) could converted into an enclosed two car attached garage which also has an connected shed (5.5×9). Channel front storage shed (12.2 x 8.2)

119 Union St, Concord, MI

Price: $125000

This is a great 2 story home located conveniently in the village of Concord, walking distance from the school, dining, parks, fishing at the mill pond and the Falling Waters Trail. Featuring large rooms, main level master, laundry & full bathroom.

317 Michigan St, Concord, MI

Price: $99900

Move in with no work to do! The many updates to this home include: new furnace and A/C in 2008, vinyl siding, roof and windows replaced in 2003, 200 Amp electric service – home is wired for a whole house generator, new plumbing & drains throughout, newer kitchen & bath too. Quiet Village of Concord location, just across the street from the school! 3 bedrooms, one offers a slider onto the back deck, large living room, clean & dry basement can easily be finished (some paneling up, plus a gas fireplace too), fenced backyard is great for children or pets. Newer L.R. carpet, but hardwood und er it, and the bedrooms all offer hardwood too. Kitchen offers matching Frigidaire appliances (including a dishwasher). This home just needs a new owner!

204 Union St, Concord, MI

Price: $115900

Spacious 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch located close to schools and churches. Main floor laundry, 3 season porch, large lot, large 2 stall garage, hardwood floor, freshly painted, replacement windows, new shingles 2014. One owner is licensed Realtor in the State of Michigan.

241 Michigan St, Concord, MI

Price: $97900

Lovely Move in Ready home offering 3 bedrooms 1 bath located in Concord. Beautiful hard wood floors throughout the home. Newly updated kitchen, bath, family room, windows, wood burning system, and paved driveway. Large fenced in backyard with a sizable shed on a slab. The home is well maintained and cared for.

V L Hubbard Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $39900

Gorgeous piece of wooded hunting land that backs up to a corn field, across from more vacant farm land and more woods to the West. Could be divided in two parcels by creating an easement along the West side or just enjoy the total peace and quiet of the country! Diagram is not to scale.

224 W Center St, Concord, MI

Price: $69900

3 Bedroom 2 story home on a quiet street in the Village of Concord, nice sized back yard, main floor laundry, vinyl siding, vinyl windows, natural gas furnace. Many recent updates including All new flooring throughout, slate tile in bath, Nice kitchen with New Stove, Refrigerator, Water Heater and Tile Backsplash. House will qualify for RD or FHA Financing.

8232 Eckert Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $329900

A great home for the nature lover with peace and tranquility in a wooded setting. This log home has many features including 2 stone fireplaces, 2 ponds, in-ground pool, hot tub, pole barn and a private cabin, just to name a few. This is a very private home on 10 acres that will take your breath away from the very moment you pull up the long drive. Beautifully unique and very well maintained. Currently used as a B&B. A must see to appreciate the true beauty.

Litle Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $16900

Build your dream home on this great building site on just under 4 acres in Concord. Parcel has been surveyed and perked and stakes are in place. Come take a look!

5005 Cross Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $99900

Over 11 beautiful acres of land with a farm house. The home needs someone with the skills to bring it back to the wonderful home it once was. The land is perfect for hunting and about half of it is tillable. There are also 2 barns and one is set up for livestock. This is a very rare opportunity to own a peaceful home and land for very little money. The home needs significant repairs, but once those are done it will be a great home and a fantastic investment. The seller has priced it to sell and will not make any repairs. All that’s needed is a buyer with the vision to see what it c an be and the skills to make it happen. The listing includes the home on 0.98 acres and parcel ID #000-12-20-377-002-00 which is 10.48 of vacant land with barns.

3950 Albion Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $260000

One of a kind original farmhouse home that has been well maintained and manicured. Nestled on 17.69 acres, let the sweeping driveway welcome youhome to this beautiful country retreat. Home features four bedrooms and two full baths with spiral staircase that displays beautiful wood beam ceilings thatoverlook the living room. Family room features built in brick wall fireplace with large wooden mantle and skylights allowing for natural light.Large breezewaywelcomes you to the backyard giving you a peaceful country feel with matured trees that add a great boundary to the home. Spacious kitc hen with a largedining area, breakfast bar and high ceilings that make for a nice open feel. Large outdoor porch area is a great space for entertaining and simply relaxing.Too many features to list on this great property. Call listing agent for additional information and schedule your own private tour.

321 Michigan St, Concord, MI

Price: $99000

Move in ready home, all the work has been done for you. New furnace & Central Air in 2012, remodeled bathrooms,electric upgrades, fenced in back yard backing up to woods where you can see the wildlife right out your back door. Has 2 sheds for all of your storage needs. Partially finished basement for extra living, full bathroom in basement.

Vl Eckert Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $13500

Build your dream home in a low traffic area nestled in Pulaski township and Concord Schools. No deed restrictions, and seller will sell any owned mineral rights with property.

Vl Eckert Rd Parcel F, Concord, MI

Price: $13500

Build your dream home in a low traffic area nestled in Pulaski township and Concord Schools. No deed restrictions, and seller will sell any owned mineral rights with property.

233 S Concord St, Concord, MI

Price: $99900

The home offers nice size bedrooms, main level laundry room, and gigantic living room. Freshly painted and new flooring throughout the home. Updated bathroom and new large deck, great area for entertaining. Plenty of storage in the 24 x 40 Pole barn style garage. This home has been passed down in the family for two generations.

6712 Luttenton Rd, Concord, MI

Price: $65000

Newly updated family home. Country setting minutes away from Concord, Jackson, Litchfield. Located in the school district of Concord.

201 Lake Hills Dr, Concord, MI

Price: $128000

Picturesque setting – Ranch home on a hill overlooking Swains Lake, close to golf course, school and town. Home features 3BR/1.5BA, large family room with electric fireplace and living room, dining room. New roof in November 2015, New appliances in 2015. 2.5 car garage with new garage doors and automatic openers. Partially finished basement with fantastic storage space. New water heater and water softener.

from Houses For Sale – The OC Home Search http://www.theochomesearch.com/houses-for-sale-in-concord-mi/ from OC Home Search https://theochomesearch.tumblr.com/post/158166792290

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To provide adequate storm water services in order to avoid storm water pollution

The precipitation from the rain or snowmelt streams over the land surface which in turn causes the stormwater overflow. This scene unfathomably extends the overflow volume made in the midst of storms to the avenues, stopping territories, rooftops, carports, and distinctive surfaces that were shielding the water from sprinkling in the ground. All this results in passing of water into the neighborhood streams, lakes, wetlands, which further more leads to flooding and breaks down, and washing away of the crucial regular surroundings for critters that live in the stream. There are various stormwater services which have been designed to control the flow of water without any obligations. Some of the services are categorized as follows;

One of the services is the Green Infrastructure. It implies the interconnected arrangement of open spaces and ordinary zones that upgrade water quality while giving recreational open entryways, characteristic life living space, air quality and urban warmth island benefits, and other gathering benefits. It is basically the ordinary systems that catch, wash down and decrease stormwater overflow using plants, soils, and life forms. Another stormwater services involves the green establishment and the Low-Impact Development process. These services are made for the supervising of the overflows using the circled and decentralized scaled downscale controls. The main objective is to impersonate a site's predevelopment hydrology with the help of techniques that enter, channel, store and scatter. Another major innovative service includes Environmental Site Design. It is one of the types of stormwater management practice which is used to push duplicate trademark systems along the whole stormwater stream path through combined utilization of a movement of diagram principles all through the change site. The main aim of this is to copy forest or regular hydrology and to control water quality.

So, it is advisable to all that if you want to carry out any form of good stormwater management practice, then you must obtain the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan certification (SWPPP certification). The construction swppp services can be availed easily for the control of the stormwater problems.