Story summary
From the readings on different scales, top down and bottom up, there are some issue that are crucial in improving and complementing the current situation of the urban environment:
1. flooding
The lower lands flood easily according to tides, heavy rainfall etc. while the higher lands are protected depending on their height. Mostly, the higher lands are the spaces for the formal settlements and the lower lands are, because of the flood risk, infiltrated by informal settlements.
2. lack of services
There is prominent lack of basic services such as schools, hospitals etc.
3. water contamination
The water, rivers as well as the water ponds, are polluted in a way that they no longer support the kind of cycle they should work for.
Contaminated water is taken from river and pond and used for different uses, while in the meantime waste water is being dumped in the river again. There is a net pollution of the river. This works the same way for the river ponds which even integrate an extra use in terms of productivity, rice or shrimp. These activities can also have polluting effect on the soil because of salinity.
(4.) mangrove disappearance
There is a threat for the mangrove to disappear if not properly defended.
From the different scales, different approaches are extracted that work not only within its original scale, but work on all scales.
AFFORESTATION
This comes from the country scale reading and looking at the history of the mangrove forest. Since there was a cyclone, a lot of the mangrove has vanished, therefore an afforestation process has been set up, clearing money for returning some of the destroyed mangrove. (best defence is the offence)
Afforestation can work on the different scale:
economic generator, paper mill revival
ecological balance
reinforcing the water edge
reducing salinity
water purification
From the readings on different scales, top down and bottom up, there are some issue that are crucial in improving and complementing the current situation of the urban environment:
1. flooding
The lower lands flood easily according to tides, heavy rainfall etc. while the higher lands are protected depending on their height. Mostly, the higher lands are the spaces for the formal settlements and the lower lands are, because of the flood risk, infiltrated by informal settlements.
2. lack of services
There is prominent lack of basic services such as schools, hospitals etc.
3. water contamination
The water, rivers as well as the water ponds, are polluted in a way that they no longer support the kind of cycle they should work for.
Contaminated water is taken from river and pond and used for different uses, while in the meantime waste water is being dumped in the river again. There is a net pollution of the river. This works the same way for the river ponds which even integrate an extra use in terms of productivity, rice or shrimp. These activities can also have polluting effect on the soil because of salinity.
(4.) mangrove disappearance
There is a threat for the mangrove to disappear if not properly defended.
From the different scales, different approaches are extracted that work not only within its original scale, but work on all scales.
AFFORESTATION
This comes from the country scale reading and looking at the history of the mangrove forest. Since there was a cyclone, a lot of the mangrove has vanished, therefore an afforestation process has been set up, clearing money for returning some of the destroyed mangrove. (best defence is the offence)
Afforestation can work on the different scale:
economic generator, paper mill revival
ecological balance
reinforcing the water edge
reducing salinity
water purification
This idea of afforestation can be extended to the city, not only mangrove.
RECLAIMING SEDIMENT
Caption of sediment is embedded in the history of Bangladesh, so we are not inventing anything new, coming from bigger scale, but also on a lower scale. The siltation is a process that start from way upstream, but the caption itself is a small scale intervention to manipulate the landscape. It can be a powerful tool:
brick factories
fertile ground for productive landscape
land filling, creating highland and lowland
WATER PURIFICATION
To solve the water pollution, a water purification system is needed. This can be done by aerated lagoons, or thinking of a purification system of connecting water ponds. These are two ways of different scales. But also the mangrove trees can help for purifying water.
These three different tools all work to solve the problems that we have seen, but they do even more. Now only the landscape elements are considered, but in fact, the landscape in Bangladesh is also the infrastructure, the base for urbanization.
We can use the reclaiming of the sediment to introduce a strategy of land filling with different gradients of height according to what is supposed to be more protected, or less protected from flooding. In that way, by defining strategic places, we can melt into the urban tissue certain key services that can enhance the urban quality.
This strategy does not only work on the city scale, but it can be projected onto the region in the sense that we start defining where higher land, lower land can be. The private market, or the state, can then do whatever they want on the defined land fills. Heighten it, build whatever…
We can also reflect this back on the issues we addressed in the fieldwork! The informal/formal structure, front and back of the river, permeability to river on city scale, but also on regional scale etc. Using the highland/lowland allows us to keep open spaces, or change permeability…
A lot to be further deliberate on and connecting the different effects of the tools in the sense that it helps urbanization, landscape and infrastructure, and as well an economy.
The scheme above is very complicated, it is a fast draft of the way the visions relate to the things they do, and to show that we create a sort of balance in terms of urbanization, infrastructure and landscape, and as well economy. It is very hard to read, just first draft.
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