AA Landscape Urbanism  |  2017  |  Landscript

Location: River Severn, Wales, UK
Instructors: Alfredo Ramirez, Eduardo Rico, Liam Mouritz
Collaborators: Majedeh Sayyedi

Awarded Distinction Honour
Presented at Simulating Environments

River Severn, currently a meandering river, has had at least periodically, a more braided course over its history. Our project traces palaeochannels and tries to stabilise the river floodplain by reinforcing this tendency to braid.

Using digital simulations, modeling, and DEM softwares, the water volume, path and velocity is visualized over the course of 5500 simulated days. Superimposed over the existing terrain, we can see the extent of the landscape that gets displaced by the regular flooding.

This project is about devising methods for flood control by envisaging and observing riparian behaviour through digital simulations . After observing the river in the baseline situation, the next step is to devise a Start-stop method of Interventions such as barriers, ponds, and channels to try and alter and manage the river meandering and artificially monitor the channel axis of the river to the most optimum path.

The introduction of Blue Corridors - channels and open spaces that lie within the floodplain - helps in the systematic flood control by becoming emergency channels for the floodwater to travel through. They helps reduce the pressure on the main channel axis and reduces flooding in areas where the extraneous water may have discharged. Moreover, these open spaces when not being used for flooding, can serve as recreation areas and community spaces. For example, the retention ponds can be used to store the flood water and help serve as water storage for the ruminants from the surrounding pasture lands.

In this manner, a typology of measures can be formulated, being updated
every few years to meet the needs of the land and its inhabitants.

Explore the full project here.

Explore my work in physical simulations here.