Notwithstanding Marc's point about water-level variation, construction
teams and surveyors use rotating laser levels to mark off equal
heights on the four walls of a room...it might be striking to place a
rotating laser level in the middle of a street and get an immediate
360-degree feeling of where flood water would be on the surrounding
buildings. (Granted, you'd be talking about $200-$300 for a laser
bright enough to be seen.)
Regarding Eymund's chalk suggestion, do what he says and keep the
chalk drawings on the ground. :) I could see it being tempting to draw
little blue waves to mark, say, the level of an historic flood, but
it's so hard to remove chalk from vertical surfaces. Hard rain does a
great job of removing it from sidewalks, but building-sides need a
hose and good scrubbing.
Andrew
On May 14, 1:13 am, Eymund Diegel <
eym...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jeff, Shannon & Adam,
>
> I have done exercises with local school kids (in Brooklyn, NY) where the
> issue of flood risk is couched not so much as a threat, but as an
> opportunity for a better understanding of stormwater management
> opportunities, and *learning about the history of your backyard*.
>
> I take historical
> maps<
http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/Coastal%20Survey%20Maps/inde...>showing
> wetlands and streams, calibrate them to contemporary aerials of
> their playgrounds, and have students try to draw in chalk the imagined
> ecologies (streams, fish, bears, Indian villages) that were under their
> feet.
>
> This allows introducing discussion of what causes flooded basements, as kids
> chat with their parents, without getting into the touchier issue of "you
> bought a house in a flood zone".
>
> The next step for this "one to one
> mapping<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBI9SBiSq-o>"
> (*click **here* <
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if0YH_PC02Y>* for the
> Borges Spanish version of the story*) would be to move on from chalk, and
> make permanent "memory markers" of past marshes and streams, like those seen
> in European flood
> marker<
http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/waters/flood_markers.html>s,
> or tsunami stones<
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html>in
> Japan, by marking them on local neighborhood streets and sidewalks, at
> first with paint lines, maybe light cuts made with angle grinders, and
> eventually, should budgets permit, cobblestones, or special cement work.
>
> Rather than just a conceptual exercise, this would be presented as
> "identifying green infrastructure opportunities" where historic flood zones
> are given preferential treatment for better stormwater management, street
> planting, infiltration storm pipe design and diversion systems to reduce
> flooding risk.
>
> The suggestion is to use *historical maps for public outreach* rather than
> the contemporary Flood Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps or DEMs, as
> the *archival map data often tells us more about sea level rise impact areas
> * than the more "property value conscious" FEMA maps and technically
> complicated DEMs.
>
> There is an example of a conceptual Brooklyn project
> here<
http://issuu.com/proteusgowanus/docs/ghost_streams_of_the_gowanus_maps>to
> mark local historical flood zones with chalk and cobble stones, to
> support local community park building and school education programs.
>
> Hope this helps in your discussion.
>
> Best
>
> Eymund
>
> On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 10:08 PM, Dan Beavers <
dan.beav...@acm.org> wrote:
> > Sounds like a good idea to me.
>
> > On Fri, 13 May 2011 16:46:24 -0500, Jeffrey Warren <
j...@unterbahn.com>
> 2010_04_17_PS_29_Stream_Reconstruction_on_Playground_w_historic_maps.JPG
> 704KViewDownload
>
> 2010_04_17_PS_29_Stream_Reconstruction_on_Playground.JPG
> 829KViewDownload