The ponds of Hattuša – early groundwater management in the Hittite kingdom

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 692-698
Author(s):  
Hartmut Wittenberg ◽  
Andreas Schachner
Keyword(s):  
Groundwater Management ◽  
Urban Area ◽  
Groundwater Monitoring ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Groundwater Levels ◽  
Steep Terrain ◽  
The City

From about 1650 until 1200 BC Hattuša (pronounced Hattusha) was the capital of the Hittite Empire in central Asia Minor. On the steep terrain of today's ruined city lived and worked thousands of people whose homes, cattle, tools and places of worship had to be supplied with water. The question arose regarding how water was conveyed into the large-scale ponds in the urban area. The silted East Ponds (36,000 m3) and South Ponds (20,000 m3) have been excavated since the 1980s. A supply of the large volumes of water by a long pipeline from outside the city was repeatedly discussed. Due to the topographic, hydraulic and geo-hydrological conditions however, a long distance supply would have been uneconomic and also unnecessary. Still today, many willow fountains in the region are fed by artesian groundwater. It was therefore assumed that the ponds were cut into the slope aquifers and filled during the wet season. To verify this hypothesis, groundwater monitoring stations were installed in the autumn of 2009 directly uphill of the pond banks. Observed groundwater levels 2009–2011 are low in summer but rise above the former pond surfaces during winter. The Hittites used exfiltrating groundwater also in other reservoirs avoiding hefty and strongly varying surface inflows.

Evaluation of the microbial quality of water supplies to municipal, mining and squatter communities in the Bindura urban area of Zimbabwe

2004 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Nyati
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Stream Water ◽  
Chemical Quality ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Water Supplies ◽  
Provincial Hospital ◽  
Quality Of Water ◽  
Borehole Water

A survey of the microbiological and chemical quality of water supplies in the Bindura urban and peri-urban area was carried out over a three-year period from January 2000 to July 2003. Bindura is the provincial city of Mashonaland Central, situated 88 km from the national capital, Harare. Large-scale farming and mining activities in the area predispose water bodies to eutrophication and chemical pollutants, raising concerns about the safety of local water supplies. In this study, thermotolerant (faecal) coliform levels, total aerobic bacterial counts and physicochemical profiles were determined for municipal and borehole water as well as water supplies to mining and squatter communities. Although municipal and mining compound water supplies were of satisfactory microbial and chemical quality, borehole water supplies showed a seasonal fluctuation, with higher coliform counts in the wet season from November to March. Stream water supplies to a squatter camp in the peri-urban area consistently recorded coliform levels >1,800/100 mL and total aerobic plate counts of <2.8 × 106 CFU/mL. All cholera incidents recorded in 1999 and 2000 at the Provincial hospital were from peri-urban settlements and surrounding commercial farms while 1,045 to 2,632 cases of dysentery were also reported each year at the provincial hospital during the period 1997-2002.

scholarly journals Paper Space: High density housing experiments, exploring slope and pathway, in Wellington’s character suburbs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alice Cooke
Keyword(s):  
Urban Growth ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
City Council ◽  
The Public ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Residual Space ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Steep Terrain ◽  
Design Case Study ◽  
The City

<p>Wellington is a city defined by its hills, and the landscape and terrain have played a significant role in shaping urban growth. The steep terrain adds to Wellington’s striking landscape and contributes to ensuring the city remains compact. However, the incline has often been at odds with the city grid. ‘Paper roads’ or unformed legal roads are an outcome of this tension and provide a residual space in some of Wellington’s inner residential suburbs.  The problem of a growing population and lack of housing in Wellington is a well- documented and much discussed issue. Given this continually increasing demand for housing, the desire to conserve character suburbs often comes into conflict with desire to retain Wellington’s compact city form. Wellington City Council is currently undergoing a review of the Urban Growth plan, with the intention of developing strategies for a potential 80,000 new residents in the next 30 years.  This thesis suggests a possible method of further densifying proximate Wellington suburbs by utilising residual space provided by ‘paper streets’. More broadly, this thesis will develop and test a model of higher density housing in the identified residual spaces of existing suburbs. Although Wellington’s paper roads have special characteristics, including the public amenity provided and the close relationship to existing built fabric, they also provide the case studies for residential intensification on steep sites.  Existing practice for hillside projects largely conforms to the strategy of small elements tumbling down the hillside. The research explores an alternative approach, questioning the negative connotations associated with existing large scale projects. An iterative design process identifies and refines a series of design criteria in order to inform the possibility for intensifying development on these hillside sites. Analysis of the work and literature of celebrated Californian firm, MLTW, informs the approach to developing these sites. The consideration of the public pathway and the experience of inhabitation for both residents and members of the public emerges as a central to the design case study, and the resulting criteria.</p>

scholarly journals The Role of Commerce in the Main Urban Area of Abruzzo: an Intra-Urban Reading

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-103
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Ferrari ◽  
Silvia Iacuone ◽  
Silvia Scorrano ◽  
Marina Fuschi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Observation Point ◽  
Shopping Center ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Urban Identity ◽  
Trade Sector ◽  
Commercial Distribution ◽  
The City

Since the 1950s, the urban structure of Abruzzo has gradually polarized on the area of Pescara-Chieti, as the expression of a series of location and settlement advantages. There, the trade sector, favoured by a period of expansion of large-scale commercial distribution, represented a powerful vehicle for territorial convergence and cohesion, contributing to the progressive process of marginalization of urban proximity trade. The aim of this work is to go beyond the opposition between suburban shopping center/central urban trade and to propose an interpretation at intra-urban scale that starts from peripheral neighbourhoods and peculiar spaces: They are able, in some cases, to better represent urban identity, but, above all, to provide a favourable observation point from which to promote a balanced and sustainable reorganization of the city.

A fully coupled spatially distributed hydrologic-hydrodynamic model for the Barotse Floodplain, Upper Zambezi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Innocent C. Chomba ◽  
Kawawa Banda ◽  
Hessel Winsemius ◽  
Eunice Makungu ◽  
Dennis Hughes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Feedback Mechanism ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Groundwater Levels ◽  
Inundation Modelling ◽  
Inundation Extent ◽  
Fully Coupled

&lt;p&gt;Floodplains play important roles in global hydrological and biogeochemical cycles, and many socioeconomic activities also depend on water resources in floodplains. Although considered as critical for the formation and preservation of floodplains, hydrology in floodplains has been hard to characterise. In recent years the demand for an understanding of the hydrological and hydrodynamic processes for the Barotse floodplains is ever increasing especially with the advent of climate change/variability, and expected upstream developments. Yet, the multi-way interactions between river flows, wetland inundation, and groundwater are complex, and poorly understood, compromising studying these changes. Most hydrological and hydrodynamic models applied for large-scale hydrological and inundation modelling lack an advanced floodplain-groundwater feedback mechanism, and thus may over predict or under predict inundation extent, depth, and downstream river flow. This is because groundwater re-infiltration and evaporation from the floodplains over a longer time scale than the flood process are not accounted for.&amp;#160; Hence, the main objective of this current study is to show the very first attempt to a fully coupled model for the Barotse floodplain. The hypothesis is that a fully coupled model will result in larger groundwater dynamics, a slower rise of inundation, and possibly a longer recession tail. To test this hypothesis, we setup two experiments; (i) in the first experiment, WFLOW runs and feeds upstream flows into LISFLOOD. This is sort of the classic approach, and similar to earlier studies, and also does not necessarily require a time-step based coupling; (ii) in the second experiment, WFLOW runs and feeds into Lisflood_FP, and Lisflood_FP then returns water into the WFLOW model. This an experiment where we re-infiltrate water into wflow and by doing so, let groundwater levels adapt so that additional reinfiltrated water, decrease the amount of flood water, increase groundwater levels more during the wet season, and provide a higher recession tail downstream. Our model environment and experiments are available through https://github.com/Innochomba/barotse.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Paper Space: High density housing experiments, exploring slope and pathway, in Wellington’s character suburbs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alice Cooke
Keyword(s):  
Urban Growth ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
City Council ◽  
The Public ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Residual Space ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Steep Terrain ◽  
Design Case Study ◽  
The City

<p>Wellington is a city defined by its hills, and the landscape and terrain have played a significant role in shaping urban growth. The steep terrain adds to Wellington’s striking landscape and contributes to ensuring the city remains compact. However, the incline has often been at odds with the city grid. ‘Paper roads’ or unformed legal roads are an outcome of this tension and provide a residual space in some of Wellington’s inner residential suburbs.  The problem of a growing population and lack of housing in Wellington is a well- documented and much discussed issue. Given this continually increasing demand for housing, the desire to conserve character suburbs often comes into conflict with desire to retain Wellington’s compact city form. Wellington City Council is currently undergoing a review of the Urban Growth plan, with the intention of developing strategies for a potential 80,000 new residents in the next 30 years.  This thesis suggests a possible method of further densifying proximate Wellington suburbs by utilising residual space provided by ‘paper streets’. More broadly, this thesis will develop and test a model of higher density housing in the identified residual spaces of existing suburbs. Although Wellington’s paper roads have special characteristics, including the public amenity provided and the close relationship to existing built fabric, they also provide the case studies for residential intensification on steep sites.  Existing practice for hillside projects largely conforms to the strategy of small elements tumbling down the hillside. The research explores an alternative approach, questioning the negative connotations associated with existing large scale projects. An iterative design process identifies and refines a series of design criteria in order to inform the possibility for intensifying development on these hillside sites. Analysis of the work and literature of celebrated Californian firm, MLTW, informs the approach to developing these sites. The consideration of the public pathway and the experience of inhabitation for both residents and members of the public emerges as a central to the design case study, and the resulting criteria.</p>

scholarly journals Massive windborne migration of Sahelian insects: Diversity, seasonality, altitude, and direction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Florio ◽  
L Verú ◽  
A Dao ◽  
AS Yaro ◽  
M Diallo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Life Strategy ◽  
Round Trip ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Insect Fauna ◽  
Migration Strategies ◽  
Source Populations ◽  
Aerial Insect

AbstractKnowledge on long-distance migration of insects is especially important for food security, public health, and conservation–issues that are especially significant in Africa. During the wet season, the Sahel nourishes diverse life forms which are soon purged by the long dry season. Windborne migration is a key strategy enabling exploitation of such ephemeral havens. However, our knowledge of these large-scale movements remains sparse due to the virtual invisibility of insects flying at altitude. In this first cross-season investigation (3 years) of the aerial insect fauna over Africa, we sampled crepuscular and nocturnal insects flying 40–290 m above ground in four Sahelian villages in Mali, using sticky nets mounted on tethered helium-filled balloons. Nearly half a million insects were caught, representing at least thirteen insect orders following preliminary sorting of the collections. At least 100 insect families were determined to have been captured at altitude in samples collected on 222 nets, obtained in 125 collections over 96 nights. Control nets (raised momentarily to >40 m during system launch and retrieval) confirmed that the insects were captured at altitude, not near the ground. Thirteen ecologically and phylogenetically diverse species were studied in detail. The flight activity of all species peaked during the wet season every year across localities up to ~100 km apart, and occurred over multiple nights, suggesting regular migrations. Species differed in flight altitude, seasonality, and correlations with aerial temperatures, humidity, and wind speed. All taxa exhibited frequent migrations on southerly winds, accounting for the recolonization of the Sahel from southern source populations. “Return” southward movement at the end of the wet season occurred in most taxa but no selectivity for such winds was detected. Extrapolation of aerial density to estimate the seasonal number of migrants crossing Mali at latitude 14°N suggested numbers in the trillions, even for the modestly abundant taxa. Assuming 2–10 hours of flight, the nightly distances traversed exceed tens and even hundreds of kilometers. Two migration strategies were proposed: “residential Sahelian migration” and “round trip migration”. The unprecedented magnitude and diversity of long-range windborne insect migrations highlight the importance of this life strategy in their impact on Sahelian and neighboring ecosystems.

Жизненное состояние древесных насаждений в условиях города Актобе (Казахстан)

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-55
Author(s):  
S. A. Abiev ◽  
S. A. Aipeisova ◽  
N. A. Utarbaeva
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Woody Plants ◽  
Health State ◽  
Urban Habitats ◽  
Resistant Species ◽  
Vital State ◽  
Ulmus Laevis ◽  
Urban Conditions ◽  
The City ◽  
Trees And Shrubs

<p>The purpose of our work is to assess the health state of woody plants growing in different habitats of the city of Aktobe. We have studied the health state of arboreal and shrubby plants growing in various urban habitats; the survey was conducted during 2016-2017 by route-visual method. We performed the analysis of species diversity, abundance and density in urban area. The assessment of health state of the trees was made according to V.A. Alekseev. From your data and literature review we established that such species as Ulmus pinnato-ramosa, Acer negundo, Populus tremula, Populus nigra, and Syringa vulgaris have strong winter resistnce in the territory of Aktobe; we registered that only their apex buds and emds of the shoots were frozen in severe winters. The medium-resistant speices include Ulmus laevis and Acer platonoides. They are less plastic and suffer from late spring and early autumn frosts. The Amorpha fruticosa, Vitis vinifera, and Parthenocissus guinguefolia could be considered as the non-resistant species, since they usually freeze up to the snow cover line. The analysis of the vital state made it possible to assess the resistance to urban conditions of the majority of trees and shrubs registered in urban habitats of Aktobe. According to the preliminary data, the origin of the plant and its winter resistance are of main importance when introducing new species to urban area.</p>

Going the Distance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Harris
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Family Firms ◽  
Global Trade ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Business Corporation ◽  
Modern Economy ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Silk Route ◽  
Passive Investors

Before the seventeenth century, trade across Eurasia was mostly conducted in short segments along the Silk Route and Indian Ocean. Business was organized in family firms, merchant networks, and state-owned enterprises, and dominated by Chinese, Indian, and Arabic traders. However, around 1600 the first two joint-stock corporations, the English and Dutch East India Companies, were established. This book tells the story of overland and maritime trade without Europeans, of European Cape Route trade without corporations, and of how new, large-scale, and impersonal organizations arose in Europe to control long-distance trade for more than three centuries. It shows that by 1700, the scene and methods for global trade had dramatically changed: Dutch and English merchants shepherded goods directly from China and India to northwestern Europe. To understand this transformation, the book compares the organizational forms used in four major regions: China, India, the Middle East, and Western Europe. The English and Dutch were the last to leap into Eurasian trade, and they innovated in order to compete. They raised capital from passive investors through impersonal stock markets and their joint-stock corporations deployed more capital, ships, and agents to deliver goods from their origins to consumers. The book explores the history behind a cornerstone of the modern economy, and how this organizational revolution contributed to the formation of global trade and the creation of the business corporation as a key factor in Europe's economic rise.

CONCEPT OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF A KEY PUBLIC SPACE (USING THE EXAMPLE OF «ALLEY OF ARCHITECTS», VORONEZH)

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-109
Author(s):  
С. Л. Подвальный ◽  
О. А. Сотникова ◽  
Я. А. Золотухина
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Ecological Condition ◽  
Territory Design ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Modern Technologies ◽  
Intensive Growth

Постановка задачи. В настоящее время формирование современной комфортной городской среды приобретает особое социально-экономическое значение и выдвигается в число приоритетных государственных масштабных программ. В связи с этим необходимо разработать концепцию благоустройства ключевого общественного пространства, а именно: определить основные и сопутствующие функции данной территории, создать эскизное предложение проекта благоустройства с учетом всех необходимых норм и стандартов, внедрить современные технологии. Результаты. Выполнен эскизный дизайн-проект «Аллеи архитекторов» по ул. Орджоникидзе г. Воронеж, включающий в себя основные элементы по зонированию территории, проектированию акцентных объектов и внедрению инновационных технологий «умного города», позволяющих повысить уровень комфорта горожан. Выводы. Благоустройство населенных мест приобретает особое значение в условиях дискомфорта среды. С выполнением комплекса мероприятий, направленных на благоустройство, и с внедрением современных технологий значительно улучшается экологическое состояние, внешний облик города. Оздоровление и модернизация среды, которая окружает человека в городе, благотворно влияет на психофизическое состояние, что особенно важно в период интенсивного роста городов. Statement of the problem. Currently the formation of the modern comfortable urban environment is gaining a special social and economic value and moving forward in the priorities of state large-scale programs. The purpose of development of the concept of improvement of public space is definition of the main and accompanying functions of this territory, design of the outline offer of the project of improvement considering all necessary norms and standards and implementation of modern technologies. Results. The conceptual project of “Alley of Architects” includes the basic elements of territory zoning, design of accent objects and implementation of technologies of a “smart-city”. These elements allow one to increase the level of comfort of inhabitants. Conclusions. Improvement of the inhabited places is of particular importance in the conditions of discomfort of the environment. Carrying out a complex of the actions directed to gardening and improvement, introducing modern technologies, the ecological condition, the physical appearance of the city considerably improves. Improvement and modernization of the environment which surrounds the person in the city influences a psychophysical state well that especially important during intensive growth of the cities.

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
External Trade ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Legal Structures ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Different Sources

This interdisciplinary volume presents nineteen chapters by Roman historians and archaeologists, discussing trade in the Roman Empire in the period c.100 BC to AD 350, and in particular the role of the Roman state, in shaping the institutional framework for trade within and outside the Empire, in taxing that trade, and in intervening in the markets to ensure the supply of particular commodities, especially for the city of Rome and for the army. The chapters in this volume address facets of the subject on the basis of widely different sources of evidence—historical, papyrological, and archaeological—and are grouped in three sections: institutional factors (taxation, legal structures, market regulation, financial institutions); evidence for long-distance trade within the Empire, in wood, stone, glass, and pottery; and trade beyond the frontiers, with the East (as far as China), India, Arabia, and the Red Sea, and the Sahara. Rome’s external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance to the fisc. But in the eastern part of the Empire at least, the state appears, in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth, to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation, both direct and indirect, to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration, which was in effect a fiscal partnership, in slightly different forms in East and West, in the longer term fundamentally changed the political character of the Empire.

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