scholarly journals Causes and consequences of the sinkhole at El Trébol of Quito, Ecuador – implications for economic damage and risk assessment

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 2031-2041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theofilos Toulkeridis ◽  
Fabián Rodríguez ◽  
Nelson Arias Jiménez ◽  
Débora Simón Baile ◽  
Rodolfo Salazar Martínez ◽  
...  

Abstract. The so-called El Trébol is a critical road interchange in Quito connecting the north and south regions of the city. In addition, it connects Quito with the highly populated Los Chillos Valley, one of the most traveled zones in the Ecuadorian capital. El Trébol was constructed in the late 1960s in order to resolve the traffic jams of the capital city and for that purpose the Machángara River was rerouted through an underground concrete box tunnel. In March 2008, the tunnel contained a high amount of discarded furniture that had been impacting the top portion of the tunnel, compromising the structural integrity. On 31 March 2008 after a heavy rainfall a sinkhole of great proportions formed in the Trébol traffic hub. In the first few minutes, the sinkhole reached an initial diameter of 30 m. The collapse continued to grow in the following days until the final dimensions of 120 m in diameter and some 40 m of depth, revealing the Machángara River at the base of the sinkhole.A state of emergency was declared. The cause of the sinkhole was a result of the lack of monitoring of the older subterranean infrastructure where trash had accumulated and damaged the concrete tunnel that channelized the Machángara River until it was worn away for a length of some 20 m, leaving behind the sinkhole and the fear of recurrence in populated areas.With the intent to understand the causes and consequences of this sinkhole event, rainfall data are shown together with hydrogeological characteristics and a view back to the recent history of sinkhole lineation or arrangement of the city of Quito. The economic impact is also emphasized, where the direct costs of the damage and the reconstruction are presented and compared to indirect costs associated with this socio-natural disaster. These analyses suggest that the costs of indirect financial damage, like time loss or delay, and subsequent higher expenses for different types of vehicles, are equivalent to many times the costs of the reconstruction of El Trébol.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theofilos Toulkeridis ◽  
Fabián Rodríguez ◽  
Nelson Arias Jiménez ◽  
Débora Simón Baile ◽  
Rodolfo Salazar Martínez ◽  
...  

Abstract. The so-called "El Trébol" is a critical road interchange in Quito connecting the north and south regions of the city. In addition, it connects Quito with the highly populated "Los Chillos" valley, one of the most traveled zones in the Ecuadorian capital. El Trébol was constructed in the late sixties in order to resolve the traffic jams of the capital city and for that purpose the Machángara river was rerouted through a concrete box tunnel. In March 2008, the tunnel contained a high amount of trash furniture that had been impacting the top portion of the tunnel, compromising the structural integrity. On the 31st of March 2008 after a heavy rainfall a sinkhole of great proportions was formed in the Trébol traffic hub. In the first few minutes, with an initial diameter of 30 meters. The collapse continued to grow in the following days until the final dimensions of 120 meters in diameter and some 40 meters of depth, revealing the Machángara river at the base of the sinkhole. A state of emergency was declared, the cause of the sinkhole was a result of the lack of monitoring of the older subterranean infrastructure where trash had accumulated and damaged the concrete tunnel that channelized the Machángara river until it was worn away for a length of some 20 meters, leaving behind the sinkhole and the fear of recurrence in populated areas. In an intend to understand the causes and consequences of this sinkhole event, rainfall data are shown together with hydrogeological characteristics and a view back to the recent history of sinkhole lineation or arrangement of the city of Quito. The economic impact is also emphasized, where the direct costs of the damage and the reconstruction are presented and compared to indirect costs associated with this socio-natural disaster. These analyses suggest that the costs of indirect financial damage, like time loss or delay, and subsequent higher expenses for different types of of vehicles, are equivalent to many times the costs of the reconstruction of El Trébol.


Author(s):  
T. Toulkeridis ◽  
D. Simón Baile ◽  
F. Rodríguez ◽  
R. Salazar Martínez ◽  
N. Arias Jiménez ◽  
...  

Abstract. A sinkhole of great proportions was produced in one of the most trafficked zones of Quito. Constructed in the late sixties, this area is of high importance in solving the traffic jams of the capital city. The sinkhole called "El Trebol" started to be generated in the form of a crater, reached finally dimensions of approximately 120 m in diameter and some 40 m of depth, where at its base the river Machangara appeared. The generation of this sinkhole paralyzed the traffic of the south-central part of the city for the following weeks and therefore the state of emergency was declared. Soon the cause of the sinkhole was encountered being the result of the lack of monitoring of the older subterranean sewer system where for a length of some 20 m the concrete tunnel that canalized the flow of the river collapsed generating the disaster. The collapse of this tunnel resulted from the presence of a high amount of trash floating through the tunnel and scratching its top part until the concrete was worn away leaving behind the sinkhole and the fear of recurrence in populated areas. The financial aspects of direct and indirect damage are emphasized.


Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (200) ◽  
pp. 216-222
Author(s):  
Beatrice De Cardi

Ras a1 Khaimah is the most northerly of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates and its Ruler, H. H. Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, is keenly interested in the history of the state and its people. Survey carried out there jointly with Dr D. B. Doe in 1968 had focused attention on the site of JuIfar which lies just north of the present town of Ras a1 Khaimah (de Cardi, 1971, 230-2). Julfar was in existence in Abbasid times and its importance as an entrep6t during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-the Portuguese Period-is reflected by the quantity and variety of imported wares to be found among the ruins of the city. Most of the sites discovered during the survey dated from that period but a group of cairns near Ghalilah and some long gabled graves in the Shimal area to the north-east of the date-groves behind Ras a1 Khaimah (map, FIG. I) clearly represented a more distant past.


Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110005
Author(s):  
Rebekah Plueckhahn

This article explores the experience of living among diverse infrastructural configurations in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and forms of stigmatisation that arise as a result. In this capital city that experiences extremely cold winters, the provision of heat is a seasonal necessity. Following a history of socialist-era, centrally provided heating, Ulaanbaatar is now made up of a core area of apartments and other buildings undergoing increased expansion, surrounded by vast areas of fenced land plots ( ger districts) not connected to centrally provided heating. In these areas, residents have historically heated their homes through burning coal, a technique that has resulted in seasonal air pollution. Expanding out from Wacquant’s definition of territorial stigmatisation, this article discusses the links between heat generation, air pollution and environmental stigmatisation arising from residents’ association with or proximity to the effects of heat generation and/or infrastructural lack. This type of stigma complexifies the normative divide between the city’s two main built areas. Residents’ attempts to mitigate forms of building and infrastructural ‘quality’ or chanar (in Mongolian) form ways of negotiating their position as they seek different kinds of property. Here, not only are bodies vulnerable to forms of pollution (both air and otherwise), but also buildings and infrastructure are vulnerable to disrepair. Residents’ assessments of infrastructural and building quality move beyond any categorisation of them being a clear ‘resistance’ to deteriorating infrastructural conditions. Instead, an ethnographic lens that positions the viewpoint of the city through these residential experiences reveals a reconceptualisation of the city that challenges infrastructurally determined normative assumptions.


1938 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 152-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick H. Wilson

The first of these Studies was concerned chiefly with the history of Ostia during the period when the city was still growing and its prosperity increasing. Even so, during the period already considered, the prosperity of Ostia, though real, was to this extent artificial, in that it depended upon factors over which the citizens themselves had no control. Ostia was the port of Rome, and nothing else, and in consequence any lowering of the standard of living in, or reduction of imports into the capital city must have had immediate and marked repercussions upon her prosperity. She even lacked to a great extent those reserves of wealth which in other cities might be drawn upon to tide over bad times. The typical citizen of Ostia came to the city in the hope of making his fortune there; but when he had made it, he usually preferred to retire to some more pleasant town, such as Tibur, Tusculum, Velitrae, or Rome itself, where he could enjoy his leisure. Few families seem to have remained in the city for more than two, or, at the most, three generations. Whilst therefore fortunes were made in Ostia, wealth was not accumulated there.


2020 ◽  
pp. 7-32
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kulczyńska ◽  
Natalia Borowicz ◽  
Karolina Piwnicka-Wdowikowska

Morasko University Campus in Poznań – origin, spatial and functional structure, transport solutions The purpose of the paper is to characterize the most recently created part of the Adam Mickiewicz University – the Morasko Campus. The paper consists of three parts. The first concerns the origins and development of the campus. The second part presents its spatial and functional structure on the basis of a field inventory, while the third one – campus transport solutions based on a survey conducted among students. The history of the campus located in the northern, peripheral part of the city began with laying the foundation act and the cornerstone in 1977. The agricultural role of this area, dominant until the 1980s, has been replaced with new functions, mainly academic and scientific ones. The first university buildings were commissioned in the 1990s, and the construction boom began after 2000. A total of nine faculties (out of 21 existing) are housed in eight buildings in the campus, including exact and natural sciences, as well as a part of social sciences and humanities. To this day, neither student dormitories nor accommodation for PhD students have been constructed (although they are likely to be built), which would emphasize the academic function of the campus. The campus also comprises areas with recreational, sports, residential and other service functions (e.g. catering, beauty, hairdressing, and commercial services), which are complemented by areas that serve transport functions. Location in the northern periphery of the city, and above all the railway line for freight (the northern bypass of Poznań) separating the city from the campus, makes transport to this part of the city limited. The results of the survey revealed a lack of a safe bicycle path between the western and eastern part of the campus, insufficient number of parking places for motorists, a lack of paved roads from the north and west, only three narrow access roads for car commuters, and difficult access by public transport to the eastern and north-eastern parts. In the latter case, the planned extension of the tram line towards Umultowo after the year 2022 is expected to solve the problem. Zarys treści: Celem opracowania jest charakterystyka najmłodszej przestrzeni Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza – Kampusu Morasko. Opracowanie składa się z trzech zasadniczych części. Pierwsza część artykułu dotyczy genezy powstania i rozbudowy miasteczka uniwersyteckiego. W drugiej części przedstawiono strukturę przestrzenno-funkcjonalną kampusu w oparciu o inwentaryzację terenową, w trzeciej zaś obsługę transportową na podstawie badań ankietowych przeprowadzonych wśród studentów. Historia położonego w północnej, peryferyjnej części miasta kampusu rozpoczęła się od wmurowania aktu erekcyjnego i kamienia węgielnego w 1977 r. Dominująca do lat 80. XX w. funkcja rolnicza tego obszaru została zastąpiona przez nowe funkcje, głównie akademickie i naukowe. Pierwsze budynki dydaktyczne oddano do użytku dopiero w latach 90. ubiegłego wieku, a boom budowlany rozpoczął się po roku 2000. Swoją siedzibę znalazły tutaj nauki ścisłe i przyrodnicze, a także część nauk społecznych i humanistycznych, w sumie dziewięć wydziałów (na 21 istniejących) w ośmiu budynkach. Do dzisiaj nie wybudowano akademików czy domu doktoranta (choć istnieją realne szanse na ich powstanie), co podkreśliłoby funkcję akademicką kampusu. W strukturze kampusu wyróżnia się ponadto obszary o funkcjach rekreacyjnych, rekreacyjno-sportowych, mieszkaniowych i innych o charakterze usługowym (np. usługi gastronomiczne, kosmetyczne, fryzjerskie, handel), których uzupełnieniem są obszary o funkcjach komunikacyjnych. Położenie na północnych peryferiach miasta, a przede wszystkim linia kolejowa dla przewozów towarowych (północna obwodnica Poznania) oddzielająca miasto od kampusu sprawiają, że obsługa transportowa tej części miasta jest ograniczona. Wyniki badań ankietowych wskazują na brak bezpiecznej drogi rowerowej między zachodnią i północno-wschodnią częścią kampusu, niewystarczającą liczbę miejsc parkingowych dla zmotoryzowanych, brak utwardzonych dróg od strony północnej i zachodniej, zaledwie trzy wąskie wjazdy na kampus dla dojeżdżających samochodem czy utrudniony dojazd komunikacją publiczną do części wschodniej i północno-wschodniej. W tym ostatnim przypadku rozwiązaniem ma być planowana po 2022 r. rozbudowa linii tramwajowej w kierunku Umultowa.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Ball ◽  
Jennifer T. Taschek

AbstractAcanmul is a medium-size center located at the north end of the Bay of Campeche about 25 km northeast of the city of Campeche. Between 1999 and 2005, three independent sets of investigations and major architectural consolidation were carried out at the center by archaeologists from the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche (UAC), the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), Centro Regional de Campeche, and UAC in collaboration with San Diego State University. These efforts produced a wealth of new information on the archaeology of the central Campeche coast, including new insights into the emergence and evolution of the northern slateware tradition and the architectural history of the central coast from Preclassic through Postclassic times. New data concerning changing relationships through time of the central coast Maya to both the interior central and southern lowlands and to the northern plains also were documented, as was the mid ninth century sacking of the center. This article synthesizes the findings of the three separate institutional efforts at Acanmul and offers a number of new cultural historical scenarios and hypotheses based on them.


Author(s):  
Mary T. Boatwright

This book explores the constraints and opportunities of the women in the Roman emperor’s family from 35 BCE, when Octavia and Livia received unprecedented privileges from the state, to 235 CE, when Julia Mamaea was assassinated with her son Severus Alexander. Historical vignettes feature Agrippina the Younger, Domitia Longina, and some others as the book analyzes the history of Rome’s most eminent women in legal, religious, military, and other key settings of the principate. It also examines the women’s exemplarity through imaging as well as their presence in the city of Rome and in the empire. Evidence comes from coins, inscriptions, papyri, sculpture, and law codes as well as ancient authors. Numerous illustrations, maps, genealogical trees, and detailed tables and appendices complement the text. The whole reveals imperial women’s fluctuating but persistent marginalization and lack of agency despite their potential, even as it elucidates Rome’s imperial power, legal system, family ideology, religion and imperial cult, court, capital city, and military customs.


Author(s):  
Dora P. Crouch

Persons with some knowledge of the Athenian acropolis are likely to be aware of the very early Mycenaean spring in the north-northwest quadrant, and of the still flowing Klepsydra Spring at the northwest corner, as well as remember stories about Poseidon’s salt spring adjacent to the Erechtheum. Yet to connect the presence of water on the Acropolis with the urban history of Athens has not been explicitly done to date, even though the Acropolis has been the focus of settlement from earliest times until today. It is the purpose of this section to set out what is known about water utilization at the Athenian Acropolis, thereby suggesting firm ecological reasons why settlement should have taken place on and near the Acropolis (Fig. 18.1). Travlos’ map series of the city of Athens (1960) centered on the Acropolis show us that this hill has always been the focus of settlement, a fact well known to the ancient Athenians themselves (Thucydides, 2:15.3– 6). I suggest that not only the defensive capabilities of the Acropolis but specifically its water supply made it the logical choice of location for groups who intended to live securely and to dominate the region. The number and diversity of water sources here is impressive. In each era it has been necessary to cope with the water that occurred naturally and to save for later use the rain and spring waters that drew settlers to this rocky outcropping. Let us note the locations of water on the Acropolis at several levels, with references to published accounts of some of the features and descriptions (based on surface reconnaissance and discussion with experts) of those for which I have not been able to find such accounts. Discussion of the geology of the Acropolis will be found with the paragraphs about the salt spring. After this topographical discussion, we will look briefly at the chronology of water on the Acropolis, followed by a concluding discussion of urban history. Immediately to the left of the Propylaea, inside the Acropolis wall, are rectangular cisterns dug into the rock of the surface, with rock-cut drainage channels leading to them from the central pathway.


Author(s):  
Anna K. Hodgkinson

Little is necessary in terms of an introduction, since Amarna is one of the best-known settlements of ancient Egypt. The city was founded by pharaoh Amenhotep IV, known from his fifth regal year as Akhenaten, on his move away from Thebes and Memphis to found a new religious and administrative capital city. Akhenaten reigned approximately between 1348 and 1331 BC, and his principal wife was Nefertiti. Akhenaten’s direct successor appears to have been a figure named Smenkhare (or Ankhkheperure) who was married to Akhenaten’s daughter Meritaten. Like Nefertiti, Smenkhare/Ankhkheperure held the throne name Nefernefruaten. For this reason it is uncertain whether this individual was Nefertiti, who may have reigned for some years after the death of Akhenaten, possibly even with a brief co-regency, or whether this was a son or younger brother of the latter. The rule of Smenkhare/Ankhkheperure was short, and he or she was eventually succeeded by Tutankhamun. The core city of Amarna was erected on a relatively flat desert plain surrounded by cliffs on the east bank of the Nile, in Middle Egypt, approximately 60km south of the modern city of Minia, surrounded by the villages et- Till to the north and el-Hagg Qandil to the south. The site was defined by at least sixteen boundary stelae, three of which actually stand on the western bank, past the edge of the modern cultivation. In total, the city measures 12.5km north–south on the east bank between stelae X and J, and c.8.2km west–east between the projected line between stelae X and J and stela S to the far east, which also indicates approximately the longitude of the royal tomb. The distance between stelae J and F, to the far south-west, measures c.20km, and between stelae X and A, to the far north-west 19.2km. The core city, which is the part of the settlement examined in this section, was erected along the Nile, on the east bank, and it is defined by the ‘Royal Road’, a major thoroughfare running through the entire core city north–south.


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