In 1978 Nicolae Ceauşescu, the leader of Romania at the time, decided to open Roşia Poieni, one of Europe’s biggest copper mines. The inhabitants of the nearby village of Geamana had to then move out so that an artificial lake could take its place and serve as a kind of catch-basin for the mine’s contaminated sludge to flow into.
More in the New York Times.
Photographs by Gyávol Roland and Marius Roman
Roots growing in a Roman aquaduct in Cagliari, Sardinia.
The same thing is happening in current water infrastructure, as in our previous post.
Picture by Stefano Mattana
Via Skeleton Games
Fishermen at the bottom of a dam overflow in Rayong, Thailand, picture by Anan Charoenkal.
High-speed photographs of ink mixing with water by Alberto Seveso
Meltwater flows on the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Photography by James Balog
Located on Navajo land near Page, Arizona, Antelope Canyon
was formed by erosion of Navajo Sandstone, with rainwater, especially during monsoon season. The water runs into the extensive basin above the slot canyon sections, picking up speed and sand as it rushes into the narrow passageways. Over time the passageways are eroded away, making the corridors deeper and smoothing hard edges in such a way as to form characteristic ‘flowing’ shapes in the rock.
source
In the 1920s, Villa Epecuen was established as a tourist village along the shore of Lago Epecuen, Argentina, famous for its therapeutic powers thanks to salt levels second only to the Dead Sea.
It became a bustling resort and by the 1970s the population was more than 5,000.
At the same time the Lago Epecuen began to swell with increased rainfalls and in 1985 the enormous volume of water broke through an earthen dam inundating much of the town under four feet of water. By 1993, the town was covered in 10 meters of water.
Nearly 25 years later, in 2009, the wet weather reversed and the waters began to recede. Villa Epecuen started coming back to the surface.
Pictures by Juan Mabromata
Source
On Racetrack Playa, in Death Valley, California, rocks from a few centimetres in diameter to half a metre have trails hundreds of metres long showing that they have moved across the ground.
The most likely explanation involves the rain and melting snow from the surrounding hills in Spring, leaving many of the rocks partly-submerged in enormous, shallow pools. As temperatures fall at night, ice can form a collar around the base of a rock. This creates enough buoyancy for strong winds to overcome friction with the lake bed. This is only possible because of the flatness of the Playa, which allows wind to gust at 90 mph close to the ground.
A variation of this theory suggests that rather than just a collar, the stones are actually floated by ice rafts and moved by lighter winds.
In any case, the movement probably on lasts less than a minute and may only occur every several years.
From The Guardian
This visual blog presents images and projects related to the WATERSHED+ art program.
WATERSHED+ is a public art program hosted by City of Calgary's department of Utilities and Environment Protection.
WATERSHED+ aims to develop awareness and pleasure in the environment, not by changing water management practice, nor developing a uniform visual language, but rather by creating a climate of opportunity for water initiatives to build an emotional connection between people and the watershed.
WATERSHED+ presents a unique approach to public art by embedding artists and artistic practices within UEP core activities, participating as members on infrastructure design teams, contributing to project design, development of events, community education, etc.
You can visit us at:
watershedplus.ca
This program was devised by Sans façon (Charles Blanc & Tristan Surtees) with a team composed of Matt Baker, Emlyn Firth, Yan Olivares of Yes Architectes, Eric Laurier and Bert van Duin.
