4 ms·

I am always amazed by human engineering. I grew up near the Rhine in Germany, and literally they changed the position of the whole river into a different shape,

I am always amazed by human engineering. I grew up near the Rhine in Germany, and literally they changed the position of the whole river into a different shape, depth, and form so that ships can flow on it. The planning of the event was called "Rheinbegradigung" [1] and they made the river straight, with lots and lots of watergates in between from the Ocean right up to Basel in Switzerland. Eversince I grew up, hundreds of "Guetermotorschiffe" [2] were flowing up and down the rivers here, transporting coal, ores, stones, metal, even plane parts from Airbus. Their travel routes were all across Europe, as the Rhine has lots of side rivers that are connected orthogonally to it. And they started the Rheinbegradigung in 1817 and completed it in 1876, which is totally insane from the perspective of the available technology at the time. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinbegradigung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinbegradigung [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCtermotorschiff https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCtermotorschiff

lqet 6y ago
Here is a painting of the view from the "Isteiner Klotz" in southwestern Germany prior to the "Rheinbegradigung": https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/landschaftswandel/isteiner-klotz/bild1_1.jpg/@@images/e625f3b9-43f7-4e14-925a-fcbd7c489fde.jpeg https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/... Here is a picture of the (approximately) same view today (well, 20 years ago), you can use the church for orientation. The Rhine is at the far right corner. The village once had a small fishing harbor. https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/landschaftswandel/isteiner-klotz/bild1_2.jpg/@@images/4ba10283-070b-47c3-a851-b4416f97dcc6.jpeg https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/... > which is totally insane from the perspective of the available technology at the time. What they did was pretty clever: they didn't dig an entire new river bed (that would've been impossible), but only some small, narrow shortcut "pilot beds", protected by a dam. You can see such a shortcut here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/K%C3%BChkopfDurchstich.JPG/1024px-K%C3%BChkopfDurchstich.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/K%... After the shortcut was finished, they opened up the dam. The Rhine then slowly dug a new bed itself.
- tk75x 6y ago
  That is very similar to how an oxbow lake forms, except accelerated by human action.
einpoklum 6y ago
Does this project link up to the Rhein-Amstel canal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam%E2%80%93Rhine_Canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam%E2%80%93Rhine_Canal
- cookiengineer 6y ago
  A lot of canals were built afterwards (though this one very late in comparison). Especially around the larger Hamburg area you can find lots of those canals, even with tiny lakes where you could park, rest and eat in little idyllic taverns. Hamburg was the largest trade center of Germany at the time (hence its real name being Hansestadt Hamburg).
cmpb 6y ago
I don't mean to be a wet-blanket with my comment, just to point out the potential negative impacts of human engineering, when such engineering is not well-thought-out. We (in gulf south US) have had similar engineering projects with the Mississippi River (et al) over the course of the last couple of centuries. Largely the goal has been to keep the rivers from flooding their banks, which they are keen to do in various places, mostly yearly. The impetus for this is of course to aid in the development of major cities and keep farmlands productive. What is happening as a result, however, is now known to be truly disastrous for my home state of Louisiana, where the adage is "Louisiana is losing a football field an hour"[0] due (in large part) to the levees preventing the sediment from the rivers from depositing along the coast and helping to keep the coastal marshes in place. There are other (secondary) ill effects as well, that are perhaps more subtle. I was on a native plant society field trip last week to study one of our more southerly "bottomlands" (mixed swamp/marsh/upland habitat). What we found is that many of the freshwater-wetland-specific trees are becoming severely unhealthy and/or dying due to the influx of brackish water (mixed salt/fresh) from the gulf/lakes in the area. This is largely due to the loss of sediment that normally would be deposited from the Mississippi river - that sediment helps to reform the uplands surrounding the bottomlands, and without it, other water sources are able to carve a path in. Some of this, of course, is natural, and part of how Louisiana's wetlands normally change over time, but they do seem to be changing more rapidly. Fortunately, there is a large amount of interest among Louisianians to fix these problems. There are some more large engineering projects designed to undo some of this damage, specifically with projects to reroute the sediment to where its needed (aka diversions)[1]. So I'm hopeful we'll be able to stop and maybe reverse the damage being done [0] https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_3128024a-cc03-57a0-9b37-18f5eb519d4b.html https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_3128024a-cc03-... [1] https://coastal.la.gov/midbarataria/ https://coastal.la.gov/midbarataria/
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Where was your trip?
  - cmpb 6y ago
    To Lafitte wetland trace with the Louisiana Native Plant Society
Naga 6y ago
An older, maybe more impressive example (just because of the age of it, or maybe because of my interest in it) is the hydrological systems built in Rome itself. I'll have to dig out the book I read this out of, but there is some evidence that a large part of what was the Forum was man made and made of infill, with the Cloaca Maxima [1] (which is still around and working) built to attempt to manage flooding from the Tiber. The Tiber is a silt heavy river, and the sewers requried pretty constant maintenance. When the Cloaca Maxima was blocked with silt sometime int he early Middle Ages, the Forum began flooding again and ended up buried by modern times under a significant amount of soil. See pictures [2] and [3] of the same structure from (a painting) in the 1800s and modern day after the excavation. It really shows the power of nature and the success of engineering. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima [2] Before: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Canaletto_Arch_of_Septimius_Severus.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Canalett... [3] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Rome-ForumRomain-ArcheSeptime.jpg/1280px-Rome-ForumRomain-ArcheSeptime.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Ro...
twic 6y ago
They did an impressive job with the Guadalquivir in Seville: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#/media/Archivo:GuadalquivirSevilla.png https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#... https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#/media/Archivo:R%C3%ADo_Guadalquivir_en_Sevilla_y_sus_cambios.png https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#... The river used to run through the city centre, and flooded a lot. So they diverted most of the flow past the city, leaving the stretch inside effectively a huge dock.
cratermoon 6y ago
John McPhee's 1989 book "The Control of Nature" has a long section on the work the United States Corps of Engineers did to try to control the flow of the Mississippi. Most of the time it works more or less as designed. But once in while the system can't handle it and the excess is sent down the course of the Atchafalaya river and floods the Atchafalaya Basin all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Also published as a ca. 1987 New Yorker article “Atchafalaya”, (about the Old River Control structure). Fans of Zork and Flood Control Dam No. 3 take note.

lqet 6y ago

Here is a painting of the view from the "Isteiner Klotz" in southwestern Germany prior to the "Rheinbegradigung": https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/landschaftswandel/isteiner-klotz/bild1_1.jpg/@@images/e625f3b9-43f7-4e14-925a-fcbd7c489fde.jpeg https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/... Here is a picture of the (approximately) same view today (well, 20 years ago), you can use the church for orientation. The Rhine is at the far right corner. The village once had a small fishing harbor. https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/landschaftswandel/isteiner-klotz/bild1_2.jpg/@@images/4ba10283-070b-47c3-a851-b4416f97dcc6.jpeg https://www.gkgbs.ch/obsolet/schulleben/oekowoche/1998-2003/... > which is totally insane from the perspective of the available technology at the time. What they did was pretty clever: they didn't dig an entire new river bed (that would've been impossible), but only some small, narrow shortcut "pilot beds", protected by a dam. You can see such a shortcut here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/K%C3%BChkopfDurchstich.JPG/1024px-K%C3%BChkopfDurchstich.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/K%... After the shortcut was finished, they opened up the dam. The Rhine then slowly dug a new bed itself.

tk75x 6y ago
That is very similar to how an oxbow lake forms, except accelerated by human action.

einpoklum 6y ago

Does this project link up to the Rhein-Amstel canal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam%E2%80%93Rhine_Canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam%E2%80%93Rhine_Canal

cookiengineer 6y ago
A lot of canals were built afterwards (though this one very late in comparison). Especially around the larger Hamburg area you can find lots of those canals, even with tiny lakes where you could park, rest and eat in little idyllic taverns. Hamburg was the largest trade center of Germany at the time (hence its real name being Hansestadt Hamburg).

cmpb 6y ago

I don't mean to be a wet-blanket with my comment, just to point out the potential negative impacts of human engineering, when such engineering is not well-thought-out. We (in gulf south US) have had similar engineering projects with the Mississippi River (et al) over the course of the last couple of centuries. Largely the goal has been to keep the rivers from flooding their banks, which they are keen to do in various places, mostly yearly. The impetus for this is of course to aid in the development of major cities and keep farmlands productive. What is happening as a result, however, is now known to be truly disastrous for my home state of Louisiana, where the adage is "Louisiana is losing a football field an hour"[0] due (in large part) to the levees preventing the sediment from the rivers from depositing along the coast and helping to keep the coastal marshes in place. There are other (secondary) ill effects as well, that are perhaps more subtle. I was on a native plant society field trip last week to study one of our more southerly "bottomlands" (mixed swamp/marsh/upland habitat). What we found is that many of the freshwater-wetland-specific trees are becoming severely unhealthy and/or dying due to the influx of brackish water (mixed salt/fresh) from the gulf/lakes in the area. This is largely due to the loss of sediment that normally would be deposited from the Mississippi river - that sediment helps to reform the uplands surrounding the bottomlands, and without it, other water sources are able to carve a path in. Some of this, of course, is natural, and part of how Louisiana's wetlands normally change over time, but they do seem to be changing more rapidly. Fortunately, there is a large amount of interest among Louisianians to fix these problems. There are some more large engineering projects designed to undo some of this damage, specifically with projects to reroute the sediment to where its needed (aka diversions)[1]. So I'm hopeful we'll be able to stop and maybe reverse the damage being done [0] https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_3128024a-cc03-57a0-9b37-18f5eb519d4b.html https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_3128024a-cc03-... [1] https://coastal.la.gov/midbarataria/ https://coastal.la.gov/midbarataria/

selimthegrim 6y ago
Where was your trip?
- cmpb 6y ago
  To Lafitte wetland trace with the Louisiana Native Plant Society

Naga 6y ago

An older, maybe more impressive example (just because of the age of it, or maybe because of my interest in it) is the hydrological systems built in Rome itself. I'll have to dig out the book I read this out of, but there is some evidence that a large part of what was the Forum was man made and made of infill, with the Cloaca Maxima [1] (which is still around and working) built to attempt to manage flooding from the Tiber. The Tiber is a silt heavy river, and the sewers requried pretty constant maintenance. When the Cloaca Maxima was blocked with silt sometime int he early Middle Ages, the Forum began flooding again and ended up buried by modern times under a significant amount of soil. See pictures [2] and [3] of the same structure from (a painting) in the 1800s and modern day after the excavation. It really shows the power of nature and the success of engineering. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima [2] Before: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Canaletto_Arch_of_Septimius_Severus.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Canalett... [3] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Rome-ForumRomain-ArcheSeptime.jpg/1280px-Rome-ForumRomain-ArcheSeptime.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Ro...

twic 6y ago

They did an impressive job with the Guadalquivir in Seville: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#/media/Archivo:GuadalquivirSevilla.png https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#... https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#/media/Archivo:R%C3%ADo_Guadalquivir_en_Sevilla_y_sus_cambios.png https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1rsena_del_Guadalquivir#... The river used to run through the city centre, and flooded a lot. So they diverted most of the flow past the city, leaving the stretch inside effectively a huge dock.

cratermoon 6y ago

John McPhee's 1989 book "The Control of Nature" has a long section on the work the United States Corps of Engineers did to try to control the flow of the Mississippi. Most of the time it works more or less as designed. But once in while the system can't handle it and the excess is sent down the course of the Atchafalaya river and floods the Atchafalaya Basin all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

selimthegrim 6y ago
Also published as a ca. 1987 New Yorker article “Atchafalaya”, (about the Old River Control structure). Fans of Zork and Flood Control Dam No. 3 take note.