11 ms·

Fascine Mattresses: Basketry Gone Wild

151 points by ggoo 5y ago

abeppu 5y ago
> Willow wood becomes rock-hard underwater and almost doesn’t deteriorate. Research in the late 1960s showed that most fascine mattresses submerged for more than 100 years — some dating from the early 1820s — remained intact. > Unlike most other tree species, willow tolerates saltwater and (temporarily) wet feet. As such, the coppice plantations could use land that was not suitable for agriculture. > On impoverished soils, the Dutch planted alder trees between the willow trees. The falling leaves of the alder fertilised the soils and increased the lifespan and production of the willow trees. Building long-lasting critical infrastructure using locally-sourced, carbon-negative resources! I have no idea about dykes specifically but I suspect today someone pitching a public works project based on woven willow would be laughed at -- and instead we would insist on pouring some reinforced concrete, using carbon-intensive cement, and it would begin falling apart from rusted rebar in 15 years.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  What if we build it out of graphene instead? There is an awful lot of knowledge that's been mostly discarded because it doesn't fit the "modern, industrial, profit-driven ways of thinking." Some of it is wrong, but an awful lot of it is simply "not easily to scale with machinery to maximum profits." Or, in some cases, just no longer considered stylish (stainless steel vs brass in hospitals being a case of "the new is literally worse than the old in every way that matters, while looking new" - the copper in brass is a biocide). It's probably worth picking up a printed copy or two of LTM... modern society is running out of runway awfully fast.
  - bruce343434 5y ago
    What's LTM?
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      Website where article is posted
  - abeppu 5y ago
    > What if we build it out of graphene instead? I think the implication (that carbon negative local materials are unscalable) is unfair. We haven't built anything huge with graphene yet and the per-gram costs are still crazy (e.g. on the order of $100/g). By comparison, this article is about relatively large-scale projects that we actually did, decades ago. > Between 1954 and 1967, during works on the rivers throughout the country, they sank 1,200,000 km2 fascine mattresses to the bottom. We're in a context where we simultaneously want to: - build and replace infrastructure - decrease our carbon footprint and go negative where possible - protect large coastal areas from storm impacts - prevent further habitat loss and loss of ecological diversity And more recently we have become aware that sprawling international supply chains are a liability. I think more than just concerns over whether something scales at maximum profit, we also have too much institutional inertia. "If we pick different materials, will permitting and oversight bodies be convinced about safety and longevity claims? Will workers need to be retrained? Will the planning process need to change? Better to just do what we've always done; it's easier." To be fair, I suppose I _have_ heard people talk about carbon sequestration in cross-laminated timber for large buildings. I have not heard people talk about being able to source that timber locally, or in a way which is especially beneficial to the land. https://investingnews.com/daily/tech-investing/nanoscience-investing/graphene-investing/graphene-cost/ https://investingnews.com/daily/tech-investing/nanoscience-i...
- oasisbob 5y ago
  > I suspect today someone pitching a public works project based on woven willow would be laughed at Live fascine bundles and live stakes from willow are commonly used riparian restoration techniques. Less elaborate and smaller, but the technique is still very much appreciated. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/orpmctn6826.pdf https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/public...
- klyrs 5y ago
  The empress tree showed up on HN a little while back, specifically for its incredible ability to capture carbon. I wonder how well it would fare under water https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-already-have-the-world-s-most-efficient-carbon-capture-technology https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-alread...
- tda 5y ago
  Willow tree branches are still used ins some modern hydrailic infrastructure construction today. And nor for historical reasons, it is still practical and cost effective. In the past the branches had two functions: as a rigid frame and as a filter layer (to prevent soil from being washed away from under the erosion protection). The frame functions to make the filter a rigid structure that one can sink to the bottom in a controlled manner by dumbing rocks on it. In modern construction geotextiles are used as filters, but these are sometimes made rigid with bundles of willow tree branches.
singlow 5y ago
So that underwater basket weaving course was not a fluff course after all?
- Syonyk 5y ago
  Of course it was! This is onshore basket weaving that's then floated into position and sunk. Different department.
  - pkdpic 5y ago
    But I mean, they could partially bypass the carbon cost associated with transport and installation if it was woven in place. Even more so if they could weave without costly respiratory equipment etc.
- Guest42 5y ago
  I remember that the top person in the math department in college had transferred from dance because it was too difficult. They always present underwater basket weaving as being easy but I imagine it’d be quite challenging.
  - qq4 5y ago
    The idea is that underwater basket weaving has no utility in the real world, not that it is easy.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I had to drop the class because I couldn't hold my breath long enough to do much weaving.
- progre 5y ago
  For those who, like me, didn't get the joke: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving
peter_retief 5y ago
Reminds me of the Roman cement that lasts for centuries as well. The Dutch are interesting as they also have a strong agricultural bent.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  I was just talking about that with someone. What makes it hold up? And are we talking about the material used to construct ancient structures like the Colosseum and aqueducts?
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Something about crystal formation in the volcanic ash that the cement is made from, reacting with the volcanic rock the aggregate is made from. I'm not going to do it justice by getting any more specific, so here's an article for layfolk, and the associated journal article. https://www.sciencealert.com/why-2-000-year-old-roman-concrete-is-so-much-better-than-what-we-produce-today https://www.sciencealert.com/why-2-000-year-old-roman-concre... https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/msa/ammin/article/102/7/1435/353606/Phillipsite-and-Al-tobermorite-mineral-cements https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/msa/ammin/article/102/7/143...
notorandit 5y ago
Dutch Genius at work.
akamoonknight 5y ago
Enjoyable read overall. Always fascinating to see the human ingenuity involved in problem solving. I might have missed it in the article, but how do the fascine mattresses do the work of helping keep back the sea? By breaking up waves before they reach the shore?
- pacaro 5y ago
  The article is light on the actual function of the mattresses, but my reading is that they served to prevent erosion, and would prevent dykes and other structures from being undercut
- WJW 5y ago
  They keep the soil of the dike in place, which would erode away without the "mattress".
atourgates 5y ago
This is fascinating. Worth noting that there appear to be still companies doing this today: https://www.vanaalsburgbv.nl/en/zinkstuk/ https://www.vanaalsburgbv.nl/en/zinkstuk/
nielsbot 5y ago
Meta: Interesting that a site called "low tech magazine" also appears to use "low tech" black/white dithered images... But I imagine it's a style choice.
- ashtonbaker 5y ago
  I think they do it to reduce image size and therefore power consumption. Their server is solar powered.
  - isolli 5y ago
    Indeed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29067118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29067118
  - mastax 5y ago
    You can fit much more detail into the same file size with just a grayscale JPEG at quality 50. Then you lose the dithering style and transparency, though.
ExtraE 5y ago
The battery indicator is neat, but it's distracting when it's covering the whole page. Maybe couple ch of width in a sidebar would be easier.
- Arrath 5y ago
  Thanks, I had wondered what the two-tone background was for and didn't notice the battery indicator off to the side.
tromp 5y ago
> Between 1954 and 1967, during works on the rivers throughout the country, they sank 1,200,000 km2 fascine mattresses to the bottom. I have trouble squaring that with all of the Netherlands measuring only 41,543 km2, with rivers making up only a tiny fraction of that. Perhaps conversion from 1,200,000,000 m2 was off by a factor of 1000, and they mean 1,200 km2 ?
- lowtechmagazine 5y ago
  Thanks for spotting the mistake. km2 should be m2. Source: https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:1ed44c19-ee2a-450d-bc3c-6e377cae54ef?collection=research https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:1ed44c19... page 17
vcdimension 5y ago
Seems to me at first glance that this could make for a great carbon offsetting scheme
blunte 5y ago
I wonder if this is the reason the Dutch (still) like to cut the tops off of willow trees every year or few. Just as the trees are starting to look great, a crew will show up and cut off all the branches, leaving a big fat nub on top of the trunk. And next year, it's grown back. I do understand that with some of these trees, they can grow so big and so wide that the tree will split and possibly die (although there are some enormous trees still living with just partial shells of a trunk and no core).
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  The old-fashioned word for these willow twigs in English is "withies" (cf. Tolkien's "Withywindle" river in LOTR). Coppicing has a long history in Europe (and some other parts of the world). Many other species are used for this, not just willows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing "Fascine" comes from the same Latin root as "fascism". The fasces was a bundle of sticks (sometimes with an ax embedded in it) that was used by the Romans as a badge of office. Mussolini's Fascist party appropriated the symbol. It's seen in many other places, though, including in the ceremonial mace of the U.S. House of Representatives and the seal of the U.S. Senate.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  That's the "pollarding" referred to in the article. It is something that varies in popularity by region: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding
tartoran 5y ago
Was wondering what was up with the battery icon and the reddish warm overlay but I continued reading. At some point it started burning through my eyes and tapped the battery: “This website runs on a solar powered server located in Barcelona, and will go off-line during longer periods of bad weather. This page shows live data relating to power supply, power demand, and energy storage. ”
- alanbernstein 5y ago
  A bit ironic that the site doesn't work properly in dark mode (which would use marginally less power on some devices)
- ragebol 5y ago
  Ah, I wondered what that was for! Now that I checked again, it's a couple of percent higher than when I read originally, because it's morning now in Europe.
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
This technique could be a great basis to build an artificial island. I'm waiting for some hard-core libertarian to show up and do that.

151 points by ggoo 5y ago

> Willow wood becomes rock-hard underwater and almost doesn’t deteriorate. Research in the late 1960s showed that most fascine mattresses submerged for more than 100 years — some dating from the early 1820s — remained intact. > Unlike most other tree species, willow tolerates saltwater and (temporarily) wet feet. As such, the coppice plantations could use land that was not suitable for agriculture. > On impoverished soils, the Dutch planted alder trees between the willow trees. The falling leaves of the alder fertilised the soils and increased the lifespan and production of the willow trees. Building long-lasting critical infrastructure using locally-sourced, carbon-negative resources! I have no idea about dykes specifically but I suspect today someone pitching a public works project based on woven willow would be laughed at -- and instead we would insist on pouring some reinforced concrete, using carbon-intensive cement, and it would begin falling apart from rusted rebar in 15 years.

Syonyk 5y ago
What if we build it out of graphene instead? There is an awful lot of knowledge that's been mostly discarded because it doesn't fit the "modern, industrial, profit-driven ways of thinking." Some of it is wrong, but an awful lot of it is simply "not easily to scale with machinery to maximum profits." Or, in some cases, just no longer considered stylish (stainless steel vs brass in hospitals being a case of "the new is literally worse than the old in every way that matters, while looking new" - the copper in brass is a biocide). It's probably worth picking up a printed copy or two of LTM... modern society is running out of runway awfully fast.
- bruce343434 5y ago
  What's LTM?
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Website where article is posted
- abeppu 5y ago
  > What if we build it out of graphene instead? I think the implication (that carbon negative local materials are unscalable) is unfair. We haven't built anything huge with graphene yet and the per-gram costs are still crazy (e.g. on the order of $100/g). By comparison, this article is about relatively large-scale projects that we actually did, decades ago. > Between 1954 and 1967, during works on the rivers throughout the country, they sank 1,200,000 km2 fascine mattresses to the bottom. We're in a context where we simultaneously want to: - build and replace infrastructure - decrease our carbon footprint and go negative where possible - protect large coastal areas from storm impacts - prevent further habitat loss and loss of ecological diversity And more recently we have become aware that sprawling international supply chains are a liability. I think more than just concerns over whether something scales at maximum profit, we also have too much institutional inertia. "If we pick different materials, will permitting and oversight bodies be convinced about safety and longevity claims? Will workers need to be retrained? Will the planning process need to change? Better to just do what we've always done; it's easier." To be fair, I suppose I _have_ heard people talk about carbon sequestration in cross-laminated timber for large buildings. I have not heard people talk about being able to source that timber locally, or in a way which is especially beneficial to the land. https://investingnews.com/daily/tech-investing/nanoscience-investing/graphene-investing/graphene-cost/ https://investingnews.com/daily/tech-investing/nanoscience-i...
oasisbob 5y ago
> I suspect today someone pitching a public works project based on woven willow would be laughed at Live fascine bundles and live stakes from willow are commonly used riparian restoration techniques. Less elaborate and smaller, but the technique is still very much appreciated. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/orpmctn6826.pdf https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/public...
klyrs 5y ago
The empress tree showed up on HN a little while back, specifically for its incredible ability to capture carbon. I wonder how well it would fare under water https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-already-have-the-world-s-most-efficient-carbon-capture-technology https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-alread...
tda 5y ago
Willow tree branches are still used ins some modern hydrailic infrastructure construction today. And nor for historical reasons, it is still practical and cost effective. In the past the branches had two functions: as a rigid frame and as a filter layer (to prevent soil from being washed away from under the erosion protection). The frame functions to make the filter a rigid structure that one can sink to the bottom in a controlled manner by dumbing rocks on it. In modern construction geotextiles are used as filters, but these are sometimes made rigid with bundles of willow tree branches.

singlow 5y ago

So that underwater basket weaving course was not a fluff course after all?

Syonyk 5y ago
Of course it was! This is onshore basket weaving that's then floated into position and sunk. Different department.
- pkdpic 5y ago
  But I mean, they could partially bypass the carbon cost associated with transport and installation if it was woven in place. Even more so if they could weave without costly respiratory equipment etc.
Guest42 5y ago
I remember that the top person in the math department in college had transferred from dance because it was too difficult. They always present underwater basket weaving as being easy but I imagine it’d be quite challenging.
- qq4 5y ago
  The idea is that underwater basket weaving has no utility in the real world, not that it is easy.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I had to drop the class because I couldn't hold my breath long enough to do much weaving.
progre 5y ago
For those who, like me, didn't get the joke: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving

peter_retief 5y ago

Reminds me of the Roman cement that lasts for centuries as well. The Dutch are interesting as they also have a strong agricultural bent.

wolverine876 5y ago
I was just talking about that with someone. What makes it hold up? And are we talking about the material used to construct ancient structures like the Colosseum and aqueducts?
- klyrs 5y ago
  Something about crystal formation in the volcanic ash that the cement is made from, reacting with the volcanic rock the aggregate is made from. I'm not going to do it justice by getting any more specific, so here's an article for layfolk, and the associated journal article. https://www.sciencealert.com/why-2-000-year-old-roman-concrete-is-so-much-better-than-what-we-produce-today https://www.sciencealert.com/why-2-000-year-old-roman-concre... https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/msa/ammin/article/102/7/1435/353606/Phillipsite-and-Al-tobermorite-mineral-cements https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/msa/ammin/article/102/7/143...

notorandit 5y ago

Dutch Genius at work.

akamoonknight 5y ago

Enjoyable read overall. Always fascinating to see the human ingenuity involved in problem solving. I might have missed it in the article, but how do the fascine mattresses do the work of helping keep back the sea? By breaking up waves before they reach the shore?

pacaro 5y ago
The article is light on the actual function of the mattresses, but my reading is that they served to prevent erosion, and would prevent dykes and other structures from being undercut
WJW 5y ago
They keep the soil of the dike in place, which would erode away without the "mattress".

atourgates 5y ago

This is fascinating. Worth noting that there appear to be still companies doing this today: https://www.vanaalsburgbv.nl/en/zinkstuk/ https://www.vanaalsburgbv.nl/en/zinkstuk/

nielsbot 5y ago

Meta: Interesting that a site called "low tech magazine" also appears to use "low tech" black/white dithered images... But I imagine it's a style choice.

ashtonbaker 5y ago
I think they do it to reduce image size and therefore power consumption. Their server is solar powered.
- isolli 5y ago
  Indeed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29067118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29067118
- mastax 5y ago
  You can fit much more detail into the same file size with just a grayscale JPEG at quality 50. Then you lose the dithering style and transparency, though.

ExtraE 5y ago

The battery indicator is neat, but it's distracting when it's covering the whole page. Maybe couple ch of width in a sidebar would be easier.

Arrath 5y ago
Thanks, I had wondered what the two-tone background was for and didn't notice the battery indicator off to the side.

tromp 5y ago

> Between 1954 and 1967, during works on the rivers throughout the country, they sank 1,200,000 km2 fascine mattresses to the bottom. I have trouble squaring that with all of the Netherlands measuring only 41,543 km2, with rivers making up only a tiny fraction of that. Perhaps conversion from 1,200,000,000 m2 was off by a factor of 1000, and they mean 1,200 km2 ?

lowtechmagazine 5y ago
Thanks for spotting the mistake. km2 should be m2. Source: https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:1ed44c19-ee2a-450d-bc3c-6e377cae54ef?collection=research https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:1ed44c19... page 17

vcdimension 5y ago

Seems to me at first glance that this could make for a great carbon offsetting scheme

blunte 5y ago

I wonder if this is the reason the Dutch (still) like to cut the tops off of willow trees every year or few. Just as the trees are starting to look great, a crew will show up and cut off all the branches, leaving a big fat nub on top of the trunk. And next year, it's grown back. I do understand that with some of these trees, they can grow so big and so wide that the tree will split and possibly die (although there are some enormous trees still living with just partial shells of a trunk and no core).

Turing_Machine 5y ago
The old-fashioned word for these willow twigs in English is "withies" (cf. Tolkien's "Withywindle" river in LOTR). Coppicing has a long history in Europe (and some other parts of the world). Many other species are used for this, not just willows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing "Fascine" comes from the same Latin root as "fascism". The fasces was a bundle of sticks (sometimes with an ax embedded in it) that was used by the Romans as a badge of office. Mussolini's Fascist party appropriated the symbol. It's seen in many other places, though, including in the ceremonial mace of the U.S. House of Representatives and the seal of the U.S. Senate.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
That's the "pollarding" referred to in the article. It is something that varies in popularity by region: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding

tartoran 5y ago

Was wondering what was up with the battery icon and the reddish warm overlay but I continued reading. At some point it started burning through my eyes and tapped the battery: “This website runs on a solar powered server located in Barcelona, and will go off-line during longer periods of bad weather. This page shows live data relating to power supply, power demand, and energy storage. ”

alanbernstein 5y ago
A bit ironic that the site doesn't work properly in dark mode (which would use marginally less power on some devices)
ragebol 5y ago
Ah, I wondered what that was for! Now that I checked again, it's a couple of percent higher than when I read originally, because it's morning now in Europe.

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

This technique could be a great basis to build an artificial island. I'm waiting for some hard-core libertarian to show up and do that.