11 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 31.8 ms ] thread
Its interesting - this article reminded me of a Youtube video about City Skylines and flood control.

Cities Skylines Flood Management Tutorial - Ten Top Tips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dxhecED8_E

Its interesting to what extent if a highly accurate physics model were created along with:

- physical maps of existing villages - rivers and their flood models - levee/construction and build material costs

you could make an open source research platform/game/competition that could actually find the best engineered solution for various locations.

There is a lot of interesting flood control and drainage projects in Bangladesh. My dad remembers taking a boat to school during monsoon season. But today, kids in his village don’t do that because of the flood control measures.
On the Mekong and it's tributaries where there is a significant change in where the river banks on a seasonal basis the whole community is set up to shift up/down and or side to side. I have seen NGOs set up floating schools and even basketball courts in cages on a refurbished barge. People are resourceful and adaptation hopefully is what separates us from the Dinosaurs.
The architect Kashef Chowdhury's presentation on the design. Much more visual, gets covered in 10mins:

https://youtu.be/lc1DMkQqfLw?t=243

This is a great talk - in particular I loved the cyclone shelter starting around 36:00 in the video - but all of his projects are spectacular given the severe constraints of that part of the world.
Around minute 58 he makes a great point about not starting his designs on computer because that restrains what he can do - he always starts with pencil and paper and the more organic results show through.
Is it too much to ask for pictures or diagrams of the islands?
Funny, I learned more from HN and Nomad Century about my country's innovative actions to climate change than the local news sites...