Week 6

Project 1 Individual Statement:

Globally climate change has caused a massive rise in sea levels resulting in massive numbers of 'Climate Refugees'. Climate change has warmed the world's oceans causing super storm cells with higher intensity and higher volumes of water dumped on the land in one event.

Australia; having vast amounts of resources and space accommodates for Asia's Climate Refugees. Climate Refuge's are set up with the Woodfordia Refuge being the exemplar and educational center for the Climate Refugees.

Refugees come to Woodfordia to learn about sustainable living practices and techniques. After 6 months of living sustainably within the Woodfordia community, refugees relocate to new climate refuges and continue to use their newly learnt sustainable ways.

Each Climate Refuge is self sustaining in terms of food, water and resources. Any extra resources that are produced within the community, for example wood, can be traded with neighboring Refuge's for resources that may be needed.

The population of each Refuge is determined by the carrying capacity of the surrounding land. For example if the land is tropical and fertile land it is able to produce more food and resources than that or an arid climate thus being able to support a larger population.

Buildings within the Refuge are designed according to a set of architectural rules. These rules, applied from 'A Pattern Language' include: Agricultural Valleys, Site Repair, and Green Roads. Structures are also designed to be adaptable and flexible to the community's needs whilst having the robust structure to withstand the stronger storm systems experienced in 2050.


Presentation Panels 

Week 6 - Diagramming

Land Requirements Diagram

Housing in Woodfordia

The diagram on the left shows an ariel photo of area 10 of the Woodfordia Site. The sandy colored areas have been deemed by the Woodfordia committee as acid land and is unsuitable for growth of trees or plants. Thus this area, being high on a hill, is  the perfect location for housing for the residents of the Woodford community. This aligns with the Architectural Possibilities and 'A Pattern Language'  rules of Agricultural Valleys and Site Repair.

Light Green - Green space

Dark Green - Trees

Dark Grey - Roads

Light Grey - Housing unit

Flash Flooding

Woodford under normal weather conditions:

Woodford under flash flood conditions:

Week 6 - Research

Storm intensity

"Projections indicate there may be an increase in the proportion of tropical cyclones in 
the more intense categories (3-5), however a decrease in the total number of cyclones. By 2030, projections show that there may be a 60 per cent increase in severe storm intensity and a 140 per cent increase by 2070. Projections also indicate that tropical cyclones are moving southward as sea surface temperatures increase"

Reference:
Department of climate change and energy efficiency. 2010. Climate Change - potential impacts and costs. Australian Government. Page 1. Accessed 29/08/2012


Sea Level Rise

"The global average sea level rose by close to 20 centimetres between 1870 and 2007."

"Sea levels rose at an average of 1.7 millimetres per year during the 20th century, and 3.4 millimetres per year from 1993 to 2007"

Reference:
CSIRO. Understanding Climate Change. http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding.aspx. Accessed 29/08/2012



Climate change quote: 

Generally for Queensland

"Rising sea-level, stronger tropical cyclones and increased intensity of oceanic storm surges are likely with climate change. A study has shown that tropical cyclone intensity around Cairns in northern Queensland could increase by up to 20% by about
2050. Stronger cyclones would increase the flood level associated with a 1-in-100 year flood in Cairns from the present height of 2.3 metres to 2.6 metres; a rise in sea-level of 0.1 to 0.4 metres would result in the flood level increasing further to 2.7 to 3.0 metres. This would result in flooding occurring over an area about twice that historically affected"

Reference:
CSIRO. Climate change impacts for Australia. http://www.csiro.au/files/files/p3ct.pdf . Page 7. Accessed 29/08/2012

Woodford Master Planning

Photoshopped!!

Hexagon Pattern Applied to Woodford area

Week 6 - Planning

Pattern Planning

Before - Google Maps

 After - Photoshopped

Each Hexagon represents a community's boundaries.
The red out line is the Woodfordia site
Dark Green represents undeveloped forests and land.

Week 5 - Research

Sea Level Rise Diagrams

Information sourced from: http://flood.firetree.net/ and then photoshoped

Brisbane:
0m

1m

2m

3m

Bangkok:
In 2005, Bangkok had an official population of 5,658,953 (Wikipedia). With a Sea Level rise of 3m I would suggest that over 4.5 million people will be displaced. As Australia is one of Thailand's closest developed nations that has the space and resources to accommodate for refugees, it would be suggested that many of these 'climate refugees' would be accepted by Australia.

Wikipedia. 2012. Bangkok. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangkok. Accessed 26/08/2012

0m

1m

2m

3m

Week 5 Research

Rising Sea Levels

I found a website called FireTree flood maps, this website uses NASA data and Google Maps data to estimate the average sea level rise globally. Any location in the world can be looked at. I've chosen to look at one local example; Brisbane and one International example; Bangkok, Thailand. 

The reason I chose Bangkok is that it is a relatively low lying city that is densely populated. In the event that the sea levels rise over a meter, as Australia is one of Thailand's closest neighbors we would likely receive many Climate Refugees.

FireTree website link
http://flood.firetree.net/

Australia with sea levels at 0m

Australia with sea levels at 50m

I intend to use this data for graphically purposes on the group poster.