Flood Control

choi

Hurricane Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City around 8 pm, Oct 29, 2012 with maximum sustained winds of about 80 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. Swells of sea water innudated Manhattan.

(1) Robert Lee Hotz, Keeping Our Heads Above Water; What can New York learn from other great cities battling rising tides and sinking land?  Wall Street Journal, Dec 1, 2012.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 47472966637606.html

Note:
(a) The article observes, "And in St Petersburg, where storm tides have flooded the city about once a year since its founding in 1703, engineers last year completed a storm-surge barrier more than 15 miles long."

Saint Petersburg Dam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg_Dam

(b) The article says, "To protect against a storm surge in the shipping channel to Rotterdam, Europe's busiest port, they built one of the largest moving structures on Earth—a $500 million storm gate whose swinging arms are as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall."

Maeslantkering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maeslantkering
(It is part of the Delta Works and it is one of largest moving structures on Earth rivalling the Green Bank Telescope in the USA and the Bagger 288 excavator in Germany; section 1.4 Maeslantkering in operation)
(i) Please click "Delta Works" to have a bird's-eye view of the Maeslantkering.
(ii) Maeslantkering is also known as Maeslant barrier.  
(iii) De werking van de Maeslantkering. YouTube.com, uploaded by jasonbruce1994 on Mar 21, 2010 (animation).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sv8w10BkY0

(c) The article states, "Much of metropolitan Tokyo, including its subways and underground malls, is also below the normal flood level. * * * Instead of huge barriers, Japan's urban engineers burrowed deep under Tokyo to construct nine of the largest subterranean reservoirs in the world, which snake for miles underneath crowded city streets. They also built 15 massive catch basins at street level that double as parks, soccer fields and public stadiums. * * * [The underground reservoirs] can channel millions of gallons of storm water through a vast tunnel more than 3 miles long into five huge underground silos—each one taller than the Statue of Liberty—where the flood can be stored temporarily before being drained into the nearby Edo River.

Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Met ... d_Discharge_Channel

In sections 3 (References) and 4 (External links), visit only "Official website" (other sites in the two sections are not helpful). The official website is in Japanese, but click the left-most tab ("summary") in the horizontal bar, and an animation will give you the concept how the system works.
(i) Here is a sketch of the system.

Martin W Kiml, Krotitelé katastrof. E15 VTM, July 20, 2009.
http://vtm.e15.cz/clanek/krotitele-katastrof
(photo 4)
(ii) Topic - Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Dis...; Auto-generated by YouTube, undated.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/HC-Zcpc7HkX_o/videos

Please view at least 2:21 "GCans Promo 3" (another animation).

(d)
(i) The article comments "the master builders of medieval Venice pounded millions of alder posts into the muck of their lagoon."

Venice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice
(section 1.6.1 Foundations: Most of these piles were made from trunks of alder trees,[28] a wood noted for its water resistance)
(ii) The article later says, "In normal times, the [MOSE] gates are submerged to permit shipping. Hinged like storm doors, they will rise up" when air is pumped into the hollow gates.
(A) MOSE project of Venice stands for "MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico," or "Experimental Electromechanical Module" in English.
(B) For the MOSE project, go to the official site
SAL.VE
http://www.salve.it/uk/default.htm
, and watch the video.

choi

Andrew Higgins, Lessons for U.S. From a Flood-Prone Land. New York Times, Nov 15, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/1 ... ood-prevention.html

Quote:

The Netherlands is "a country where two-thirds of the population, including most residents of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, live on flood-prone land, much of it below sea level.

"The Maeslantkering, a movable storm surge barrier near Rotterdam that is twice as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, was finished in 1997 and, testing aside, has been used only once, in November 2007.

Note:
(a) For a general reading, see
flood barrier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_barrier
(b) Lelystad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lelystad
(capital of the province of Flevoland; founded in 1967 and was named after Cornelis Lely [1854-1929; Dutch civil engineer], who engineered the Afsluitdijk [a causeway  constructed between 1927 and 1933], making the reclamation possible)
(c) muskrat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskrat
(native to North America, See map for distribution; section 1 Etymology; section 4 Behavior: In streams, ponds or lakes, muskrats burrow into the bank with an underwater entrance)
(d) The report said, "For most of their history, the Dutch held back water in land that began as a large peat swamp by creating an elaborate mosaic of dikes, which, strung together today, would stretch for nearly 50,000 miles."

The length of Great Wall of China is "21,196 km (13,171 mi)." Wikipedia

choi

Michael Kimmelman, Vetoing Business as Usual After the Storm. New York Times, Nov 20, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/2 ... clude-politics.html

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the architecture critic's article (because it said little). What was intriguing was two photos of Thames barrier, about which I could not figure out how it might work.
(b) Wikipedia page is not helpful.
(c) So go directly to the official web site.

The Thames Barrier. UK Environmental Agency, undated.
http://www.environment-agency.go ... e/floods/38353.aspx

About the last item of the text is:
"> How the Thames Barrier works."
Click and watch an animation.