The Use of Geomorphological Modelling In Landscape Design and Planning

The applied nature of civil engineering has historically shaped the approach of its professionals towards the development of Geomorphological models and simulations. The aim of these models is the understanding of natural processes and more typically development of predictions how these natural processes will act and interact with human structures, existing or proposed. It is this projective attitude of the civil engineer that makes our work relevant to other disciplines dealing with design at territorial levels and that rely on our knowledge in order to substantiate their proposals. In this sense, landscape architects and urban planners need to work in close collaboration with engineers in order to successfully deliver large scale projects that interact with large territorial features such as rivers, dune systems, deltas or similar scale formations. What this article argues is that in order to develop a healthier and more productive relationship between landscape architects and civil engineers, it is worth analysing the type of knowledge produced by Geomorphological models and compare it with the type of knowledge that designers need to manage in their creative process. Only doing so, we may be able to emphasize aspects of our collaboration and nurture new forms of professional practice. The tradition of geomorphological modelling in civil engineering dates to back the studies carried out in natural sciences, namely geology, which began using a number of physical models in order to understand natural phenomena and explain the patterns of distribution of materials in the earth surface as the result of internal tectonic forces acting over millions of years. These first models (also called analogous models) date as far back as 1812, when the geologist James Hall used layers of clay in order to replicate in small scale the types of structures that he found in nature such as folds and faults. James Hall carried out this work in combination with other experiments that were trying to ascertain how rocks and minerals would behave differently when molten and how they would recuperate its solid nature when cooled. The idea behind the model is that clay layers subject to confined stress in a (see Figure 1 of similar experiment by H.M. Cadell using wet sand and plaster [1]) will exhibit a deformation pattern which is structurally similar to that one of igneous materials subject to high pressure and temperatures. The behaviour of clay, wet sand or plaster in terms of its fluency at small scale (both geometrical as well as temporal) and the one of rock at large scale are analogous (hence their name). What is interesting for the purposes of this article is the intuitive jump made by James Hall and H.M Cadell [1] when finding such a connection between so seemingly different materials. For all its rigour and scientific excellence, their methods were underpinned by a great deal of imagination and pragmatism that initially led Hall to believe that we could learn things about nature (and up to a certain point predict certain behaviour) when observing the behaviour of materials at a small scale. Volume 3 Issue 5 2017