Jeffrey Betts
ARCH-4980.2 | Julia Watson, Assistant Professor
REINSTATING THE MEANDER
JEFF BETTS
Chinese landscapes, through rigorous attempts at a modern urbanism and continuous unsustainable sprawl, are nearing the tipping point where there may be no chances at reinstating the ecologies and systems that have sustained life and prosperity to one of the oldest civilizations in history.
Along the course of China’s longest river, the Yangtze, stretch over four-thousand tributaries, each with populations that rely on these river systems for agriculture, natural sedimentation, irrigation, fishing, hydro-based energy, water, and transportation. Through the last sixty years of development and industrialization of the Sichuan Basin, opened only to the current Chinese culture for less than a century, these tributaries are undergoing channelization and dangerously high pollution levels. Nowhere is this more evident than the meander, subject to cutoff, damming, drought, and severe flooding.
With the addition of urban growth outward from the major cities over the past two decades, this process is taking over the meanders and entire Sichuan Basin at an exponential rate. Unfortunately the current prevention strategies are few and far in between, with no focus on community development and cultural significance of these incredible, natural answers the river has given to flood control and stability, new land formation, silt and sediment deposition, and filtration.
Through strategic river flow diversion, filtration strategies, use of local manufacturing operations, community development, awareness, and organization, and sustainable energy production, the meander formation south of Cangxi on the Jialing River in Sichuan will combine these strategies for potential site development along meanders across the Yangtze River Basin. Most importantly, the river will be restored to the focus of the communities, both agrarian and urban, and their lifestyles, versus the current sprawl along major highways and massive development projects.