Blogging the Sabbatical

Marta and I have made a strong argument that the survivors of Marceana and Taulen were able to recover their taskscape, and hence, their community after the landslide.  What was unexpected in our findings about the new village and re-established community, however, was that by the end of the 19th century, most of the residents would relocate to Clifton, Nj.

All the tools they brought to re-establishing taskscape in Villanova would be used with tremendous success in Clifton and they would rarely return to the former sites of Marceana and Taulen, which had taught them to struggle, and to enjoy the ‘morbin’.

Debris flows are fast moving, liquefied landslides of mixed and unconsolidated water and debris that look like flowing concrete. They are defined by their non-newtonian flow dynamics, and behave as Bingham plastics. This characteristic can lead to the formation of levees at the margins of unconstrained debris flows as the margins of the flow freeze. They are differentiated from mudflows by their coarser and more poorly sorted sediment load. Flows can carry material ranging in size from clay to boulders, and may contain a large amount of woody debris such as logs and tree stumps. Flows can be triggered by intense rainfall, glacial melt, or a combination of the two. Speed of debris flows can vary from 5 km/h to up to 80 km/h in extreme cases.[citation needed] Volumes of material delivered by single events vary from less than 100 to more than 100,000 cubic metres.[citation needed] Variables considered important in debris flow initiation include slope angle, available loose sediment, and degree of land disturbance by activities such as forest harvesting. Debris flows are often more frequent following forest and brush fires, as experience in southern California clearly demonstrates. Debris flows are extremely destructive to life and property, and claim thousands of lives world-wide in any given year. They are a particular problem in steep mountainous areas subjected to intense rainstorms, and have received particular attention from researchers in Japan, Western USA, Western Canada, New Zealand, the European Alps, and Kazakhstan.[1]

True debris flows are very sediment dense, typically > 60 % sediment by volume. Less concentrated flows would be hyperconcentrated or fluvial.[2]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debris_flow

Debris slides and debris flows are extremely rapid (>5 m/second; the worlds fastest sprinters run about 10 m/second) shallow landslides that break up or flow down-slope as water content or velocity increases. They are typically quite large (~7,000 m2) but range from the very small to many kilometres in size. In general, debris slides and debris flows occur in our steep uninhabited terrain as a result of saturated soils and are often related to storms or earthquakes. They are a threat to people and infrastructure when they block roads, dam streams or hit remote structures. However, some residents live on debris flow fans (at the base of the Beaufort mountain range for example, near Port Alberni) and have to contend periodically with the risk of debris flows. Debris flows and debris slides are more commonly a concern to environmental values (including fish and fish streams) and forestry resources.
Some communities have taken special measures to protect themselves from debris flow hazards. Port Alice, for example, has constructed a large debris flow training berm and has a warning system for debris flows that might reach the town.
http://web.viu.ca/geoscape/

Tim Ingold’s concept of taskscape encompasses landscape, social activity, and their reciprocal interactions over time. Taskscape is a pattern of activity, a motion of the whole community acting upon and being acted on by a landscape. This perspective centers sensory experience and meaning, rather than place attachment, as a central outcome of engagement with the physical environment (Dunkley 2007).

This perspective also implies the invocation of deeply felt emotions as people engage with taskscapes of daily life.  Therefore, understanding local taskscapes, i.e. people’s sensory experiences of the setting in which they dwell, the improvised social activities of dwelling in response to sensory input, and the emotions they evoke, becomes a first step in addressing trauma recovery.  This approach centers issues of relocation/dislocation of communities after a disaster, which become major sites of resistance and anguish during interactions with institutional authorities and experts.  Victims of disasters want input into their temporary relocation and the rebuilding of their pre-disaster taskscapes.

The Harvesters, 1565
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, active by 1551, died 1569)
Oil on wood

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/19.164