The question is just what I wondered as we flew overhead. What's the story with those straight channel-like links? Can you figure out when those channels were created and what they were trying to do?
Search on!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Wednesday Search Challenge (Dec 8, 2010): What are those lines in the bay?
I flew into JFK yesterday in the late afternoon. As we approached over the southern shore of Long Island, I looked out my window and saw the following remarkable site (here's the maps link):
The question is just what I wondered as we flew overhead. What's the story with those straight channel-like links? Can you figure out when those channels were created and what they were trying to do?
Search on!
The question is just what I wondered as we flew overhead. What's the story with those straight channel-like links? Can you figure out when those channels were created and what they were trying to do?
Search on!
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Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI found the following explanation for the grid pattern:
Much of the tidal wetlands of Suffolk County, as well as neighboring coastal wetlands of eastern North America, has been previously affected by hydrological manipulations by mosquito control agencies which began early in the twentieth century. In an effort to depress mosquito populations emanating from salt marshes, parallel linear ditches were dug from the high marsh zones through the low marsh
and out to estuarine bays, creeks and rivers. In many cases, supplementary ditches were also dug at right angles cross-connecting the linear ditches thus creating a grid pattern of ditches on the marsh surface. The intent was to remove the standing water of the marsh surface in which the marsh mosquitoes develop through their larval stages.
See: http://goo.gl/ivzPJ
Hans -- This looks really good and very plausible.
ReplyDeleteBut tell me, HOW did you find this information? What was your search approach?
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteLet me first tell you that I live in the Netherlands, so I'm familiar with dikes, ditches, canals and tidal marshes. Further, I'm a professional information researcher (I work in a corporate information center) so I know a lot about how to conduct a search on the internet.
Here are my search steps
* I found in Google Maps the name of a bay in the neighborhood "Brosewere Bay"
* A search in Google with ["long island" "brosewere bay" +canals] brought me to a website of the Long Island South Shore Estuary Reserve: http://www.estuary.cog.ny.us/dredging/1_FINAL_Dredging_Needsweb.pdf
* A search on that site using Google [site:www.estuary.cog.ny.us ditches] brought me to a document mentioning grid ditching for mosquito control http://www.estuary.cog.ny.us/ISR2005/ISR%20Outcome%204.pdf
* A search in Google on ["long island" grid mosquito control] came up with the final document: http://www.geo.sunysb.edu/lig/Conferences/abstracts07/abstracts/potente.pdf with the explanation of the grid pattern: Much of the tidal wetlands of Suffolk County, as well as neighboring coastal wetlands of eastern North America, has been previously affected by hydrological manipulations by mosquito control agencies which began early in the twentieth century. In an effort to depress mosquito populations emanating from salt marshes, parallel linear ditches were dug from the high marsh zones through the low marsh and out to estuarine bays, creeks and rivers. In many cases, supplementary ditches were also dug at right angles cross-connecting the linear ditches thus creating a grid pattern of ditches on the marsh surface. The intent was to remove the standing water of the marsh surface in which the marsh mosquitoes develop through their larval stages.
Kind regards,
Hans