A River is Reborn—Use Attainability Analysis for the Lower Des Plaines River, Illinois

O’Reilly, Neal; Ehlinger, Timothy J.; Frevert, Toby; Twait, Scott

doi:10.2175/106143006x95500

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The canal reversed the flow of the Chicago River, which had originally flowed into Lake Michigan, diverting it into the Des Plaines River (Figure 1.14) that flows, after becoming the Illinois River, into the Mississippi River (Macaitis et al, 1977;Novotny et al, 2007). The cholera epidemics in Chicago (Illinois) in the late 1800s, caused by contamination of the city's water intake from Lake Michigan, led the city government to commission the building of an engineering marvel, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC), finished in 1910.…”

Section: I23 Third Paradigmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historic Paradigms of Urban Water/Stormwater/Wastewater Management and Drivers for Change

Ahern¹,

Brown²

2010

Water Centric Sustainable Communities

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Since the onset of urbanization millennia ago, cities were connected to water resources, which were their lifeline. Without this connection to water, there would be no cities and, ultimately, no life. When water became scarce, cities were abandoned, and sometimes entire civilizations vanished, as exemplified by the history of the indigenous Hohokam and Anasazi peoples living in the southwestern U.S. in the 15th century, in communities of more than a thousand people-communities that lasted for about a thousand years, but were abandoned, most likely because of extensive drought and the failure of their irrigation systems. Obviously, there were several reasons other than water scarcity causing ancient cities to become ghost towns, then ruins, and finally archeological excavations, centuries or millennia later. Some were related to loss of soil fertility caused by a lack of water for irrigation or poor irrigation practices, which resulted in famine; epidemics of water-borne diseases; exhaustion of the natural resource that was being extracted; or contaminated water, for example, by lead in ancient Rome. Water scarcity is sometimes a result of poor city management and institutions that were inadequate to deal with the multiplicity of conflicting uses and demands for water. Urban waters provided navigation, fish and other seafood, power to mills, laundry, recreation for kings and other nobility, defense during siege by invading armies, and religious significance in some countries and cultures (e.g., India) where certain bodies of water are worshiped.Water also cleans cities; in historic cities, rainfall washed away the deposits on the streets containing garbage, manure from animals, and human fecal matter. Rainfall and ensuing runoff were-and still are, in many urban areas in some countriesthe main and often the only means of disposal of accumulated malodorous solids. During antiquity and the Middle Ages, rivers in sparsely settled rural areas were Terrible epidemics plagued medieval cities, exacerbated by wars and famine. In one medieval epidemic, during a prolonged continental war in the 17th century, 25% of the entire European population vanished.The situation of urban water resources during the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century worsened. As cities became industrialized, pollution from industries and loads from reinvented flushing toilets in households (communal flushing toilets were known and used by ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome millennia ago) discharged without treatment into streams resulted in bodies of water devoid of oxygen and smelly due to hydrogen sulfide emanating from decomposing anoxic sediments and water. The response of city engineers and planners was to put the streams out of sight-that is, cover them and/or turn them into combined sewers. In general, until the 20th century, the water environment was not a major interest of architects, builders, or rulers/governments of cities. The people living in the ancient and medieval cities were obviously afraid of epidemics, but...

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Section: I23 Third Paradigmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historic Paradigms of Urban Water/Stormwater/Wastewater Management and Drivers for Change

Ahern¹,

Brown²

2010

Water Centric Sustainable Communities

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“…This is largely on the basis of a growing body of evidence and opinion that reducing pollution levels improves the quality of the experience for participants in many water related recreation activities. The activities that may benefit from a reduction in pollution include: bathing, swimming, scuba diving and other activities where there is direct contact with the water (Jagals, 1997;Pendleton et al, 2001;Dor et al, 2003;Hanley et al, 2004;Turbow et al, 2004;Söderqvist et al, 2005;Lepesteur et al, 2006;Novotny et al, 2007;Rao, 2008); inland and sea fishing (Freeman, 1995;Willis and Garrod, 1999;Grosch et al, 2000;Wolter and Arlinghaus, 2003;Massey et al, 2006); and surfing (Laviolette, 2006;Surfers Against Sewage, 2007;Wheaton, 2007).…”

Section: Introduction -Recreation and Water Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At one extreme, the polluted waters around Berlin (Grosch et al, 2000), Chicago (Novotny et al, 2007) and Hyderabad (Rao, 2008) have been -and continue to be -in need of remediation before any recreational activity can (re)commence. At lower pollution levels -where the health impacts of pollution are still evident -recreation activities do occur, whether swimming in the waters of Los Angeles County (Pendleton et al, 2001), or fishing off the US Atlantic coast (Massey et al, 2006), although the quality of these activities might be enhanced by lower pollution levels.…”

Section: Introduction -Recreation and Water Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The attitudes of recreational user representatives to pollution reduction and the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive

Ravenscroft

Church

2011

Land Use Policy

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Under the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), all water bodies must be of ‘good ecological status’ by 2015. One of the major beneficiaries of this will be those who use water for sport and recreation activities. It is certainly the case that some waters do contain – at some times – concentrations of pollutants sufficient to be a potential threat to public health but there is little robust evidence that water quality is a major constraint to many water-based activities. This paper addresses the current evidence deficit through a survey of recreational user representatives, exploring the cultural and political influences on decisions about when the quality of water is sufficient for their activity to take place. Using a reading of Bourdieu's ‘feel for the game’, the paper argues that there is a spectrum of involvement, contact and participation that conditions use and, thus, helps to establish an appropriate context for understanding the potential impacts on water-based recreation of the implementation of the WF

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Restoring Urban Streams

Ahern¹,

Brown²

2010

Water Centric Sustainable Communities

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428RESTORING URBAN STREAMS recovery plants that will produce effluents with a quality on par with, or better than, the water quality in good-quality receiving waters IX.1 INTRODUCTION 429 the cities, as occurred frequently in London and many other places during the first 60 years of the last century. Consequently, after cleanup, people in the U.S. who left the cities for the suburbs have begun rediscovering urban rivers and have been slowly returning to central city living, with the real estate near the water resources at a high premium. Many cities are now calling themselves "Water Cities" and use this distinction in urban development. Chicago (Illinois) and Milwaukee (Wisconsin) on Lake Michigan, Toronto (Ontario) on Lake Ontario, Sydney (Australia), and Singapore in Asia have opened their architecture to their water bodies by preserving and restoring their waterfronts, including beaches, parks with bike and pedestrian paths, architectural monuments, museums and entertainment facilities (e.g., opera in Sydney, an art museum in Milwaukee designed by the renowned Spanish architect Calatrava, and museums in Chicago), restaurants and piers, and so on. Historically, Paris has had its Seine River, Prague has had the Vltava (Moldau) River, London is renowned for the Thames River, and Boston (Massachusetts) has the Charles River; Amsterdam, Bangkok, Venice, and several cities in China all have arch bridges and famous canals. These rivers and canals have been the lifelines of the cities, providing transportation for people and commerce, water and energy for industries developed on the shores, enjoyment and recreation opportunities for the people-but they also became a medium for disposing of wastes from the city, overwhelming their pollution-carrying capacity and, for some, leading to their demise.Today, cities are also beginning to rediscover the high economic and social value of their water bodies, large and small, transecting the urban areas. Citizens and city governments have realized that streams buried by unrestricted developments during the third paradigm, and of poor quality, have no social or economic value. As a matter of fact, the areas above and around the buried streams in most cases have deteriorated to the point of social injustice and left disadvantaged populations in the dilapidated neighborhoods. This occurred in the watershed of Stony Brook in Boston, as well as in the watershed of the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul, Korea (see Box 9.1). BOX 9.1 DAYLIGHTING THE CHEONGGYECHEON RIVER IN SEOUL, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF KOREAThe name Cheonggyecheon means in Korean "clean water stream," and for centuries the river provided the Korean capital city with clean water from nearby mountains and washed its waste to the much larger Han River. But at the beginning of the 20th century, when the river received its current name, it was far from clean, and plans were made a hundred years ago by Japanese colonial occupying authorities to cover the river. These plans failed because of lack of funding and wars.During the Kor...

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A River is Reborn—Use Attainability Analysis for the Lower Des Plaines River, Illinois

Cited by 7 publications

References 2 publications

Historic Paradigms of Urban Water/Stormwater/Wastewater Management and Drivers for Change

Historic Paradigms of Urban Water/Stormwater/Wastewater Management and Drivers for Change

The attitudes of recreational user representatives to pollution reduction and the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive

Restoring Urban Streams

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