POD- EELS’ ALLIANCES
Jun-2022
Two Fictional Settings
by Ting-Yu Lee, Amy Cutler, Devanshi Rungta, Rong Shi, Finbar Kelly, Xirui Liao, Yueshen Wu, Ke Peng, Aijia Wang, and Qing Wang
by Ting-Yu Lee, Amy Cutler, Devanshi Rungta, Rong Shi, Finbar Kelly, Xirui Liao, Yueshen Wu, Ke Peng, Aijia Wang, and Qing Wang
Participatory Ocean-sensitive Design is a collaborative, socio-environmental game that generates responses to plausible climate change scenarios through systems-oriented thinking and making.
The year is 2027. High tidal floods has adversely affected more than 500000 built human properties in London. Floods increased exacerbating erosion introducing riverine pollution with sewage discharges from both industrial and domestic sources into the river Thames. These pollutants include heavy metals, detergents and pesticides.
Floods resulted in the inundation of floodplains, leading to an increase in habitat availability beyond the normal river channel. In addition to the creation of lateral linkages between the water body and its floodplain, floods also promoted vertical, lateral and longitudinal connectivity between habitats.
European Eels have long be overfished, and changes in ocean temperatures have restricted them to increasingly small areas, leaving them constrained to a smaller and higher-risk habitat for fishing. During one of the overbank flooding, a group of eels moved to the floodplain and became trapped there when the water receded.
For better survival, European Eels form alliances with other species based on each other’s needs and capabilities. Through negotiations and developments, Eels and Sand Mason Worms combine abilities to construct well-designed and better-located migration corridors. Meanwhile, Ocean Bacteria cooperates with Eels by initiating a Mutation Lab on the Eels’ biofilm in order to enhance mutual survival.
The year is 2027. High tidal floods has adversely affected more than 500000 built human properties in London. Floods increased exacerbating erosion introducing riverine pollution with sewage discharges from both industrial and domestic sources into the river Thames. These pollutants include heavy metals, detergents and pesticides.
Floods resulted in the inundation of floodplains, leading to an increase in habitat availability beyond the normal river channel. In addition to the creation of lateral linkages between the water body and its floodplain, floods also promoted vertical, lateral and longitudinal connectivity between habitats.
European Eels have long be overfished, and changes in ocean temperatures have restricted them to increasingly small areas, leaving them constrained to a smaller and higher-risk habitat for fishing. During one of the overbank flooding, a group of eels moved to the floodplain and became trapped there when the water receded.
For better survival, European Eels form alliances with other species based on each other’s needs and capabilities. Through negotiations and developments, Eels and Sand Mason Worms combine abilities to construct well-designed and better-located migration corridors. Meanwhile, Ocean Bacteria cooperates with Eels by initiating a Mutation Lab on the Eels’ biofilm in order to enhance mutual survival.
Changes in ocean acidity, salinity and temperature brought about by climate change have impacted the sand worm’s ability to reproduce at normal rates, and their populations are declining.
Drawing on shared ‘burrowing’ traits, sand mason worms and eels are building a new global infrastructure for safety. Sand worms build highly effective shared local infrastructures. Eels can navigate epic distances using circa-tidal cues, instinctual migration routes and the earth’s magnetic field. The eels agree to help the sand mason worms expand and interconnect their infrastructures globally, using their wayfinding and environmental sensing abilities. In return, the sand worm will adapt their infrastructures to suit eels, who can use them as safe travel routes and havens.
Marine bacteria, responding to warming oceans, are reproducing too rapidly and experiencing the effects of unsustainable resource consumption, with drastic impacts across the food web by 2027.
Marine bacteria and eels agree to cohabitate and cooperate in new ways. Bacteria will colonise eel skin more readily, producing beneficial biofilm that producing oxygen, dissolves harmful chemicals, and enables eels to travel farther and thus remain safer and more free. In addition, the biofilm will lend intimidating bioluminescence to deter overfishing. Eels will, in return, transform the biofilm bacterial populations to eel sprawning and migration grounds in the Sargasso Sea, which is the ocean’s most scientifically studied location. Here they intend to send a warning message to the human population about the dangers of ballooning and unsustainable resource use.