Date of Award

Spring 6-4-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

Department

Landscape Architecture

First Advisor

Emily Vogler

Second Advisor

Gavin Zeitz

Abstract

The past century of extractive pumping of underground water coupled with climate change and extreme weather since the 1950s led to great unpredictability and uncertainty about the future of the landscapes of the high plains. The High Plains, or Ogallala Aquifer, has significantly declined as water continues to be pumped to irrigate crops. Reports and scientists estimate that the aquifer will dry in 30 years. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s is an example of a man-made catastrophe that resulted from the mismanagement of the agricultural landscape. The Shelterbelt Project, proposed as part of the New Deal in 1935, did not directly protect the dust bowl core zone. Most of the shelterbelt areas have degraded or been removed as they are aging or conflict with center pivot irrigation. This thesis learns from the past to preempt a landscape crisis as the Ogallala aquifer dries up and farmland can no longer be irrigated at the rate it has been for the past century. The design proposes multifunctional windbreaks and regenerative agriculture through planned grazing rotation. This model will reduce the underground water usage, restore the prairie ecology, increase biodiversity, help reduce potential desertification, and provide a series of social activities to maintain this landscape’s economic and social viability while restoring the prairie.

Comments

View exhibition online: Hongfei Zuo, The Future of High Plains Aquifer

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.