Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Such modifications are rarely seen today, but pavements are often made higher in
Winter Cities to allow for snow and ice accumulation on roads and runoff in spring,
but with scooped-out areas at crosswalks to allow people to cross roads easily. In
Reykjavik many parts of the downtown now have
underground heating
for pave-
ments, based on the use of waste water from the buildings that are heated from the
cheap geo-thermal sources available because of Iceland's volcanic geology, due to
its location between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
More attention is also being paid to the
design of roads
in winter cities, such as
reducing the number of steep or cambered slopes, as well as ensuring that as many
cross-roads as possible are at grade, to prevent cars sliding down hills and across
icy intersections. Road widening and orientation across the prevailing winter winds
also reduce shadows and wind funnel effects. The use of tunnels, or sheds over
roads in exposed areas also reduce the impact of snow, especially in avalanche-
prone areas. In icy areas under-road heating can be used to reduce the build-up of
ice in exposed locations. But the latter is only effective if the roads have a coarse
surface and sufficient drains for the melted water to run off. Certainly, all of these
features lead to increased installation and maintenance costs of the circulation sys-
tem. Yet recognition of these costs reinforces the argument for a compact city form
which reduces the number of these adaptive features. In most cases these design
principles have been added to cities in an ad hoc fashion. However some northern
cities, such as Ume￤ in north-east Sweden, have co-ordinated them, by focusing
on increasing density, reducing sprawl and redesigning their city centre in recent
decades using these principles to provide greater adaptation to winter.
8.4.2
Building Scale
Many new approaches to provide greater adaption to winter can be recognized in
building designs and functions. The most obvious is to create
more efficient hous-
ing structures
in northern climates. These include the use of effective insulation
and building materials, encouraging triple fenestration, and reducing the effect of
snow accumulation on roofs, which can cause them to leak or collapse—although
it must be remembered that snow accumulation can act as an insulator, as seen in
the traditional igloos of the Inuit. However there is also the need to provide effec-
tive ventilation to prevent indoor pollution from household activities, which can get
worse with increased insulation that does reduce heat loss but traps air and creates
a dead air problem (Enai et al.
2007
).
A second trend is the increasing interest in
heating schemes based on new energy
sources
to reduce heating costs, such as the use of biomass, wind, solar and geo-
thermal power. They often have the advantage of being based on local renewable
sources, rather than on expensive imported fuel. It must be admitted that the use
of these new energy sources in northern settlements is still in its infancy, for they
are far more expensive initially, and wind and solar sources may be intermittent in
winter, while the latter is non-existent in the days and months of darkness or short
days, although solar radiation during the short winter days of sunlight can still be
