From the hills to the sea

Catalog description

This course would focus on the Thames River, at least since Roman times arguably the most important waterway in Britain. The basis of the class would be an exploration of the Thames from different angles both scientific and historical. The science side of the course would consider the following topics: the geology/geographic setting that gave rise to the Thames; its hydrology including a history of its floods and droughts as well as climate change trends; aspects of the hydrodynamics of tides and the estuarine environment of the Thames; the effects on the Thames of human modification such as loss of wetlands associated with building of the Docklands in the 18th and 19th centuries; sea level rise and the Thames including the design basis of the Thames Tidal Barrier. The history side of the course would consider how the Thames has played a role in the history of Britain, e.g., as an inland transportation corridor, as a barrier between states, as the site of the signing of the Magna Carta, as the heart of the global trade enterprise that built the British Empire, as a challenge to important engineering feats in Victorian London, as a subject for landscape painters like Turner, and as a spur of public policies of environmental protection and restoration.