Author Archives: Ruth Swetnam

Powerlines, pylons and pipes

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Gordon Walker – Visiting Professor of Geography

As we have travelled through the fantastic and diverse landscapes of Iceland, infrastructural networks have been continually present. They have enabled and supported our visit in many different ways. The transport infrastructure of roads, petrol stations, signs, cattle grids, bridges and other connected technologies have enabled our movement and our rapid transition from one landscape experience and evaluation to another. The electricity network of powerlines, pylons and substations has powered the places we have stayed in, the shops and restaurants we have consumed in, the cameras and phones we have charged overnight. The extraordinary geothermal heat networks that supply heat and hot water to over 90% of Icelandic homes, have warmed us and provided sulphurous showering experiences.  The mobile communication network has kept us in touch with international events – many we would maybe rather not really know about – and enabled the ongoing blogging and tweeting that this writing is part of.  Without infrastructure, our research visit would not be, could not be, what it has been.

Pylons in the lupins - Southern Iceland, G. Walker, 2016

Pylons in the lupins – Southern Iceland, G. Walker, 2016

Some of this infrastructure, and its working, is invisible – pipes and cables hidden underground, text messages flying through the air – but much is in the landscape and part of it.  Pylons and powerlines accompanied our traversing of the open, flat sandar of the southern coast and traced their way up into remote valleys and open countryside to connect even the most isolated homes to the electricity grid.  Communication masts, we noted several times, were now the dominant features of settlements when viewed from a distance, usurping the traditional vertical supremacy of church steeples.  The pipelines of geothermal systems formed striking linear and zig-zagging shapes across open hillsides that otherwise took more natural, vegetated or rugged forms.

Normally hidden underground pipes in Reykjavík, G. Walker

Normally hidden underground pipes in Reykjavík, G. Walker,2016

How we evaluate the status of such infrastructure within landscapes is clearly a matter of judgement and far from straightforward. Whether it jars, confronts us as out of place, detracts from the ‘natural’ and the ‘wild’, or the ‘traditional’ and the ‘vernacular’, and, crucially, whether its purpose and value justifies its presence, are all wrapped in what we see (and don’t see) and what we tolerate or object to.  In particular experience shows that the patterns of opposition to new infrastructure can often centre on the how its value is distributed across society – how widely and collectively its benefits and positive outcomes are felt and realised.

Geothermal system pipelines, Iceland, F. Tweed, 2015

Geothermal system pipelines, Iceland, F. Tweed, 2015.

In Iceland this has been a crucial part of controversy about new hydroelectric dams in the highlands, and related electricity distribution network upgrading.  In a country where electricity is already low carbon and cheap, and where heat supply is almost entirely geothermal, why should new energy infrastructure, particularly in areas of high landscape value be needed?  The answer is not for the collective everyday needs of ordinary Icelanders, but for attracting further investment into the big conglomerate-owned aluminium industry, which already consumes nearly 80% of all electricity in Iceland; as well as for flowing energy into the grand dreams of international interconnectors that would enable Iceland to become a low carbon energy source for Europe.  Compare the widely dispersed collective benefits of communication masts or geothermal heating, with the particular national and international interests behind these big energy infrastructure investments and something at least of the complexity of making sense of existing and new infrastructures within Icelandic landscapes becomes apparent.

Black Ice = Dirty Ice?

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Getting up close and personal with a glacier for the first time is an unforgettable experience. I first studied glacial geomorphology over 25 years ago and the strange vocabulary of the science still trips off the tongue: roches moutonnées, drumlins, ablation, calving, moraines. I have stood in the great glaciated landscapes of North Wales and Scotland and showed students the terrain carved by past glaciers – “U-shaped valleys anyone?” These all record the passage of glaciers long since gone – melted away as the British climate warmed. The landscapes that remain record the rock-grinding power of frozen water moving inexorably downhill.

Sólheimajökull glacier, Southern Iceland, June 2016. Photo F. Tweed.

Sólheimajökull glacier, Southern Iceland, June 2016. Photo F. Tweed.

But seeing an active glacier up close for the first time is astonishing. It’s all about scale, you need to stand well back to appreciate the enormity of an Icelandic glacier. From a distance, the edges are black, jumbled, craggy, only rising to a glacial whiteness higher up, away from the snout and the valley edges. Here the whiteness sometimes makes the edges hard to discern, they disappear on cloudier days high into the sky. There is no getting away from it – these things are vast.

Getting close in however, something changes in your appreciation of the aesthetics of the glacier. In my first attempt to capture the important landscape components of Iceland I had written “black, dirty ice”, a negative thing. What we want is unsullied, non-retreating (!) white ice. Black ice would work to depress the landscape quality rating, whereas white ice would raise it.

Sólheimajökull glacier, Southern Iceland, June 2016. Photo F. Tweed.

Sólheimajökull glacier, Southern Iceland, June 2016. Photo F. Tweed.

How wrong can you be? How deceptive a photograph is sometimes.

Standing with my palm on the rising front of Sólheimajökull glacier,  I was completely knocked out by the beauty of the black; in the matt ash cones, the stripes of glacial blue, black and grey. It is the black which defines the craggy beauty of the crevasses, the blocks, the lines. It makes the glacial blue stripes emerging from the centre of the ice seem even more blue. The black shows clearly the business of the glacier as it gathers material and grinds it down.

Black ice = dirty ice? Well maybe from a distance, but black ice is beautiful.

R. Swetnam in front of Sólheimajökull glacier, Southern Iceland, June 2016. Photo D. Chambers.

Iceland: glaciers, volcanoes … and tourists?

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Iceland is a geographical wonder – a land of glaciers and volcanoes perched on the edge of the Arctic Circle. It sits astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and is one of the most volcanically-active places on earth. It holds particular fascination for geographers and two of us ( Ruth Swetnam & Fiona Tweed) are leaving Stoke on the 20th of June to undertake fieldwork in this fascinating place as a key part of our Vice Chancellor’s REF Support Scheme grant.

An Icelandic landscape view in summer (photograph Fiona Tweed)

Why Iceland? Why now?

Strangely enough, the story actually starts closer to home just over the border into Wales. Ruth has recently developed a new method to measure landscape quality for the Welsh Government and the landscape research team at Staffordshire University has classified nearly 300 sites across Wales. This Visual Quality Index  (VQI), is based on a measure of all the things people love about Wales: the mountains, water, trees, flowers, stone walls, even the livestock. The big question is “How transferable is this approach?” If we use a similar method to evaluate landscapes in Iceland, does it capture those things that are important to the Icelandic view; if not, what needs to be tailored?

Western Iceland - waterfalls and gorges (photograph Fiona Tweed)

Western Iceland – waterfalls and gorges (photograph Fiona Tweed)

Why does this work matter?

Iceland is undergoing huge physical and economic change. It is experiencing rapid deglaciation with retreating glaciers changing the shape and appearance of the land, the flows of its rivers and the nature of its coastline. Invasive plants are also establishing and the nature of the landscape view is altering. When glaciers shrink they leave behind a rather jumbled mix of rock, dirty ice and sediment – changing the colour of the view from ice-white to a mix of green, grey, brown and black. It is happening rapidly and the unique visual character of Iceland is under threat. In amongst all of this physical change, Iceland is also experiencing a huge boom in visitors. Numbers have risen from just over 300,000 in 2000 to an eye-watering 1.3 million visitors in 2015, all on an island with a population of only 332000. This is placing strain on infrastructure and tourist “facilities” are beginning to pop up in previously unspoilt areas. What is the visual impact of a shipping container café in a beautiful landscape? Icelanders are concerned – we are going to see if our methods are of potential help in monitoring this rapid change. Maybe Wales with its long history of managing tourists in wild landscapes has something to share?

Typical Icelandic rural scene with grazing and church (photograph Fiona Tweed)

Typical Icelandic rural scene with grazing and church (photograph Fiona Tweed)

Our research will entail visiting upwards of 30 locations from one side of the island to the other to evaluate visual landscape quality. It will entail a lot of hard driving on gravel roads, long days and some different and interesting accommodation. We will be taking unique 360⁰ photographs, making audio and visual recordings and evaluating landscapes using a checklist of quality indicators. We will be keeping research diaries to evaluate the experiences of an Iceland newbie (Ruth) with an Iceland expert (Fiona) to consider the differences as well as interacting with research contacts at The University of Reykjavík.  Our aim is to tweet and to continue this blog as we explore … watch this space.