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so
this is the essential process of
permaculture site analysis
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first off i don't think you're a dummy i
was just trying to get you to click on
this video
but the truth is that the normal process
in regular society of designing a
landscape or a building
is dumb
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so where is the life here it's a dead
landscape because people are designing
all sorts of things without any context
permaculture design is
all about context where we start with
the process we call the permaculture
site analysis
whose goal is to create an intelligent
design that works in harmony with
natural forces
and it goes a little something like this
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permaculture site analysis begins from
outer space
looking in at our magnificent planet
region on earth has unique climate
conditions
and there are a few major elements that
determine the climate of a place
the first thing we look at is latitude
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so how near or far a site is to the
equator
determines the day length and the sun
intensity
with more consistent day length when
you're closer to the equator
and greater seasonal changes in day
length as we move
farther from the equator and closer to
the poles there are also air currents
that move around the earth at different
latitudes
which circulate moisture around the
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planet
so there are the polar and subtropical
jet streams
and the equatorial trade winds
which all circulate moisture around the
planet
so the latitude that you're located at
in relation to those air currents will
have an
impact on how wet or dry your climate is
another really important element is how
close or near you are
to oceans or large bodies of water
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the areas along the coast will be
influenced by the oceans
and their temperatures are moderated by
all that water
so they don't get as cold or hot these
are called
maritime climates and then
areas deeper into the interior of the
land masses
are called continental climates they
have higher temperature swings because
they don't have the oceans to moderate
the temperature
so that's a basic macro view of the
world and the biggest influences on your
site
is climate once you understand your
climate
it's time to zoom in and look at
the landform so how high or low your
site is located
is called elevation and elevation plays
a
huge role in temperature because it gets
colder as you go higher up in elevation
and warmer as you go lower
precipitation increases the higher up
you go
and decreases in lower areas
so the conditions on a site change
dramatically as you raise or lower an
elevation
also every hill and mountain interacts
with the sun
the sun rises in the east and sets in
the west and hits the sides of
every landform differently there are
sunnier sides to every hill or mountain
and shadier sites
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and the solar aspect determines how much
of the sun's warming and drying energy
the site receives
this also determines what type of plants
and animals will live there
because different species need different
amounts of sunlight
heat and moisture to survive
now this is the scale of analysis where
we look at
the watershed
so every site sits within a drainage
basin
of some sort and identifying that
watershed or drainage basin
will tell you what potential there is
for collecting and storing water
what the risk is for flooding and what
the potential is for
accessing and building groundwater
resources
so understanding the pattern of water
flow
not only tells you where wet and dry
areas are
but it can show you where you'd expect
to find
different soil types
water flow has a lot of influence on the
soil types and where the site is located
within the watershed
will tell you a lot about the soil types
so once you've examined a site at the
watershed level
it's then time to zoom in again and look
at the site
within its actual site boundaries so we
started out in
space right and then we zoomed
in to look at the landform and now
we're finally actually looking at the
site itself
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because we started at the macro scale to
understand the
big forces that have the most influence
so
now we're able to show those forces with
a map
we call the sector compass
so with the sector compass we show
specifically the forces that are coming
from
outside of the site into the site that
we need to design for
so we're talking about things like the
sun so the direction the sun rises and
sets in the summer and the winter time
and which direction it shines on our
site from
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or the direction of prevailing winds in
different seasons
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or the potential direction that flood
waters may come from
or the direction with the highest risk
of wildfire
so our design becomes a response to
these forces
for example we want to block or re-route
flood waters
coming from this direction deflect
wildfires
coming from this direction but be open
to sunlight
in the wintertime or cool summer breezes
coming from this direction
we can only plan at this level of detail
because we started our analysis so far
out in space
so at this close scale here we can map
the actual details of our site
where the water flows during the rains
where trees and buildings cast shade
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now there's no way we could have
understood the forces that we need to
design
for at this close-up scale here
without having started from the macro
perspective looking at where we sit on
the planet
and where we rest within the watershed
so this is the essential process of
permaculture site analysis
going from macro to micro and this
process
is the basis for permaculture design
so don't be a dummy
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