Imagine
opening your eyes to the smell of gravel and sand. You know it’s the morning
but your room is in complete darkness. Your hand feels around for the button
conveniently located at the side of your bed. The light flicks on. You wince at
the sudden assault of light rays from the bulb. Your head instinctively turns
to the window where the trees would be swaying in the morning breeze, cars
would be zooming by and housewives would be scuttling to the market, giving a
vivacious review of last night’s drama. But then to your horror, you are
reminded of the fact that you don’t even have a window.
This is
probably a scenario which we would associate with living underground. After
all, we are moving below the surface, covered by layers of silt and soil, far
away from surface life. We think about the animals adapted to living
underground such as the naked mole rat. Aren’t they a bunch of odd-looking
creatures? Would we turn out like them if we live underground for too long?
Apart from the fear of storing explosive or toxic chemicals in underground
caverns, people are distressed over the potential health complications of
long-term residence underground (Evans et
al., 2009). Claustrophobia may be possible, since there is no stimulus from
the outside environment. Living below ground also means that we won’t get our
daily dose of sunlight and the calcium retaining vitamin D that comes with it. According
to Michael J. Breus, diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine, natural
light helps reset our internal biological clock every day which in turn affects
our mood, metabolism, body temperature and immune system. We need to see and
feel sunlight to be able to have some form of a sleep pattern. Ventilation is
also a concern as we need to make our underground homes feel less like a stale
prison cell. What about green spaces? We certainly cannot live with just looking
at concrete every day. Thankfully, there are solutions to all these worries
with technological advancements which could
minimise the difference between underground residences and those on the
surface.
Sadly, there
are barely any studies done on the psychological impacts of living underground.
But with today’s people already working and studying in windowless environments,
or have their blinds down and windows blackened out, they probably would have
no problem adjusting to life underground. A study on the attitudes and
satisfactions of earth-sheltered housing to a group of people in Minneapolis-St
Paul, Minnesota found that the earth-sheltered residence was generally
desirable. Their attitudes towards underground living improved after they had
lived in the houses (Bartz, 1986). However, 50% of townhouse residents in the
survey felt like escaping from their house, and 21% of the single-family group had
the same feeling. Their reasons include not wanting to finish the house and
household chores (I’d run out of my house anytime if I have household chores to
do).
Most
important is the impact on the environment when we excavate the ground. Evans
et al. (2009) pointed out that if not done properly, underground development
could result in damage to the constructions above ground, exposing overhanging
pieces of land, stopping groundwater flows, causing wells to dry up or allowing
seepage of pollutants that lower groundwater quality. By moving underground, we
may also be competing with the animals that have long exploited the underground
space as their habitat.
With the tightening
squeeze we are facing on our lands, living underground may not even be up to
our choice. It’s either that or an underwater city, right? And let’s not go
into the sensibility and practicality of that.
Literature
cited:
Bartz, J., 1986. Post-Occupancy
Evaluation of Residents of Single- and Multi-Family Earth Sheltered Housing. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology,
1(1): 71-88
Breus, M. J., 2010. The effect of
circadian rhythms on the sleep cycle. Sleep Newzzz, 11 November 2010. URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleepnewzzz/201011/underground-and-out-sight.
Last accessed 20 September 2014.
Evans, D., M. Stephenson, & R. Shaw, 2009. The present and
future use of ‘land’ below ground. Land
Use Policy, 26: 302-316
Have you heard of the science fiction novel "The Time Machine" by H. G. Wells? From what I (barely) remember, the protagonist travels way into the future where he sort of finds 2 "subspecies" of humans. The aboveground dwellers are happy-go-lucky, child-like and weak (?) while the underground dwellers were quite terrifying and had claws (?). Aboveground there were ruins of civilisation and nature which the happy people lived off on while the underground had factories (?). Perhaps this might be true in the future :) The undergrounders were starting to hunt the abovegrounders though, as food I think (?).
ReplyDeleteOn another note, underground development could have an impact on the above ground which is why the underground Cross Island MRT Line passing through the Central Catchment Nature Reserve is being debated. All the talk about leaving nature above ground untouched while we build under it does not seem very realistic as that nature would be affected by what we do below it.
In this post you talk about going underground and its negative impacts, however concluding that it may become inevitable for us to live underground in the future. If it is applicable to Singapore, why can't we continue our current solution, i.e. expanding skywards? It is understandable that Singapore is unable to expand outwards due to boundary limits, how is going underground better than going skywards, considering the negative impacts you stated.
ReplyDeleteCheryl:
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like natural selection gone bad! Of course, if we are cut off from the surface world and forced to live underground, who knows generations later our population would have small beady eyes, hair-like projections, and well, even claws. But, we know that is not possible. Even with underground structures, people can freely move up and down, and there's natural lighting that I would explain in the subsequent post.
And the underground buildings I am proposing here are those in the more urban parts of Singapore, meaning that when we run out of land, we can go underground instead of using our existing forested lands. And even when constructing underground, the trees above can be protected, or new trees can be planted.
Thank you Clara for your question! Yes, going underground has a few disadvantages, and I do not envision us living underground in the near future, perhaps just offices, schools and retail spaces are more appropriate? We certainly cannot keep building higher and higher indefinitely. There are height restrictions on some areas of Singapore after all.
ReplyDelete