Site Identity and Change

The words site and locality should convey the same sense that the word person does: a
complexity so closely knit as to have a distinct character worthy of our interest, concern
and even our affection.
A site is composed of many factors - above, below, and on the ground - but these factors
are interrelated. They have achieved some approximate balance, whether static or
moving toward a new equilibrium.
Site Analysis is a basis for conservation and also a prelude to successful revolution.

Ecology
Ecology describes the limits and conditions of human intervention. It implies certain
values - diversity, approximate stability, conservation - but these are neither ultimate
nor comprehensive.
How human beings are acting is usually, for us, the more critical aspect of any place. This
can be described in terms of behavior settings or small localities, bounded in time and
space, within which there is some stable pattern of purposeful human behavior,
interacting with some particular physical setting.
Behavior
Doctrine of site determinism: a place has an inherent right to its proper form, a
carrying capacity, a best use.
Soil
Soil - the pulverized mantle formed from rock and plant remains by the action of weather
and organisms.
Soil mixtures are classified in two different ways:
1) by the soil scientists who were interested in the relation between soils and agriculture
and wanted to learn how soils came to be,
2) and by the engineers who were interested in the usefulness of soils for roads and
foundations.

Engineering class of soil

The engineering classification, on the other hand, refers to the exact composition of a
particular soil body, wherever it occurs, as it is determined by laboratory tests on field
specimens.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Soil as plant medium
The topsoil is the critical medium for plants.
Important features of the topsoil:
1) Drainage
2) Content of humus
3) Relative acidity
4) Presence of available nutrients
Soil structure, or the layering or clustering of particles and the presence of holes or
slippage planes, will also affect bearing strength and drainage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Water table
Perhaps the most important subsurface variable of all in the presence or absence of water:
1) the moisture content of the soil,
2) its internal and surface drainage,
3) and the location of the water table.
Water table - is that underground surface below which the interstices of the soil grains
are filled with water.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Subsurface problems
The most critical subsurface problems are as follows:
1) a high or fluctuating water table
2) The presence of peat or other organic soils, or of soft plastic clay
3) Loose silt, or a fine water-bearing sand
4) Rock close to the surface
5) New, unconsolidated fill or land previously used as a dump
6) Any evidence of slides, floods, or subsidence

Landforms
The topographic surface, the boundary between earth and air, is the zone rich in living
things. The gradient of path, the flow of utilities, the use of areas, the disposition of
buildings, and the visual form are all dependent on it.