Former brickworks pit complex Aegidienmasch Hanover: Creating a planning basis for the future with historical data and today's technology  

An old deposit in the city centre of Hanover led to the discovery of a former brickworks from the 17th century. Historical documents show that there was a complex of clay pits here until the beginning of the 20th century. The former pit complex was larger than initially assumed and was gradually filled in. Since then, railway systems have been assembled and dismantled here, roads built, bombs dropped, rubble stored, schools built and sports fields laid out.

Where is the boundary of this old landfill in the current terrain? What fill thicknesses are to be expected?

Based on a historical map from the end of the 19th century and a digital terrain model from 2019, the terrain surface around 1900 was reconstructed and compared with today's surface. As neither the height accuracy of the surveys at the time nor the height reference systems used were known, it was not possible to determine a correction value to the current height network. Alternatively, the historical elevation model was compared with the current digital terrain model at reference points. For this purpose, terrain points of the historical infrastructure were selected whose elevations have remained largely unchanged to this day.

The height difference model derived from this shows fill and erosion areas as well as relative fill thicknesses. With the help of these two snapshots from two centuries, it was possible to visualise the core area of the fill. This result was also confirmed by the comparison with drilling profiles.  

In this way, M&P combines historical documents with today's technology and thus creates a meaningful basis for future planning. 

#Filling #Historical exploration #Contaminated sites #Engineeringforabettertomorrow #mupgroup #TTerrain model #GIS