Panel 02 · Atlas of obligations

The atlas of obligations

This map does not predict 2140. It marks places where choices made now will still need someone to carry them out. Each pin is a question to answer before the decision is locked.

Use the filter chips to narrow the map to one or more domains. Select a pin to read its question, or skip the map and read the full register below it, which works without scripts.

Pin register

All thirteen pins

Each entry gives the question, a note on why it matters, and one thing to decide now. The filter chips above also show or hide these entries.

1. Water

   Upper intake

   Upper Rivers · pin 01

   Who checks the intake when the people who designed it have moved on?

   Intake structures outlive the agencies, firms, and volunteers who build them. Inspection tends to stop when nobody is assigned to it.

   Decide now: name a keeper role rather than a person, write the inspection schedule into the plan, and store a copy of the design where the keeper will find it.

2. Water

   Harbor wall

   Harbor Basin · pin 02

   Which parts of a sea-facing wall can be raised later, and which must be right the first time?

   Crest height and cladding can often be staged. Foundations and the line of the wall usually cannot.

   Decide now: mark which decisions are staged and which are sealed, and put review points inside the plan so the staged parts are actually revisited.

3. Water

   Shared aquifer

   Low Terraces · pin 03

   Who else draws from the same groundwater, and what rules apply when everyone draws at once?

   Shared groundwater rarely has a single owner. Rules written during a shortage tend to be written in a hurry and to favor whoever is in the room.

   Decide now: write the shared rules before anyone needs them, and record who holds the monitoring data and how it is published.

4. Housing

   Made ground

   Harbor Basin · pin 04

   Which ground was built up from fill, and what sits underneath it?

   Made ground settles unevenly. Records of what was tipped and where often disappear before the buildings do.

   Decide now: keep a map of made ground with each deed, and note the period of filling and the source material wherever it is known.

5. Housing

   Street trees

   Low Terraces · pin 05

   Which trees are being planted for the people who will walk under them in 2140?

   Trees take decades to reach full size. The climate they face will differ from the one they were chosen for, so a species that suits today may not suit the next century.

   Decide now: choose species that suit a range of likely climates rather than only today's, and keep planting records with the age and location of every tree.

6. Records

   Deed and title

   Low Terraces · pin 06

   Where is the deed kept, and who can read it without a specific login or program?

   Digital records need formats that stay readable. A title that exists only in one account is one account closure away from disappearing.

   Decide now: keep a printed or plain-text copy with a second custodian, and store a plain index beside the files that lists what each one is.

7. Energy

   Grid siting

   Salt Flats · pin 07

   How will the people who maintain a generating site reach it in bad weather?

   Remote sites are cheap to build and expensive to keep running. Access roads, spare parts, and staff travel are often left out of the first design review.

   Decide now: plan the access road, the spares store, and the maintenance route before the site is chosen, and write them into the siting record.

8. Records

   Oral record

   Salt Flats · pin 08

   Which knowledge exists only in one person's hands?

   Written procedures help, but many working methods never get written down. A recording of someone explaining a task step by step often carries more than a manual does.

   Decide now: record the people who run each system while they can still speak to it, and store each recording beside the procedure it explains.

9. Energy

   Heat storage

   Long Ridge · pin 09

   What will the storage system look like after its contents have been replaced several times?

   Storage equipment is replaced on a shorter cycle than the buildings that house it. Enclosures and foundations outlast the equipment inside them.

   Decide now: design the enclosure for replacement, with room for new equipment, lifting access, and drainage that still works once the original parts are gone.

10. Records

    Archive room

    Long Ridge · pin 10

    Who will open the archive door in 2140, and what will they find inside?

    Buildings fail. Archives survive when copies sit in places with different risks: a different flood plain, a different power grid, a different owner.

    Decide now: keep at least two copies in places with different risks, name who holds each copy, and write down how the next holder will be told.

11. Food

    Seed stock

    Orchard Coast · pin 11

    Which varieties exist only in one field, grown by one person?

    Varieties disappear when the last grower stops. Seed kept in one place is seed at one risk.

    Decide now: keep seed in two or more places, and record the growing conditions and history of each lot so the next grower knows what the plant needed.

12. Food

    Orchard succession

    Orchard Coast · pin 12

    Who will prune the trees when the person who planted them is gone?

    Orchards are planted for harvests their planters will not see. Pruning is a skill that is easy to lose and slow to rebuild.

    Decide now: write the pruning method down in words and pictures, and arrange for a successor to learn it while the planter is still there.

13. Food

    Field rotation

    Upper Rivers · pin 13

    What does the soil lose if the same crop grows on the same ground for a generation?

    Soil change is slow and easy to miss. A rotation plan kept in one person's notebook tends to end with that notebook.

    Decide now: keep the rotation plan with the field record, in a place a successor can find, and review it on a fixed schedule written into the plan.