Tokyo Flood Prevention • 2015 • episode "8/10" • Catalyst: Season 1

Category: Technology

Fifty meters beneath the teeming mega-city of Tokyo is an underworld river system - 6.4km of tunnels, colossal water tanks, massive pillars, giant pumps that remove 200 tons of floodwater every second. It’s an engineering marvel built to protect Tokyo against the increasing threat of flooding.

Make a donation

Buy a brother a hot coffee? Or a cold beer?

Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.

Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?

Donation addresses

BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v

ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116

With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.

Catalyst: Season 1 • 2015 • 10 episodes •

Polar People

Each year, over 2000 people apply for jobs in Antarctica, but few are successful. What are the physical and psychological attributes required to work in the most remote location on Earth? Could you snag a job in sub-zero temperatures at an Antarctic station?

2015 • People

Our Chemical Lives

Our Chemical Lives

Thousands of chemicals are used in everyday products – in our water, our food and in the air we breathe. It’s the chemical soup of modern life and it’s virtually impossible to escape them. Is there adequate regulation and testing, or are we in the midst of an uncontrolled, human experiment?

2015 • Health

Anti-venom

Good to know as you travel to the Antipodes - Australia has the most venomous snakes and spiders in the world. But, if you’re bitten, can you rely on anti-venom? Dr Graham Phillips investigates the effectiveness of anti-venom.

2015 • Health

Future Cities

It's amazing to think that in the 1900s a mere tenth of the world's population lived and worked in cities. Now it is over half. With soaring populations, how will we keep our cities live-able? And what will the city of tomorrow look like?

2015 • Environment

Quantum Computing

Quantum Computing

The promise of quantum computers is that what would otherwise take a billion years to calculate, could be done in a few seconds. First-generation quantum computers have started to appear. Indeed, earlier this year, Google bought one, The D-Wave 2. How will this advance change our future lives?

2015 • Technology

Powering the Mind

Powering the Mind

What is memory? How do our memories change from childhood to adulthood? How we can build up greater brain reserves to power our mind into old age? Brain epigenetics, how the expression of our DNA can be changed by our experiences, is an intriguing new area of science with huge health implications.

2015 • Brain

Extreme Weather

Extreme Weather

This special report looks at the domino effect of environmental and atmospheric factors that drive the globe to wetter, hotter, drier and colder extremes.

2015 • Environment

Tokyo Flood Prevention

Tokyo Flood Prevention

Fifty meters beneath the teeming mega-city of Tokyo is an underworld river system - 6.4km of tunnels, colossal water tanks, massive pillars, giant pumps that remove 200 tons of floodwater every second. It’s an engineering marvel built to protect Tokyo against the increasing threat of flooding.

2015 • Technology

Mega Tsunamis

By investigating the tell-tale signs of earthquakes and tsunamis written into the landscape over the last thousand years, Japanese scientists are rewriting the rule books for disaster prevention in the Pacific.

2015 • Environment

Alien Technology

Alien Technology

Is there anyone out there? Does the popular movie quote 'ET phone home' have any substance? Astronomers have been pointing their radio telescopes at the skies for decades trying to pick up alien signals. Hitch a ride as we join astronomers trawling through the galaxy looking for signs of life.

2015 • Technology

You might also like

Rise of the Supergammer

Rise of the Supergammer

YouTube star and gaming addict Dan Howell explores the changing world of gaming: from hobby to a mass spectator sport that’s watched by millions around the world. To the envy of amateurs, they've taken gaming to a whole new level, training 12 hours a day, playing in packed stadiums, and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.The bizarre community of e-sports has been almost invisible to the outside world – up until now. Three young British gamers at different stages of their careers all have dreams of reaching the very top. KaSing, an overnight sensation from Tottenham, lives in Berlin, and is playing in one of Europe’s top teams. His 20-year-old former teammate, Matt, nicknamed Impaler, is having a crisis of confidence about his once-flourishing career. And 17-year-old hopeful Greensheep is struggling to break through onto the big stage.

2015 • Technology

PBS Nova - Crypto Decoded

PBS Nova - Crypto Decoded

From Bitcoin to NFTs, crypto is making headlines. But what exactly is it, and how does it work? Experts go beyond the hype and skepticism to unravel the social and technological underpinnings of crypto –exploring how it came to be and why this new technology may change more than just money. PBS NOVA Season 49, Episode 17

2022 • Technology

Total Trust: Surveillance State

Total Trust: Surveillance State

Explores state surveillance and digital social control in China by following the experiences of two families and a journalist. Zijuan Chen is fighting for the release of her imprisoned husband, human rights lawyer Weiping Chang, while trying to keep his memory alive for their son. Wenzu Li and her newly freed husband, Quanzhang Wang, struggle against surveillance that is not only stopping him from being able to work but also affecting ordinary tasks like taking their son to school. Journalist Sophie Xueqin Huang, a pivotal figure in bringing the Me Too movement to China, is at constant risk of arrest. Chinese film-maker Jialing Zhang gives an exclusive and previously impossible intimate insight into the interior of China and tells a deeply disturbing story of how the state uses technology to control its citizens as well as propaganda to convince its people to trust it.

2024 • Technology

Viking Mars

After the success of the first manned moon landing, NASA ups the stakes by aiming for a new destination tens of millions of miles away: Mars. This is the inside story of Project Viking. Witness the overwhelming challenges engineers and scientists faced, not only to reach the Red Planet, but to land their spacecraft and deploy computer-operated experiments to answer the universal question: Is there life beyond Earth?

S1E6 • America's Secret Space Heroes • 2017 • Technology

Waste of the Future

Waste of the Future

Innovations are emerging around the world to considerably reduce our waste: development of circular economies, the spread of composting, repair cafes, etc. So, what will it be like in 2050?

S1E6 • Dream the Future • 2017 • Technology

Cities of the Future

Cities of the Future

What will our cities look like in 2050? How will they be able to accommodate the one million additional people who arrive every week? The challenge is enormous. To reduce the impact on the planet and the energy footprint and optimize exchanges within megacities, digital technologies will be crucial.

S1E1 • Dream the Future • 2017 • Technology