The advance of the climate crisis, marked by its extremes —droughts or floods, fires or floods— makes it very clear that the human custom of trying to contain and control water is not working.
For his new book, water always winsNational Geographic Explorer Erica Gies traveled the world and witnessed some of the unexpected results of modern society’s preference for engineered solutions.
The tendency to lock up water and fight to alter its natural course with ever-higher dams and levees, straightened rivers and hardened coastlines often exacerbate the symptoms of global warming, the environmental journalist found.
But a variety of microbes, animals and communities enjoy beneficial relationships with this vital element by harmonizing with the wishes of the water, Gies discovered.
As such, her book explores hopeful and resilient approaches to working with water that respect its natural flow and rhythms, with positive outcomes for humans, biodiversity, and the climate.
Canadian National Observer met with Gies to discuss the extraordinary power of slow water and reflect on the fundamental question that shaped his book: What does the water want?
“Basically, what the water wants is to go back to its slow phases that we have drastically eradicated with much of our development,” Gies said.
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As much as 87% of the world’s wetlands have been eradicated since the 1700s, and humans have largely encroached on floodplains around the world, putting homes and businesses at risk if the water reaffirms its return, he said.
“(But) I met all these people around the world who are looking to restore, protect, or recreate in some way: wetlands, floodplains, high-altitude montane grasslands or rain-generating forests, all the things that slow down water on earth. Gies said. he said.
In her new book, Water Always Wins, environmental journalist Erica Gies says stop resisting, just go with the flow.
There are so many examples of the folly associated with interfering with the natural filter, drip or spread of water, Gies said, pointing to California, the poster child of perpetual drought.
“California is possibly the apex of water engineering hubris,” Gies said.
Since the mid-19th century, the corralling of two major waterways, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, has eliminated the historic annual washout of the Central Valley, once a vast floodplain, drying it out and denying vital aquifers below the opportunity to overcome them. themselves, she said.
Compounding the problem, river water is channeled great distances through the state, while the region’s groundwater is largely harnessed to feed California’s vast agricultural empire, helping in part to create a critical scarcity of water in areas where it once existed in abundance.
Surface water and groundwater are mutually intertwined, Gies said.
“We have deprived the natural recharge that occurs when the water slows down on those lands and moves underground,” Gies said. And conversely, stressed aquifers cannot help recharge surface rivers and tributaries during the dry season.
“For a long time, California had this kind of political attitude that they were dealing with two separate water sources that could be regulated independently or, in the case of groundwater, not regulated (at all).”
In his book, Gies explores ingenious ways of working with water, rather than against it.
But some of the world’s most insightful water engineers are familiar to most Canadians, he said.
“Canadians may take beavers for granted and in some places might even think of them as pests,” he said.
“But beavers are incredibly important to the health of the hydrological cycle, and are used in different places around the world to help protect against droughts, wildfires and also floods.”
Gies devotes an entire chapter to the multitude of ways we can improve our relationship with water by depending on and living with beavers.
The prowess of these once-ubiquitous mammals has been recognized by US authorities, who have on several occasions in the past parachuted beavers into wilderness areas to restore watersheds.
The UK is also conducting controlled animal trials to slow water along river systems and prevent flooding, Gies said, but some people aren’t waiting for official results.
“Some people have been illegally releasing wild beavers. Guerrilla beavers, so to speak, due to their ability to heal ecosystems.”
The recent devastation caused by flooding in BC, and in Abbotsford in particular, last November, on the heels of record-setting rains, is a case study in how relying primarily on built solutions to contain water will be limited or increasingly expensive in the age of climate change. said Gies, who is based in Victoria on Vancouver Island.
Agricultural land in Abbotsford was developed by draining Sumas Lake and the surrounding floodplain and building levees and pumping stations.
“As we saw with the atmospheric river, those engineering interventions can only hold up so far and then fail when the water takes over again.”
Instead of resorting to our ingrained habit of investing millions or billions to increase infrastructure, it might be cheaper and easier to take the path of least resistance, he said.
“I think they should consider giving the water some space,” he said.
“I’m not saying there shouldn’t be agriculture in that area anymore, but maybe there is some marginal farmland that should be returned to the water.”
Respecting the ebb and flow of water sometimes means giving a little to get a lot, he said.
Slow water projects, principles and solutions are unique to each place, community and culture, he added.
But there are some common principles.
“Basically, it’s up to each area to see what’s going to work best in their space,” Gies said.
“And I think it’s really about respecting the water and appreciating the benefits that collaboration can bring.”
Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canadian National Observer