Humans have long tried to conquer water. We’ve straightened once-winding rivers for shipping purposes. We’ve constructed levees(防洪堤)along rivers and lakes to protect people from flooding-We’ve erected entire cities on drained and filled-in wetlands. We’ve built dams on rivers to store water for later use.
1[■] But it’s not, argues environmental journalist Erica Gies, author of Water Always Wins. Levees, which narrow channels causing water to flow higher and faster, nearly always break. Cities on former wetlands flood regularly-often disastrously. Dams starve downstream areas of sediment(沉积物) needed to protect coasts against rising seas. Straightened streams move faster than winding ones, giving water less time to flow downward. And they wash away riverbed ecosystems.
In addition to laying out this damage done by supposed water control, Gies takes readers on a hopeful global tour of solutions to these problems. Along the way, she introduces “water detectives” -scientists, engineers, urban planners, and many others. 2[■]
These water detectives have found ways to give the slippery substance the time and space it needs to flow slowly underground. Around Seattle’s Thornton Creek, for instance, reclaimed land now allows for regular flooding, which has renewed riverbed habitat and created an urban oasis. In California’s Central Valley, scientists want to find ways to move unpolluted storm water into subsurface valleys that make ideal aquifers(含水层). 3[■]
While some people are exploring new ways to manage water, others are leaning on ancient knowledge. Researchers in Peru are now studying old-style methods of water storage, which don’t require dams, in hopes of ensuring a steady flow of water to Lima-Peru’s populous capital that’s periodically affected by water shortage. 4[■] “Decision makers come from a culture of concrete,” Gies writes, “in which dams, pipes and desalination factories are standard.”
Understanding how to work with, not against, water will help humankind weather this age of drought and flood that’s being worsened by climate change. 5[■] Instead, we must learn to live within our water means because water will undoubtedly win.