Children of a culture born in a water-rich environment, we have never really learned how important water is to us. We understand it, but we do not respect it.
— William Ashworth
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| Wright Dam, Fergus Falls |
To experience a river flowing through a small town or a city is to witness human nature, who we are, and what we value.
Any river is really the summation of the whole valley. To think of it as nothing but water is to ignore the greater part.
— Hal Borland
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| Otter Tail River, Fergus Falls |
Uninhibited population growth and non-reflective consumptive patterns and behaviors spawns water contamination and ecosystem impairment.
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| Mississippi River above Lock and Dam No. 1 |
Contamination of rivers results from a confluence of human-induced processes and patterns that call for a systems thinking approach to avert and remediate. Systems thinking is a central concept of watershed management that seeks to limit further degradation and avoid causing unintended consequences.
In a mucked up lovely river,
I cast my little fly.
I look at that river and smell it
and it makes me wanna cry.
Oh to clean our dirty planet,
now there's a noble wish,
and I'm puttin my shoulder to the wheel
'cause I wanna catch some fish.
Greg Brown, from Spring Wind in Dream Cafe
REFERENCES
- Nor Any Drop to Drink, William Ashworth, 1982.
- Systems Thinking, Wikipedia
- Spring Wind, lyrics by Greg Brown.
- This Hill, This Valley, Hal Borland, May 1, 1990.
- Watershed Management, Timothy Randhir, March 2011
