The Flow and Cycle of Water

VivianLea Doubt

Thompson Rivers University

Geography 230: Assignment Six

August, 2008
 1

Space, Place, Identity

We should let our minds and imaginations follow the flow of water as it
winds through our country, recognizing that people from every area are
sustained in body and spirit by the same water that soothes us. Just as the
smallest trickle of water eventually flows and expands into a lake, perhaps
our minds will follow a similar path in our own progression toward
tolerance and stewardship. (Environment Canada, 2008)

The opening quote from Environment Canada’s website invites us to see the flow of

water metaphorically linking Canadians together. It is an apt metaphor; as Prime Minister

McKenzie King said: “If some countries have too much history, we have too much

geography” (Biro, A., 2007, p.322). The vast space of the country becomes the more

emotive place, tied to other places by the shining ribbons and torrents of water. Indeed,

while some have said that the natural divides of the continent run north and south, Harold

Innes sees the Canada/US border as a natural outcome of the voyageurs’ north and west

progress across the waters of Canada in quest of furs (Environment Canada, 2008).

Humans from time immemorial have lived close to water – perhaps not even the

Venetians have formed their identity around water as closely as have Canadians. With 20

% of the world’s freshwater within Canada’s boundaries, our art, our literature, our music

our very spirits have found a national identity linked to the iconic landscape of

mountain glaciers and ice, rivers and wetlands, great lakes and oceans.

The reasons why water looms so large in the Canadian imagination have been

touched upon: there is an awful lot of it, and the waterways formed the first means of

transportation. Consider the two following paintings by Thompson and Varley of the

Group of Seven: their images are familiar, even symbolic, to Canadians.

 2

Tom Thompson, Spring Ice, 1916

Frederick H. Varley, Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay, 1921. Source:

Environment Canada (2008B)

 3

Or consider the writer Margaret Atwood, in her short story “Death by Landscape”:

She turns away from the window and looks at her pictures. There is the
pinkish island, in the lake, with the intertwisted trees. It’s the same
landscape they paddled through, that distant summer…How could you
ever find anything there, once it was lost? (2006, p. 35)

Or the perspective of one First Nation:

Our history is tied to these waters. Our continued reliance on fishing,

trapping and hunting and our desire to do so is dependent on these waters.
Our future is based on these waters . . . Any threat to such waters poses a
direct threat to our survival. (Environment Canada, 2008)

Or Hugh McLennan on the changing rivers of Canada:

. . . the rivers of Canada are still there, and their appearance and character
have changed little or not at all in the last century and a half. It is only our
use of them that has altered. Now we fly over them, build dams on them,
fish in them for sport, use them for municipal water supplies, and some of
them we have poisoned with sewage and industrial effluents. . . . But the
rivers are as worth knowing as they ever were, though none of us will
know them as the voyageurs did. (Environment Canada, 2008)

These views show us the geographical environment, and a variety of perceptual

environments: from celebration, to fear, to reverence, to regret for what has been

degraded. This will be important in considering the behavioural environment in later

pages.

In its limited way, this paper will look at human concerns with water within the

framework of ecological analysis, following Hagget’s idea of the new integrated structure

of geography (Haggett, P., 2001, p. 764). It will draw heavily upon the tradition of

humanist geographers, but consider the perspectives of others working in a variety of

traditions. This is true to the multi-disciplinary approach of my degree program in

tourism, which draws on studies in anthropology, sociology, and psychology, among

 4

others, but also to human relationship with water in all its facets. The ecosystem approach

lends an understanding of how best to manage the resource as a geographic entity and a

necessity for human (and all) life. The humanists show us that water as symbol – water in

art, literature, poetry, and song – has a bearing on how water is perceived and how it is

used. David Ley remarks: “In the same way, mundane and taken-for granted features in

the environment can point beyond themselves to local societal values” (1977). Certainly,

though it holds a place in our imagination and our identity, water has been taken for

granted by Canadians. What will a geography created by meaningful action look like?

Perhaps this is no longer simply the concern of the humanist geographer, but all of us

who inhabit this little blue planet at this point in time.

Water as Resource

We have seen from our brief look at water so far that it is a cultural entity: it is so

ubiquitous in the landscape that it is taken for granted, yet held as sacred by others. Water

is both a continuous and a flow resource; its absolute quantity is derived from the

hydrological cycle, but it may be diverted, polluted, wasted, and otherwise altered in a

variety of ways. There are many competing uses for water: drinking and other domestic

needs, agriculture, industry, hydro-electric power generation as examples. It forms an

important feature of Canada’s amenity landscapes, a major piece of the economy. Though

Canada has a lot of standing water, the renewable supply amounts to just under 7% of the

total world supply, and the country is second only to the US in per capita use (Bakker, K.,

2007). To look at a little more detail of how water is used:

Thermal power 1.8%

 5

Manufacturing 9.1%

Municipal 2.2%

Agriculture 74.1%

Mining 8.9%

These percentages represent consumption use, that is, total use less any

recycled/recirculated/return of water. Agriculture is the highest user of water due to the

fact that only 25% of withdrawals are returned to the source (Shrubsole, D. & Draper, D.,

2007, pp. 41-42). Both the instream use and withdrawal of water provide important

benefits; withdrawals of water for all of the above uses, and water left in the ground and

on the surface supports transportation, recreation and tourism, and fish and wildlife.

Eighty-five % of Canada’s population lives within 300 km of the US border,

however 60 % of the freshwater drains to the north. About 30% of the population gets its

drinking water from ground water sources; it too, is unevenly distributed. One in four

Canadian municipalities experienced drinking water shortages between 1994 and 1995

due to increased consumption, drought, and infrastructure constraints. Physical stresses

on water are becoming apparent; although per capita residential use appears to be

stabilizing or dropping slightly, the rate of growth in the residential water sector during

the 1990s was 21% - much greater than population increases (all statistics: Shrubsole, D.

& Draper, D., 2007).

Canada’s population is estimated to grow at .83% for 2008 (10.29 births per

thousand; 7.61 deaths per thousand) due primarily to immigration; the country has the

highest growth rate in the G8 nations, and 90 % of the populace live within 33

metropolitan areas (World Factbook, 2008; CBC News, 2007). Population growth, urban
 6

sprawl, and the demands for all water consumption uses are increasing. To take two

examples, the average car requires 250,000 litres of water to produce, and the average

computer 33,000 litres (Shrubsole, D. & Draper, D., 2007, pp.40). Increased population,

pushing increased demand for various products and services all requiring water, makes

balancing competing uses of the resource ever more difficult.

Water in Ecological Systems

Water teaches us that everything is cyclical. Living without regard for the
cyclical nature of water has resulted in newcomer society acting as though
there are no repercussions to logging watersheds, releasing pollutants and
other contaminants into waters, or consuming water for industrial,
agricultural, or domestic purposes beyond viable levels. Instead of curbing
human activities to respect the natural course and flow of water, current
water and land use decisions assume that human activities can be washed
away or diluted. Missing from this equation is a fundamental
understanding of the nature of water, of our human status as just one form
of life within a world teeming with plants, animals, and fish – all of whom
draw life from our shared waters. (Walkem, A., 2007, p. 310)

A watershed is an ecosystem: a group of biotic and abiotic components interacting

together. The basic “work” of the watershed is to transport sediment, water, and energy,

and to generate “products” – form new physical structures (flood plains, channels),

biological communities, and new energy outputs. The systems concept is key: it is the

sum of all components that generates the work and products of the watershed. The system

has a natural organization and order, but also experiences change and disturbance at

varying levels. It is hypothesized that systems with intermediate levels of disturbance are

highest in diversity: few species can successfully colonize areas of frequent or intense
 7

disturbances (floods or other phenomenon), while areas of low disturbance appear to be

dominated by a few very successful species (US EPA, 2007).

The basic structure of the watershed is flowing rivers and streams, and still

wetlands and lakes; lotic and lentic waters. Energy is fixed primarily within still waters

themselves, but in flowing water energy is fixed primarily in the watershed. The flow of

energy and nutrients are cyclic: in watersheds the matter does not return to the spot where

it came from, but it is an open-ended system none the less. Nutrients “spiral” back and

forth from the water, to aquatic and terrestrial organisms, and the soil in the flow

corridor: movement downstream as well as laterally (US EPA, 2007). Energy is cycled

through trophic levels – a very complex food web – with typically 10% of the energy

being converted from level to level. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus form the most

important biogeochemical cycles.

Source: US EPA 2007

 8

The importance of recognizing the watershed as an ecosystem is first, to

acknowledge its hugely complex web of interrelationships, and second, to apply the

ecosystem approach to its management. Some salient features of the ecosystem approach

are noted:

A watershed is managed for all of its resources, not any single one

A watershed is managed as a whole entity; recognizing its boundaries are

naturally defined, not human created

A watershed is managed for the long term; at a variety of scales and time

dimensions

A watershed is managed with the input of all people affected;

social/economic/environmental information is integrated

A watershed is managed to maintain or increase its productive capacity for

the future (World Resources Institute, 2007)

There are few examples of this kind of watershed management, unfortunately.

Water in a socio-environmental setting

While the earliest hunter-gatherers undoubtedly modified their environments in

some ways, their technology was minimal and their numbers small. The beginnings of

agriculture – of intensive cultivation of food – changed human culture and the

environment in consequence. Consider the Romans:

By the year 300 CE there were over nine hundred baths throughout the
empire, and at the height of this water indulgence, thirteen aqueducts
supplied ancient Rome with 300 gallons of water per person per day
(Hecht, J., 2007, p. 244).
 9

Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, and Chinese societies all relied on “control” of water,

particularly in rivers; Andean and Mesoamerican cultures were skilled at water

management (McNeill, J.R., 2000, p.120). In times past as in times present, irrigation of

food crops used the greatest share of water, but it was the increase in agriculture that

allowed the development of cities, which then had to find a supply of water to drink, and

means of carrying off waste.

By 1920 almost all big cities in the richer parts of the world provided
citizens with safe drinking water. Treatment of sewage took a little longer.
Most urban water was river water. For millennia, rivers carried off human
wastes, and the big rivers diluted it so that little harm came from the
practice (McNeill, J.R., 2000, pp. 127 & 129).
On the history of water use, McNeill says:

The clearest thing about the history of water is that people use a lot more
now than they used to. In the twentieth century alone, water use spurted
upward ninefold. Most of the increase probably derived from population
growth, which in the same years was about fourfold (2001, pp. 120 &
121).

But if the history of water use shows an upward trajectory along with population, so too,

does water pollution. Chemical and heavy metal contaminants. Human and animal waste.

The strewing of the world’s oceans with plastics. Eutrophication and dead and dying

lakes. The Ganges River. Minimata Bay. The Aral Sea. The Ogallala aquifer. Walkerton.

Kashechewan. Tofino. A dreary sampling from a dreary list.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That this should ever be!
Yes, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea. (Coleridge, S., 1951)

In the quest for cheap energy, dams, diversions, and all manner of projects

disrupted the natural flow of water all over the planet. A story from the Kootenays tells of

both dams and pollution:

 10

The stretch of Columbia River water between this confluence [the Pend
d’Oreille River and the Columbia at Waneta Dam] and the Keenleyside
Dam nearly 20 kilometres upriver is one of the two remaining free-
running portions of a waterway 2,000 kilometres long. This small slice of
river forms less than one percent of the Columbia’s entire journey. In the
sunlight, the river glistens with energy and movement. I can almost see
how its power would have daunted early explorers, then later inspired the
great hydro systems which now stall its flow over a dozen times on its way
to the sea. As I stand before this free fragment, I feel for ghosts of the
salmon. Streaked with rainbow colours by the effort of the spawn, the fish
would have once teemed unimpeded across this border, continuing up the
Columbia to probe high into the mountains as far north as Revelstoke,
then farther still, around the Big Bend and all the way to what some say is
the source of the river, Columbia Lake.
…On the road again, I twist along the asphalt toward home, passing Trail,
BC, where the vegetation on the dramatic mountains rising around the
town has only recently recovered from sulphur dioxide emissions
produced by the Cominco Smelter. The river still holds the weight of
mining waste. It has had great trouble washing itself clean of the 400
tonnes of slag washed into the Columbia daily for 90 years before clean-
up began in 1994. The effects of this pollution are only beginning to be
measured and may never be fully understood. Environmental impacts on
salmon stocks, sadly enough, will not be relevant in the discussion, though
surely the slag once affected the passage of the fish (Kivi, K.L. & Pearkes,
E. D., 2005, pp.174-176)

Flow and Cycle

Is the world on the brink of environmental crisis? There seems no way to be sure

of what the future holds, save this: it is likely to be more volatile. Fertility rates are in

great flux, technology has a major influence on our lives (even in the developing nations;

witness the proliferation of cell phones in some African nations with limited landline

telephones), and ideas spread very quickly ( think of the totally unregulated international

money markets trading over 1 trillion dollars daily). It seems safe to say that humans will

need to deal with various effects from global warming, loss of biodiversity, and a

shortage of fresh water.

 11

The very images and symbols that shaped our national identity – vast expanses of

water and ice, largely empty – cultivated the myth of abundant and free-flowing water for

all purposes and for ever. But the means to manage our water supply and to bring our

consumption within sustainable limits have long been articulated. Some of these concepts

include:

Overhauling the fragmented “patchwork” of legislation and jurisdiction

over water; municipal, provincial, federal

Mapping and understanding our groundwater

Using “soft path” principles of water management

Using available technology ( rain water underground cisterns, grey water

recycling, low flow toilets, etc) as fully as possible

Rethinking “agribusiness” and water-intensive farming

These are simply a few ideas chosen of a myriad of possibilities.

Why do many people seem bewildered that they are now expected to measure,

monitor, and conserve the resource? A collection of letters to the editor in local papers

reveals a common theme in opposition to water-metering: brown lawns. Rather than

dismissing this as uninformed reaction, let’s explore the deeper meaning and concern.

What these letter writers have in common is the belief that water should be a “common

good”. They recognize that metering simply allocates a price for water, and that those

who can afford to pay will have green lawns, and that those who can’t, won’t. There is no

conservation ethic, but pricing as a strategy for allocating the resource is flawed in more

fundamental ways: who pays for ecological requirements? If a golf course and a fish-

bearing stream are among competing users of water, under price allocation the golf
 12

course wins every time. To truly move into a sustainable future, we must confront

squarely the idea that every resource has its price, and is available to the highest bidder.

In conclusion, let us consider this:

I knew I was standing not only at a drainage divide in a narrow valley

along an abandoned rail line at the origin of a minor river called the
Salmo, but also as a witness to one of the Earth’s central landscape
functions: the movement of melted snow or rainwater into a welcoming,
but distant ocean. Like a point on a gothic arch, this branch of the vast
Columbia River watershed begins at a precise point, representing the apex
of twin drainage systems that drop with great elegance and complexity
from the mountains to the plateaus and then to the ocean. Unlike a gothic
arch, this river locus had no pretences, no heavenly aspirations. It was on
the ground, placed as such to remind me that authenticity has its source in
the Earth, the personal terrain, the place of truth. (Kivi, K.L. & Pearkes, E.
D., 2005, pp.152)

Decisions rooted in this place of truth can only be more viable than decisions rooted in

urban boardrooms or stock exchanges. Water is more than a resource, more than a

utilitarian necessity, more than a transportation link; it is a mystery, it is magically unique

on the earth’s surface – the only substance that is liquid, solid, and gas – it is at the heart

and source of the landscape we call home.

 13

References

Atwood, M. (2006) Death by landscape. In R. Bausch & R.V. Cassill (Eds), The Norton
anthology of short fiction. 7th Ed. (pp. 24-36) New York: WW Norton.

Bakker, K. (2007) Introduction. Eau Canada: The future of Canada’s water. (pp.1-20)
Vancouver: UBC Press.

Biro, A. (2007) Half empty or half full? Water politics and the Canadian national
imagery. In K. Bakker (Ed), Eau Canada: The future of Canada’s water. (pp.321-
333) Vancouver: UBC Press.

CBC News. (2007) retrieved June 24, 2008 from:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/03/13/census-canada.html

Coleridge, S. (1951) The rime of the ancient mariner. In A. Witherspoon (Ed), The
college survey of English literature. Revised ed. New York: Harcourt Brace

Environment Canada (2008) Water and the Canadian Identity. Retrieved May 23, 2008
from: http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/culture/ident/e_tides.htm

Environment Canada (2008B) Water and Art. Retrieved June 23, 2008 from:
http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/culture/art/e_art.htm

Haggett, P. (2001) Geography: A global synthesis. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education

Ltd.

Hecht, J. (2007) The Happiness myth: Why what we think is right is wrong. San
Francisco: Harper Collins.

Kivi, K.L. & Pearkes, E.D. (2005) The Inner Green: Exploring Home in the Columbia
Mountains. Nelson: Maa Press.

Ley, D. (1977) Social Geography & the taken-for-granted world. Transactions of the
Institute of British Geographers. (2:4) Retrieved February 11, 2008 from:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/622303

McNeill, J.R. (2000) Something new under the sun: An environmental history of the
twentieth-century world. New York: WW Norton.

Shrubsole, D. & Draper, D. (2007) On guard for thee? Water abuses & management in
Canada. In K. Bakker (Ed), Eau Canada: The future of Canada’s water. (pp.37-
54) Vancouver: UBC Press.

US EPA (2007) Introduction to watershed ecology. Retrieved May 16, 2008 From:
 14

http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/ecology/index.html

Walkem, A. (2007) The land is dry: Indigenous peoples, water, and environmental
justice. In K. Bakker (Ed), Eau Canada: The future of Canada’s water. (pp.304-
319) Vancouver: UBC Press.

World Factbook. (2008) US Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved June 24, 2008 from:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ca.html

World Resources Institute. (2007) Retrieved May 21, 2008 from:

http://archive.wri.org/item_detail.cfm?id=226&section=pubs&page=pubs_content
_text&z=?