Water Always Wins

Whenever I fly across country, I love looking out the window of the plane to watch how water has sculpted the landscape below—especially in undeveloped expanses, where I often see dozens of squiggles from rivers that have changed course.

Erica Gies’s fascinating book gave me an expanded view of the relationship between water and land, even in our modern cities, and introduced me to people who are figuring out new ways of living respectfully with this mighty and essential force.

This is a book I would love to have researched and written myself. Gies moves beyond my own book’s story of constructed wetland projects to report on the many other ways people are restoring the natural functions of water: breaking dams, busting apart concretized stream channels. Allowing water to run slow through wetlands and the twisty course of restored natural channels can revive fish and wildlife populations, reduce pollution and flooding, and help sustain people. From the marshes of Iraq to the ancient irrigation channels of Peru, this book will change the way you understand water.