City officials, in collaboration with Dutch advisers, local communities, water experts, and nongovernmental organizations, made plans to reclaim floodplains and protect marshes to slow water and absorb downpours instead of shuttling water into canals and out to sea. A flood in 2015 that killed at least 470 people spurred biologists and conservationists to fight harder for wetland protection, in order to prevent future disasters by allowing water to seep into the ground and lessen the water extremes. In Chennai, India, for example, residents experience both seasonal flooding and water scarcity. The key to greater resilience, say the water detectives, is to find ways to let water be water, to reclaim space for water to interact with the land.”
Not only that, she argues in the introduction: “When water stalls on the land, that’s when the magic happens, cycling water underground and providing habitat and food for many forms of life, including us. “While Slow Water projects reduce the risk of floods and water scarcity and the subsequent anxiety those situations bring,” she writes, “they are simultaneously creating more dynamic, diverse, enticing habitats for us.” Gies takes readers on a global journey, highlighting researchers and engineers who “share an openness to moving from a control mindset to one of respect,” and seek to support what she calls a “Slow Water” movement. The Peruvian example is one of many Gies uses to demonstrate how hydrologists, conservationists, and ecologists are becoming what she calls water detectives, searching for ways to slow water’s journey, an effort that could help mitigate the ravages of climate change like drought and sea level rise while providing a host of other benefits.
“But water is not a waste product to be quickly whisked away nor is it a commodity, lying inertly in a reservoir until needed on fields or in apartments. “During the Industrial Age, people became accustomed to water looking and behaving in a certain way, tidy within its concrete constraints,” she writes. BOOK REVIEW - “Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge,” by Erica Gies (The University of Chicago Press 344 pages).
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