Book Review: Polytechnic University of The Philippines, Quezon City Campus

POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES, QUEZON CITY CAMPUS
HEYOGRAPIYA AT KASAYSAYAN NG PILIPINAS

(HIST 1013)
SY. 2016-2017, SECOND SEMESTER
BOOK REVIEW
SUBMITTED
BY:
ANTONIO C. ARPON JR.
BSBA-HRDM
2-1
TO:
JOSEPH ELIGIO
FACULTY INSTRUCTOR
JANUARY 14, 2017
Book Review:
Water: A Natural History, by Alice Outwater
Basic Books, 1996
Theres a remarkable little book, less than 200 pages long, which provides
some real insight into the relationship between humankind and nature. This
book, entitled Water, A Natural History, is divided into two major sets of
essays, the first on the impact of settlers on the natural water systems of
North America from the 17th century on, the second on the impact of
engineered waterways throughout the 20th century.
It is the first section, Dismantling The Natural System which distinguishes
this book from the mass of critical writing about human behavior and the
natural environment. In this group of six essays, Outwater takes us on a
remarkable exploration of the role of beaver, ground hogs, and buffalo on the
hydrogeology of the continent. Her writing simply captures the imagination
as she draws connections between the behavior of these creatures, such as
dam building, burrowing, and digging, and the entire pattern of water
movement through the land.
Her writing brings us back to a vivid understanding of what our country was
like before it was settled by Europeans, and specifically how close the
relationship between animal behavior and the very shape of ecological
systems is. Take the beaver, for example. We all know that these 40-inch
long creatures have an impact on waterways, and it would not surprise most
people to know that a family of beavers can build a 35-foot long dam in a
week. But have you thought of the collective impact of a population of 200
million beavers, the approximate number which lived here in the 1500s?
Through their dam building behavior, beavers essentially construct
wetlands, which expand the area of transition zone between water and land
and provide fertile habitat and groundwater recharge. Each beaver impacted
something like an acre of land in this way, which, multiplied by the number
of beavers, amounts to an area of more than 300,000 square miles of
wetlands a tenth of the entire land area of the United States. The beaver
population was decimated, down to todays population of some 7 million, by
the year 1700. And for what? Hats. The beaver hat was so fashionable
across Europe that beaver skins bankrolled most of the early colonists, and
they were the principal export from the port of New York until the trade
ended abruptly when the animals could no longer be found easily.
Outwater tells a similar story about the other key species which impacted
water patterns. It turns out the prairie dog towns, which used to range
across thousands of square miles, with about fifty holes per acre, were
inhabited by literally billions of individuals. Because it was assumed that
they competed with sheep and cattle for forage, and because of the myth
that horses broke their legs in prairie dog holes, they were systematically
poisoned. In 1920 alone, Outwater reports, 132,000 men spread 32 million
acres with poisoned grain. Today prairie dog town cover no more than 2
million acres, and the hundreds of millions of burrows which had allowed rain
to penetrate deep below the surface layer and recharge the major aquifers
are gone.
In its own understated way, Water is one of the most profoundly moving
books about the human relationship with natural ecosystems Ive ever come
across. This is because it describes so convincingly a set of complex
relationships that can never be recovered. I had simply never imagined the
way in which millions of buffalo, seeking to protect themselves from misquito
bites, could impact entire aquifers by digging which acted like recharge
ponds. She describes a scene of beautiful interdependence that we have so
profoundly destroyed without a single clue as to what we were doing.
Although the writing in Water has some weaknesses, most notably in the
final chapter where the author brings her own career as a wastewater
engineer into focus in a somewhat disjointed fashion, this is a must read
for anyone who knows that nature and natural ecosystems are worth
preserving. It makes some connections for us that had been invisible, and
gives us valuable clues about many of the other ties between biodiversity
and a healthy natural environment. By allowing us to begin to grasp the
enormity of the changes we have collectively imposed on the landscape, she
offers inspiration and ammunition to those of us striving to draw the line in
front of what we have left.

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POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES, QUEZON CITY CAMPUS

HEYOGRAPIYA AT KASAYSAYAN NG PILIPINAS

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