Water, Water: Changing Landscapes, Changing Lives

This week, for the Lens-Artists Challenge, our host John invites us to share waterscapes: scenes where water has changed the landscape, perhaps changed lives. In six images or fewer. Well. That IS a challenge.

Here’s the beginning of the story for so many of the world’s great waterways: a small insignificant waterfall, tumbling downwards, eventually to become a brook, a stream, a tributary, a mighty river, coursing its way towards the sea. This one’s in Cantabria in Spain.

Soon, these little watercourses gather strength and character. Here’s stage two, in Swaledale in the Yorkshire Dales.

As it journeys on, the river becomes slower, deeper, lazier. It ploughs a straighter furrow and may even threaten to overflow its banks unless contained. The Thames in London was tidied up and forced to conform in the 1860s and 70s, under a scheme devised by Sir Joseph Bazalgette. But that wasn’t enough. The sea caused problems from the other end, surging and flooding, often every winter. So eventually the Thames Barrier was built, about a hundred years after Bazalgette’s efforts upstream. Here it is.

Of course some rivers do have coastal flood plains. The Júcar and Turia rivers, near Valencia together form a deltaic flood plain which is a wildlife haven, a fishing ground, an important rice growing area … But I’ve decided to make this shot my featured photo. Look at the top of the post!

Which leaves me with two more shots. Round here, gravel extraction is an important local industry. As each seam is exhausted, the company reponsible does a pretty decent job of allowing the area to flood to become a nature reserve. Here are two grateful local residents.

Finally – human intervention again. Not too far from here is an immense reservoir, built early last century to provide water for the fast-growing city of Bradford. Scar House changed from being hilly moorland to becoming hilly moorland surrounding a huge lake. I haven’t been there this year, but we were there at the end of the last summer when drought had hit the area, and hit it hard. I can’t imagine what it looked like this year, which was even hotter, even drier, for even longer.

A brief tour indeed. I’ve shown you no ponds, no canals, no seas, no oceans. No boats and ships. No fisherfolk, sailors, or other workers-round-water. No pleasure-seekers or holiday makers either. But only six photos? If that’s the limit, you have to trim your sails; limit your horizons; keep your feet on the ground; lower your sights, and other relevant clichés.