4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Water on Earth (that sounds really strange now I have written it) is here for good. It was thought that water had originally been brought in from meteorites many aeons ago. The majority of the water on this planet is salt water, with only a tiny proportion being fresh, and the water cycle is almost completely a closed system. Almost every single drop of water that has been formed is still around, bar those that have been split to extract the hydrogen. Though, when that it burnt, they reform to make new water molecules.

Rutt begins his book by travelling to the source of three of Scotland’s rivers, the Annan, The Tween and The Clyde. They tame the rain in the Scottish hills and funnel it on the path of least resistance. But the initial source for these rivers is the water that is forced from the ground.

“I am the river, the river is me – Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au” – Māori proverb

Rutt hasn’t fished since he was 14 years old. Now he is pulling on a set of waders to go and stand in a cold river in a futile attempt to catch fish. Soon after he wades is, the bailiff turns up, but he thankfully has the correct permits. The act of standing in the river and being very still, gives his mind a chance to wander. He considers the river he is sure is leaking through his waders and the state of the rivers across the country after many years of private business putting profits way above less significant things such as public health, environment and cleanliness…

The metaphorical drop of water that Rutt is following has reached the lower reaches of the Clyde. The initial rapid descent is tempered by the slope and the vast increase in the volume of water flowing in the river; it has slowed significantly and meanders across the landscape.

This river, which could be considered a living entity (No, I’ve not read Is A River Alive yet!!) has not reached the point where humans have done their worst in it. There is heavy metal pollution, debris and as is common in most rivers now, raw sewage. This long buried industrial waste leaches out into the burns and turns them a horrid lurid green. Somehow, some wildlife survives this constant assault, but the river is pushed to its limits. The decline is locked in, and we will all be poorer when species go extinct.

Rutt’s water drop is lifted up by the process of evaporation. It spends some time floating around the atmosphere for a while before becoming a raindrop and falling into a nearby Loch. This will become its home for around two years. These bodies of water are transient, but over a much longer timescale than rivers. They collect every drop of water from the surrounding area, and with that comes runoff and other pollutants. It makes for grim reading.

In an unexpected turn of events, the water droplet evaporates again and heads to the south of the UK. Landing on the chalk downlands of the southern hills, it is filtered and flows out into one of the gin-clear chalk streams of England.

We are fortunate to have 85% of the entire world’s chalk streams. We have a chalk stream that flows through the middle of Wimborne, The Allen, and if you haven’t seen one, then they are a beautiful natural stream. Fortunately for Rutt, his cousin Lizzie works with degraded chalk streams in Hertfordshire. It is quite sad to know that a job like this exists, mostly because there are an awful lot of degraded chalk streams in the country now. Bloody water companies…

Just hearing the word bog brings back all the horrors of school toilets from my childhood. However, the bogs that Rutt is describing are full of sphagnum moss and lots of water. These bogs cover vast swathes of Scotland and Ireland and hold vast quantities of carbon. Or they do, unless we bugger around with them and then, guess what we’ve been doing…

Rutt’s next chapter is in his home stamping ground, the Fens. This part of the country is so flat that even speed bumps have contour lines. It has been drained and flooded on a regular basis over hundreds of years. The latest trend is rewilding, but that has a knock-on effect on people and the local economy. There are precious few jobs in the region anyway, and the possible loss of more makes for difficult choices by stakeholders in the area.

In Rutt’s penultimate chapter, he tentatively ventures out onto salt marsh. This liminal landscape is not quite land, not quite river and not quite sea. He joins Elizabeth Tindall on the marsh at Wigtown. She almost glides across the mud, but Rutt is far less elegant, with a lot of windmilling of his arms to stop himself falling flat on his face. He does get the technique in the end though. Like bogs, salt marshes are great carbon sinks, and boy, do we need them at the moment. Sadly, some developers think these places are a great place to build houses on.

I thought that this was a fascinating book about the circuitous route that this drop of water takes from the source of a river all the way down to the sea. As with his other books, Rutt is an entertaining and engaging writer. He teases out all sorts of facts, details and anecdotes to add depth to the narrative. Well worth reading, and when you have finished this go and read his earlier books.

 

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