Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge, Erica Gies, reviewed by Juno Lamb
Erica Gies’ Water Always Wins begins in California, where she grew up, and travels the world from the Mesopotamian Marshes of Iraq to a re-created hyporheic zone (“the liver of the river”) beneath a stream in the Pacific Northwest; to places in England and elsewhere where beavers are being reintroduced intentionally and marshes restored; to Chennai, India, with its metropolitan area home to more than 12 million people and the Andes Mountains in Peru, radically different environments where people are re-implementing sometimes centuries-old water management strategies; to communities along the Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas Rivers who have experience “spectacular” levee failure; to Holland, China, and many other places along the way. In each location, she introduces us to innovative water experts who are part of what she calls the Slow Water movement, a diverse group of scientists, ecologists, engineers, urban planners, and ordinary citizens who understand that letting water move in the ways water wants to move can fix many of the problems that have been created by trying to corral and control water. The book is dense with stories, ideas, and information, and gorgeously written, so that you will feel you’ve had a glimpse into the life of an Iraqi marsh dweller, or visited a rolling plateau in the Peruvian highlands “where the puna grassland is scattered with scrubby chamise bushes and lupine in decadent purple flower, and the mountains stack behind each other into seeming infinity.” This book could not be more timely and inspiring. It is essential reading for anyone thinking about how to store and use water wisely, how to protect human infrastructure from human-created risks, and how to restore damaged ecosystems in these changing times.
Thanks to Green Mountain Conservation Group for requesting this book review for their 2025 Spring Newsletter and for permission to reprint it here.
Banner image: Visiting the Chocorua River and the protected wetlands alongside it at CLC’s Charlotte C. Browne Woods. Photo: Juno Lamb