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Fresh Water
With the eye of a professional scientist and the passion of a dedicated amateur, E. C. Pielou conducts a guided tour of fresh water on its course through the natural world. As the world's supply of clean, fresh water continues to dwindle, it becomes increasingly important to understand the close connection between water and all forms of life. Pielou's fascination with fresh water gives us a "natural history" that is remarkable and surprising.
"[A] keen and detailed look at the life and history of fresh water. . . . Dip into Fresh Water. It will both stimulate and satisfy as only good natural history can."— Toronto Globe and Mail
"Pielou's ease with her subject and her no-nonsense style of writing will satisfy and inspire the poet as well as the naturalist."—Denize Springer, Express Books
"[Pielou's] writing is didactic and definitive, in places even charming, and is buttressed by clear illustrations. . . . A welcome addition to the genre of literature designed to bridge the gap between scientists . . . and the intelligent and concerned lay public."—Daniel Hillel, Nature
"A wonderful natural history of one of life's necessities, a refreshing break from the grand theory and special pleading of many a science book. . . . Read it."—Fred Pearce, New Scientist
"[A] keen and detailed look at the life and history of fresh water. . . . Dip into Fresh Water. It will both stimulate and satisfy as only good natural history can."— Toronto Globe and Mail
"Pielou's ease with her subject and her no-nonsense style of writing will satisfy and inspire the poet as well as the naturalist."—Denize Springer, Express Books
"[Pielou's] writing is didactic and definitive, in places even charming, and is buttressed by clear illustrations. . . . A welcome addition to the genre of literature designed to bridge the gap between scientists . . . and the intelligent and concerned lay public."—Daniel Hillel, Nature
"A wonderful natural history of one of life's necessities, a refreshing break from the grand theory and special pleading of many a science book. . . . Read it."—Fred Pearce, New Scientist
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
8 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
About the author
E.C. Pielou
11 books5 followersEvelyn Chrystalla "E.C." Pielou is a statistical ecologist. She began her career as a researcher for the Canadian Department of Forestry and the Canadian Department of Agriculture. Later she was professor of biology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, and at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then Oil Sands Environmental Research Professor working out of the University of Lethbridge, Alberta.
She has contributed significantly to the development of mathematical ecology, the mathematical modeling of natural systems and wrote six academic books on the subject.
She now lives in Comox, British Columbia, Canada, and writes popular books on natural history.
She has contributed significantly to the development of mathematical ecology, the mathematical modeling of natural systems and wrote six academic books on the subject.
She now lives in Comox, British Columbia, Canada, and writes popular books on natural history.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 21, 2025
Wonderful
Read
April 11, 2020This book is a simple 101 level study of hydrology as it pertains to earth's supply of fresh water. Ms. Pielou was a scientist and lived in British Columbia. The book is a reminder of how accessible the natural sciences are - with drawings by Ms. Pielou, anyone can venture out and learn more about the rivers, creeks, lakes and wetlands in their region.
The book was published in 1998 and, consequently, it possesses an optimism about climate change and water that, in 2020, science can no longer summon in the face of impending, likely catastrophic, environmental changes.
Interestingly, as a Canadian, the book describes devastating mistakes made by the Canadian government against its own wetlands. Canada's environmental mistakes were news to me. Canada is very capable of keeping negative news out of its own media, as a small country that can dangle access in lieu of silence, and with a concentrated wealthy elite of business interests that control most of its broadcasting companies. Being green is easy to pretend and popular here. Being accurate is not rewarding.
Did you realize that humans, over the last century, have built, on average, the equivalent of a dam a day? (Most since 1950.) Two-thirds of the worlds' major rivers are disrupted by 50k dams. America alone contains 85k dams. Projects for Asia (Nepal, Tibet, Mekong), Latin America (Chile) and North America are predicted to displace millions of humans, becoming an anthropological disaster and bringing environmental chaos. Dams and the reservoirs are responsible for a quarter of human-caused methane released into the atmosphere. As of 2014, current governments plan to increase hydroelectrical energy production on earth by 40%. That's a lot more dams. A lot more thoughtless engineered destruction.
Ms. Pielou, in 1998, with science professor understated calm, is actually a virulent opponent of reservoir creation. She kind of blew my mind actually. Here are some arguments against building that dam:
1. The dam is the destruction of 2 ecosystems simultaneously - the river system above and below the dam, and the land destroyed underneath the new reservoir;
2. It is the instantaneous destruction of the spawn cycle of anadromous fish such as salmon, who migrate upriver and to the sea;
3. Release of water thru the dam kills fish with the 'bends' (gas bubble disease), released water at the dam comes from the deepest, coldest water at the bottom of the reservoir, water with the lowest oxygen levels, into the river system below, causing fish kills further downriver;
4. Reduced rivers downstream of the dam are sluggish, too warm for native fish, species die;
5. Weed choked warmer rivers destroy spawning grounds, eggs are destroyed or preyed upon, species are destroyed;
6. Sediment is wasted at the dam, and vital nutrients never arrive at the ocean, or along the rivers banks, affecting all farming and fish and populations downstream;
7. Altering seasonal flows can destroy fisheries from river system to the ocean (white sturgeon, Nechako, Kootenay and Columbia);
8. Reservoirs are radically different chemically from natural lake bodies, rotting vegetation can release toxic mercury levels, in the form of methylmercury (100x more toxic than the original mercury levels in the soil). Fish can ingest methylmercury, destroying fisheries. (this has happened twice in Canada (whitefish in Manitoba and pike in James Bay, Quebec, where Cree who ate the fish had dangerous, cancer-causing mercury levels);
9. The mass release of methane and c02 from the rotting forest or peat, can continue indefinitely;
10. As a result of the release of methane, a hydroelectric project can emit as great a quantity of greenhouse gases as a coalfired generator creating the exact same amount of electrical power. Assuming 'hydroelectric' means 'clean' is choosing to allow the government and corporations to create the future;
11. Reservoirs lay atop shallow basins not designed to carry the weight of the water, this can deform the earth's crust, causing earthquakes (sometimes exceeding 6 on the Richter scale). This is particularly alarming when planned dams are in mountainous regions in Asia or Latin America, which are already notoriously unstable due to earthquake and volcano activity;
12. Reservoirs decrease sea levels. In 1998, it was estimated that dams had reduced the ocean level by 3 cms. The combination of rising sea levels and reservoirs was not examined by the time this book was written;
13. Reservoirs are speeding the earth's rotation. The weight of water has been shifted, artificially via the engineering of man, from around the equator - to higher and lower, midlatitude, closer to the earth's axis of rotation. This tremendous weight shift speeds up the earth's rotation, like an ice skater drawing her arms in towards her body while she spins, faster and faster;
6. The creation of all these immense projects has been haphazard, instead of around the equator, so the actual axis of the earth is tilting due to the shift in mass.
"To be fair, these shifts are not as great as those caused by natural "polar drift" that goes on all the time. But they do emphasize how delicately the earth is poised, and how illusory the fixedness of a fixed point really is." E. C. Pielou
The book is very informative, full of simple science information - but this chapter on reservoirs really blew my mind. The massive dam projects show no sign of stopping and the green movement, the soccer moms, all think hydroelecticity is the future.
I am not convinced that disrupting the himalayan home of the gods isn't begging for hubristic disaster. At present, coronavirus is science being used to tell us how stupid we all are and we have to obey - but then when you really examine all these 'green assumptions' they are really nonsense.
I am very frustrated with the "green movement" because it is full of inconsistencies, scientific untruths and ineffectual egodriven politics that get lost so easily in America. How are we ever going to change the direction of governments and corporations? the UN is drowning in immediate humanitarian crisis, predicted only to worsen. Increased climate change will only make what is wrong now worse. There is no international counterpoint.
Now the word "pandemic" has the hysteria of a Bush administration terror red alert, my neighbors are ready to duct tape their windows and no one is questioning authority out of fear of a flu virus. Our pundits are not as smart as they used to be.
I read the Sixth Extinction, I am witnessing the Sixth Extinction. I try to join green groups in my area and am lost in decades of internecine disputes and ego, five groups doing one thing badly instead of one doing one thing effectively. Everyone wants to be on good morning america or today, everyone would like to be loved and famous. No one wants to say no to the Chinese. That would not be popular.
I will likely pick this book up off my shelf a lot over the years, I spend a lot of time in nature and having a better understanding of that lake or that creek will be helpful.
"Run like a river runs to the sea, O great Ocean O great sea, run to the ocean, run to the sea" u2.
The book was published in 1998 and, consequently, it possesses an optimism about climate change and water that, in 2020, science can no longer summon in the face of impending, likely catastrophic, environmental changes.
Interestingly, as a Canadian, the book describes devastating mistakes made by the Canadian government against its own wetlands. Canada's environmental mistakes were news to me. Canada is very capable of keeping negative news out of its own media, as a small country that can dangle access in lieu of silence, and with a concentrated wealthy elite of business interests that control most of its broadcasting companies. Being green is easy to pretend and popular here. Being accurate is not rewarding.
Did you realize that humans, over the last century, have built, on average, the equivalent of a dam a day? (Most since 1950.) Two-thirds of the worlds' major rivers are disrupted by 50k dams. America alone contains 85k dams. Projects for Asia (Nepal, Tibet, Mekong), Latin America (Chile) and North America are predicted to displace millions of humans, becoming an anthropological disaster and bringing environmental chaos. Dams and the reservoirs are responsible for a quarter of human-caused methane released into the atmosphere. As of 2014, current governments plan to increase hydroelectrical energy production on earth by 40%. That's a lot more dams. A lot more thoughtless engineered destruction.
Ms. Pielou, in 1998, with science professor understated calm, is actually a virulent opponent of reservoir creation. She kind of blew my mind actually. Here are some arguments against building that dam:
1. The dam is the destruction of 2 ecosystems simultaneously - the river system above and below the dam, and the land destroyed underneath the new reservoir;
2. It is the instantaneous destruction of the spawn cycle of anadromous fish such as salmon, who migrate upriver and to the sea;
3. Release of water thru the dam kills fish with the 'bends' (gas bubble disease), released water at the dam comes from the deepest, coldest water at the bottom of the reservoir, water with the lowest oxygen levels, into the river system below, causing fish kills further downriver;
4. Reduced rivers downstream of the dam are sluggish, too warm for native fish, species die;
5. Weed choked warmer rivers destroy spawning grounds, eggs are destroyed or preyed upon, species are destroyed;
6. Sediment is wasted at the dam, and vital nutrients never arrive at the ocean, or along the rivers banks, affecting all farming and fish and populations downstream;
7. Altering seasonal flows can destroy fisheries from river system to the ocean (white sturgeon, Nechako, Kootenay and Columbia);
8. Reservoirs are radically different chemically from natural lake bodies, rotting vegetation can release toxic mercury levels, in the form of methylmercury (100x more toxic than the original mercury levels in the soil). Fish can ingest methylmercury, destroying fisheries. (this has happened twice in Canada (whitefish in Manitoba and pike in James Bay, Quebec, where Cree who ate the fish had dangerous, cancer-causing mercury levels);
9. The mass release of methane and c02 from the rotting forest or peat, can continue indefinitely;
10. As a result of the release of methane, a hydroelectric project can emit as great a quantity of greenhouse gases as a coalfired generator creating the exact same amount of electrical power. Assuming 'hydroelectric' means 'clean' is choosing to allow the government and corporations to create the future;
11. Reservoirs lay atop shallow basins not designed to carry the weight of the water, this can deform the earth's crust, causing earthquakes (sometimes exceeding 6 on the Richter scale). This is particularly alarming when planned dams are in mountainous regions in Asia or Latin America, which are already notoriously unstable due to earthquake and volcano activity;
12. Reservoirs decrease sea levels. In 1998, it was estimated that dams had reduced the ocean level by 3 cms. The combination of rising sea levels and reservoirs was not examined by the time this book was written;
13. Reservoirs are speeding the earth's rotation. The weight of water has been shifted, artificially via the engineering of man, from around the equator - to higher and lower, midlatitude, closer to the earth's axis of rotation. This tremendous weight shift speeds up the earth's rotation, like an ice skater drawing her arms in towards her body while she spins, faster and faster;
6. The creation of all these immense projects has been haphazard, instead of around the equator, so the actual axis of the earth is tilting due to the shift in mass.
"To be fair, these shifts are not as great as those caused by natural "polar drift" that goes on all the time. But they do emphasize how delicately the earth is poised, and how illusory the fixedness of a fixed point really is." E. C. Pielou
The book is very informative, full of simple science information - but this chapter on reservoirs really blew my mind. The massive dam projects show no sign of stopping and the green movement, the soccer moms, all think hydroelecticity is the future.
I am not convinced that disrupting the himalayan home of the gods isn't begging for hubristic disaster. At present, coronavirus is science being used to tell us how stupid we all are and we have to obey - but then when you really examine all these 'green assumptions' they are really nonsense.
I am very frustrated with the "green movement" because it is full of inconsistencies, scientific untruths and ineffectual egodriven politics that get lost so easily in America. How are we ever going to change the direction of governments and corporations? the UN is drowning in immediate humanitarian crisis, predicted only to worsen. Increased climate change will only make what is wrong now worse. There is no international counterpoint.
Now the word "pandemic" has the hysteria of a Bush administration terror red alert, my neighbors are ready to duct tape their windows and no one is questioning authority out of fear of a flu virus. Our pundits are not as smart as they used to be.
I read the Sixth Extinction, I am witnessing the Sixth Extinction. I try to join green groups in my area and am lost in decades of internecine disputes and ego, five groups doing one thing badly instead of one doing one thing effectively. Everyone wants to be on good morning america or today, everyone would like to be loved and famous. No one wants to say no to the Chinese. That would not be popular.
I will likely pick this book up off my shelf a lot over the years, I spend a lot of time in nature and having a better understanding of that lake or that creek will be helpful.
"Run like a river runs to the sea, O great Ocean O great sea, run to the ocean, run to the sea" u2.
February 28, 2024
"Knowledge about rivers isn't the private preserve of professional scientists, however. Anybody who keeps their eyes open, and makes deductions from what they see, can learn a considerable amount. Much [can be] gained simply from thinking about rivers and paying conscious attention to self-evident but seldom-contemplated facts. Indeed, if you were asked to write down all you know about rivers already, the amount would probably be much more than you realized. Becoming aware of one's own knowledge is one of the bonuses of paying attention to the natural world; observing rivers and streams, with their never-ending movement and change, is particularly rewarding."
Reads like a textbook and I love a good textbook so I'm here for it. Approachable, thorough, crisp prose with a shade of sly wit.
It's both dated and covers things I know about already, to some degree, but it being interesting doesn't suffer for that. A fascinating aspect is comparing what Pielou details v-v climate change then versus what has accelerated and been further studied since then.
Covers the basics, and then gets into the physical and physics whys and wherefores of the ways fresh water interacts with and inhabits the earth. Great illustrations that really helped me visualize the various processes described.
"The enormous weight of the water held back by damns is affecting the earth's rotation... in less than half a century, the 'reservoir effect' has shortened the length of the day by nearly 0.00001 second. Moreover, because the reservoirs are not symmetrically located around the earth's axis, the axis itself has tilted."
"Vapor rising from snow is water becoming visible again. But it is still part of teh water cycle, and can never leave it. The same is true of the invisible steam coming from a teakettle's spout, or from the mouth of anything that breathes. Water in one form or another circulates around us, all the time and everywhere."
Reads like a textbook and I love a good textbook so I'm here for it. Approachable, thorough, crisp prose with a shade of sly wit.
It's both dated and covers things I know about already, to some degree, but it being interesting doesn't suffer for that. A fascinating aspect is comparing what Pielou details v-v climate change then versus what has accelerated and been further studied since then.
Covers the basics, and then gets into the physical and physics whys and wherefores of the ways fresh water interacts with and inhabits the earth. Great illustrations that really helped me visualize the various processes described.
"The enormous weight of the water held back by damns is affecting the earth's rotation... in less than half a century, the 'reservoir effect' has shortened the length of the day by nearly 0.00001 second. Moreover, because the reservoirs are not symmetrically located around the earth's axis, the axis itself has tilted."
"Vapor rising from snow is water becoming visible again. But it is still part of teh water cycle, and can never leave it. The same is true of the invisible steam coming from a teakettle's spout, or from the mouth of anything that breathes. Water in one form or another circulates around us, all the time and everywhere."
September 15, 2019
Great for someone willing to delve into the science and intricacies. Take Muir and add graphs, statistics, and reports. Too detailed for what I was looking for, but a great resource for someone wanting to know the origins and state of fresh water in our world.
December 26, 2021
A solid, informative overview of the water cycle and the way that water moves across land after it falls as rain.
Grikes: are cracks in limestone Karst land that water flows into.
Seiche: is the rocking motion of water in lakes
Frazil: is clumps of slush on lakes that freeze irregularly
Talik is the ground that remains unfrozen all year in Tundra areas
Pingo: mounds of ice
Flarks: furrows of water in bogs
learning new words is awesome.
Grikes: are cracks in limestone Karst land that water flows into.
Seiche: is the rocking motion of water in lakes
Frazil: is clumps of slush on lakes that freeze irregularly
Talik is the ground that remains unfrozen all year in Tundra areas
Pingo: mounds of ice
Flarks: furrows of water in bogs
learning new words is awesome.
September 29, 2010
A very nice overview of many of the main hydrologic functions. I read this book for a class, but I thought it was excellent. Reads quickly, explains things in a way many people can understand, but still has enough technical detail for those of us who need it. Highly recommended.
July 5, 2020
Informative book about the science of fresh water.
May 30, 2013
Read this a long time ago, but remember thinking it was a readable and fascinating introduction to water from a naturalist's perspective.
April 17, 2017
I was quite impresses by this book. It's not your run of the mill coffee table picture book. Pielou is quite knowledgeable of hydrology and groundwater. There is plenty of physics abd science in this book as opposed to simple ideas that don't require thought. I learned a lot.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews