It’s easy to tell at a glance on a satellite map the difference between countryside and a city. Cities are grey clusters spreading out to green (or brown, in arid regions). If you were to imagine watering such a landscape, the brown or green would absorb the water and grow lush. But in cities – anywhere that pavement and concrete and buildings have supplanted marshes and grasses and woods, anywhere that streams now flow through concrete channels instead of natural paths – the water runs off without filtering through the land.
In cities, rainwater runs off impervious roofs, down downspouts, into streets, over parking lots, down into sewers and out – after some form of treatment – to the nearest body of water. Nicholas Bott writes, “We’ve created a setting that inhibits infiltration and promotes the movement of water away from the home and into a storm sewer. […] Even though Canada is home to 25% of all the fresh water on earth, only 0.3% of it is stored in lakes and rivers. All remaining sources are held in groundwater aquifers. As development occurs, impermeable urban landscapes are not allowing these natural aquifers to recharge. Despite dramatic changes in agricultural irrigation practices and water conservation initiatives, groundwater levels have declined in North America by as much as 11% since the 1950s.”
We have come to understand that waterways are harmed by untreated sewage, so generally the runoff is treated in some way before being returned to a body of water. But the sewage treatment plants face a tall order. Especially in the spring, as snow melts, a winter’s worth of road salt can wash into the sewers, as do a million tiny fuel spills. Fertilizers or pesticides wash down from lawns and fields. And, incidentally, what happens to all the things removed from water during sewage treatment? They’re lumped together into what is euphemistically named “biosolids” and less appealingly termed “sewage sludge”, and spread on fields.
Meanwhile, municipal water infrastructure in many places is aging and can fail disastrously.
We are moving into a time when clean drinking water is becoming more and more scarce, yet we are squandering a source of clean water – rain – by sending it through a highly artificial process. Rainwater is naturally filtered and purified as it sinks through the soil and flows through wetlands. Wise municipalities are beginning to understand this and create infrastructure that supports a more natural flow for for stormwater instead of sending it through concrete sewer pipes, but it is still very early stages.
Ultimately there is something pathological in how urban landscapes send rainwater through metal and concrete pathways, away from where it falls, even as they pump more and more water out of lakes or aquifers. It reflects the human pathology of wanting more and more, yet being unreceptive to the abundance that is given.
There are steps we can take individually and collectively to change the course of runoff, such as installing rain barrels below the downspouts of our homes, or creating a “rain garden” on our properties to allow rainwater to naturally filter down into the earth where it lands. We can reduce our water use, and be mindful of what we’re putting down the drains, choosing biodegradable or environmentally friendly products whenever possible. We can also call on our municipalities to support more natural rainwater capture filtration, such as green roofs, or “daylighting” buried streams, bringing them out of concrete conduits and back up to the surface so they can play their part in water filtration. In this way, we can take the pressure off overtaxed municipal infrastructure and allow the earth immediately around us to benefit more fully from rainwater, transforming an unused excess into a nourishing flow.
Pranada Devi is a communications professional living in Toronto, Canada. She manages the Politics, Books and Activism sections for Parvati Magazine in addition to serving as Managing Editor for the magazine overall. She serves as an advisor on marketing communications for Parvati’s various projects.