Carl Hier Continues ‘The Ways Of Water’ Offering Thoughts From Worldwide Demand To Intimate Water Music

In the worldwide challenge of sustaining clean waterways in the face of global, environmental and pollution challenges, our rivers have become litmus tests to show ‘how we are doing’. They are, of course, not our only source of water supply but they are ‘key performance indicators’ for our care and treatment of our natural assets.

The story, however, begins thousands of years ago. Historically, rivers provided early settlements with water for irrigation and construction. They supplied routes for trade and transportation, becoming instrumental in the creation of many of the world’s major cities. From Vienna and Budapest on the Danube, Montreal on the St. Lawrence, Alexandria and Cairo on the Nile, Rome on the Tiber, Shanghai on the Huangpu, Paris on the Seine, Seoul on the Han, Moscow on the Moskva and of course London on the Thames, these and so many other global cities were built around the rivers that preceded them. Our continued dependency cannot be disputed but the ‘giver of life’ is of critical importance to all species on the planet.

Shanghai – a sprawling metropolis on the Huangpu river

Ever increasing demands for water arise from humankind’s basic daily consumption and our agricultural, energy and industrial uses. The world’s 100 largest cities occupy less than 1% of the planet’s land area whilst the basins that provide their water resource cover over 12% and serve almost a billion people. Globally, one in four of the world’s major cities were already facing water stress in 2018 (Cities Alive Report – Arup).

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water”: W.H. Auden

Add to this the growing occurrences of climatic difficulties, pollution and population increases and it seems the debate on global water scarcity and forward demand is unlikely to diminish. Upper, mid- and lower catchment areas of rivers face a range of challenges from agricultural governance to flood schemes and coastal management, all of which reinforce the fact that the environmental and economic future-proofing of rivers has never been more critical, with downstream urban resilience being reliant on upstream rural resilience.

Joined-up thinking is needed right across the globe if we are to sustain habitats for the natural world and to safeguard robust, clean waters. This global water picture has been made up of many jigsaw pieces for centuries and the overall puzzle of achieving supply-for-all is not likely to be fully resolved in our lifetimes. However, many cities in key locations are now adopting water resilience frameworks and are learning from each other, from South America to South Africa and across the Middle East. Such collaboration provides hope…

This summary of the world’s profound ‘water puzzle’ merely scratches the surface. With more questions than answers, perhaps, as anglers, we should look to an alternative surface, namely that of our local, cherished waters, so we may seek solace during these times. 

Of more intimate significance to anyone who spends time beside a living, evolving river, the reading of a river’s swirls, seams, runs, surges, trickles, margins, creases and glides can truly absorb the mind if you allow the water and its sounds to seep in and build a connection. 

Plant life sways to the rhythm of the current

Interpreting the mood music of a river peels back the visible outer layer and peers within to its very soul. Rivers are poems with personalities and temperaments, with a continual conversation between water, vegetation, gravel and silt.

They always have a story to share, intimate stories that can bombard our senses and evoke many different emotions. Some rivers are unruly teenagers, others are distinguished and sophisticated; all are busy carriageways for nature. 

A river’s mood music can change very quickly

Narrow or wide, turbulent or sluggish, efficient or haphazard, they can transform overnight and with changing weather conditions, can rapidly shift from a happy-go-lucky, gurgling melody that makes you tingle, to a rousing uplifting symphony and, on occasion, can complete their metamorphosis into a colossal, raging torrent of an explosive, raucous, heavy metal rock concert. On such days you can often hear the river long before you can see it. 

At such times, quiet backwaters become disfigured with currents and swirls of their own. A tree toppled by floodwater changes the direction of flow and within days becomes an integral part of the river bed as silt and stone builds around it. Shrubs that once stood proudly alongside their vein of water are now submerged, overcome by the river’s new-found demonic power. Shelter for all those alongside and within the river itself can be hard to find at these moments. 

Swirls and seams can be a welcome companion on a day at the river

The return process from flood to ‘normality’ can be equally absorbing. A river’s ability to recover is in-built, as it is for its inhabitants. Change is indeed constant for all forms of life, whether living above or below the water, with its innate ability to provide a calming, soothing backdrop on one day, only for it to reinvent itself in a very short space of time. If you are lucky, the river, in whatever form it takes, can cast its spell and immerse you in another world. 

“To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together”: Barry Lopez (American author and nature writer)

You would expect an angler to be thinking of fish when approaching a river but, in my case, a walk to a river is spent wondering ‘what music might it play today?’ No two days beside a river are the same. From brass bands to string quartets, from country to opera, folk to disco and jazz to rock; a river is surely one of nature’s prominent voices, be it Invigorating or relaxing. All genres can be offered up,depending on its size, prevailing conditions and nearby surroundings. Birds, humming insects and the wind through the trees can often sing in harmony with the river. Such choral concerts can provide the best of days. 

In tumbling over boulders, through narrow ravines, serene glides through meadows, shallow trickles over gravel, swirling over submerged flow disruptors, thunderous, roaring descents over weirs, if one truly listens, all forms of a river’s movements create their own melodic tones and themes. From snow-melt cascading down a mountain, through seasonal rural and urban watercourses, to their journey’s end at the ocean, all stages of a river’s continual search for the path of least resistance can produce the most pleasing of sounds. Raindrops on rooftops and waves breaking on the shore all have their place but the musicality of a river can be a very special companion for an angler.

The flora and fauna are of utmost interest on days by a river but so too is the water music. It is always there, an ever-present accompaniment, a rhythm to be embraced, a tempo to enjoy, an ever-beating pulse, always setting the mood for the day…

Writing & Images Carl Hier, South Wales, Late Spring ’25