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OpenStreetMap is a map of the world, created by people like you and free to use under an open license.

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To Revive a River, Restore Its Hidden Gut

By:Erica Gies April 1, 2022

Radical #reconstruction in Seattle is bringing nearly dead urban streams back to productive life

#Salmon are so elemental to #Indigenous peoples who live along North America’s northwestern coast that for generations several nations have called themselves the “Salmon People.”

But when settlers came, their forms of agricultural and urban development devastated the mighty fish. The new inhabitants cut down streamside vegetation that once slowed and absorbed rains, causing floods.

They #straightened curvy creeks to try to speed floodwater off the land and #armored the sides to prevent erosion, but the faster flow gouged the riverbed.

Later, urban planners and engineers funneled streams into buried ##pipes so they could build more city on top, disconnecting waterways from soil,
plants and animals.

The cumulative impact of these injuries led to flash #floods, #unstable banks, heavy #pollution and waning life.

The hallowed salmon all but disappeared.

Across North America and the world, cities have bulldozed their waterways into submission. Seattle was as guilty as any until 1999

https://ericagies.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/To-Revive-a-River-Restore-Its-Hidden-Gut-Scientific-American-compressed.pdf