So I was asked to write a blog post about water. As an environmental engineer specializing in research of an aquatic contaminant, I thought it would be easy enough for me, right? Wrong.
Water means many things. As an environmental engineer, water often refers to something with undesirable qualities, like sewage, that needs to be handled in municipal treatment plants. To my water resource engineering peers, water is something to be managed, often through simulations and computer models. In my public health management, water was something to be monitored to protect human health. To fish, water might be so deeply home that no fluid phase beyond it is known.
To plastic bottle companies, water is a commodity to be shipped and sold. To petroleum refineries, an effective cooling mechanism. To oppressive regimes, water is something that can be leveraged as a form of control – because, of course, water is necessary for all forms of life. Water’s role in the biosphere cannot be overemphasized, yet in my opinion, is more often downplayed in the context of Western (Applied) Science. I can’t help but wonder if this is due – at least in part – to the deep cut of colonization, and its systems that sever our connections to the Earth.
Systems thinking reveals the deep, interconnected complexities of water and people – a relationship that has been recognized by indigenous knowledge systems for time immemorial. Beyond mere recognition, these knowledge systems foster the understanding that humans have a responsibility to care for water – not as a resource, but as a relative, a lifeblood, and a living spirit.
If water is indeed a spirit, it is one that is hurting, warming, and choking on our plastic. I remember the pit in my stomach when I first learned of the devastation of a tsunami; the ways water can hurt us. That same stomach pit returned years later in grad school, when I learned the insidious ubiquity of microplastics in the water cycle. The ways we hurt water, we hurt not just ourselves, but everyone and everything else. As I continue my journey through this world, governed by humanity’s systems of systems of systems, I consider the different worldviews humans have towards water.
I fill my water bottle in the kitchen sink, dictating the temperature with a gentle turn of my wrist. Clean, cold lifeblood flows past my fingertips.
I acknowledge the wisdom woven into traditional ways of knowing Water as a being. I consider the fragility of systems that cannot reconcile themselves with this. As a systems thinker, I hold immense awe and respect for this truly transboundary force.
I am distracted, and the bottle overflows. Water spills over my hand like a weir.
Frozen, for a moment, I let it.
Written by: Kiera Greenaway
Kiera Greenaway (she/her) holds a BSc in Civil-Environmental Engineering from the University of Alberta, and is completing her MSc in Environmental Engineering, also at the University of Alberta. Her graduate research projects focus on investigating and addressing microplastics in aquatic environments. Kiera is passionate about sustainability, justice, and continuous learning in its many forms.
IWA YWP Canada 