Abstract
This volume by Martin Gibling is unusual in that it blends Geology, History and reflection on a life spent researching rivers. The book is a personal reflection and readers should take care to read the prologue as it explains the style and approach of the narrative used throughout the book. As the author states, this book is a ‘scientifically sound yet personal account of rivers on earth from the first rain drop to the current river crisis’. The volume is beautifully illustrated and well presented. Structurally, it is comprised of 22 relatively short and thus readable chapters, which enables a reader to browse and dip in and out of the text.
The book is divided into 5 parts and 22 chapters, loosely chronologically arranged from the evidence for the first rivers in the geological record through the evolution of vegetation and the development of new river styles. Subsequent chapters evolve the story of rivers blending scientific concepts with thumbnail sketches of the scientists, past and present, who developed the ideas and theories that explain how our knowledge of rivers has played out over the world. In this respect, the book succeeds in making the science accessible to a lay audience and adds a layer of information that personalises the otherwise arcane subjects that Martin Gibling deals with (e.g. cratons or superimposition). Laced throughout this narrative are quotes and stories that help enrich the history of the development of river science. The author refers to personal experiences of certain river locations, a reality that draws the reader into the concepts being discussed rather than remaining remote – in much the same way that a lecturer can inject their own personal experience into a subject as opposed to simply reflecting with work of others.
The concepts and timescales used in the book are wide-ranging, featuring Deep Time (i.e. billions of years) to contemporary issues (such as river restoration). These are all illustrated using examples drawn from across the world, from mega rivers in Asia, the Americas and the Arctic, down to personal tales from small Devon streams. Geological and geomorphological concepts are drawn together through a combination of chronological narrative and thematic structure. Thus, in the early sections of the book, big concepts such as the role of tectonic evolution in the geological record of past river courses or the impact of multiple glaciations on the river landscapes (submerged and sub-aerial) give way to discussion of the impact of humans on rivers in the Mid- to Late-Holocene. In the glacial section, for example, chapters explore the role of ice in changing the course of rivers, but also explore the impacts of megafloods from ice dam failures of glacial lakes and the drowning of past riverscapes by the subsequent rise in sea-level as the ice sheets retreated. Within these chapters, readers are introduced to the work of Louis Agassiz, J. Harlen Bretz and Richard Jefferies among others, ‘travelling’ from Iceland through Siberia, the Canadian Arctic, north-western USA, Italy, Asia, Minneapolis (St Anthony Falls), France, the English Channel to the dry valleys of the English chalk landscapes.
Parts 4 and 5 of the book focus on the interaction between rivers and humans; starting with the role the former played in the development of the culture and specifically agriculture of the latter. Irrigation is explored using examples from across the main civilisations of the world from China to the Americas, with a detailed case study of the Indus river and its predecessors – which includes a relatively rare comment on the role of climate in driving river landscapes. The final part (Part 5) focusses on the technological modification of rivers, in particular dams, although the section on lost rivers of London (in essence a chapter on culverting) is worth a read just to reflect on how much a river landscape can change as a result of urbanisation. In the final chapter, Martin Gibling turns to the more hopeful topic of restoring damaged rivers, with examples of dam removal and daylighting (the antidotes to the previous chapters on damming and culverting). It is perhaps at this point that the disparity in humans’ efforts to undo the damage done to rivers is put in stark contrast to the legacy of modifications made during the past 4000 years, and even more prosaically, by the immense changes chronicled in the early chapters on geological and glacial processes. In the end, these offer hope to the river purist, that despite the human impacts in the Anthropocene, it will be the geological processes that ultimately ensure our Earth remains a ‘River Planet’.
Ultimately, in such a wide-ranging narrative, there are gaps and areas where the specialist will suck their teeth and bemoan the lack of a particular example or perhaps a missing concept (restoration does not equal dam removal; and more on the Holocene evolution of incised channels and alluviated floodplains or the role of climate in driving river form), but that is not the point – this book is readable and, more importantly, accessible and well-supported by examples and a full bibliography helpfully arranged by chapter. It is also explicitly personal and as such reflects the experience, bias and focus of that individual – something we are all guilty of; it is just that not many of us go that extra mile and put them down in writing. Perhaps more of us should judging from the results in this volume.