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The image shows St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The waterfall cascades over a wide dam, creating white water below. To the left, grassy areas and concrete structures are visible. A multi-arched bridge spans the river in the background, with trees lining its top. Tall buildings rise beyond the bridge under a partly cloudy sky, indicating a bright and sunny day.
Primary Sources

Owámniyomni: Still We Gather

By Kachina Yeager, Shelley Buck, and Sage Yeager. Mni Wičoni. Water is life. For many of us, water truly is synonymous with life—and not only because human life as we understand it necessitates water for survival. For me, as a Dakota person who also happens to be a poet, I think of water as a type of lineage. I can use waterways as a map that transcends borders of nationhood, of spatial and temporal constraint. In this way, water is a map of not only my life, but all those lives interwoven into the same cycle of water.

Remains of a neighborhood destroyed by Hurricane Irma in Big Pine Key, Florida on Wednesday, September 20, 2017. Photo by J.T. Blatty / FEMA.
In Review

The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jake Bittle

Abandoned homes with boarded up windows. Mold growing up the walls of houses flooded under five feet of water. The charred remnants of entire neighborhoods turned to ash. Fields of white cotton turned brown, the soil below choked with drought. In his new book, The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration, Jake Bittle paints a startling picture of the havoc climate change is wreaking upon various regions of our country. But more stark than the images of the landscapes destroyed are the stories of the humans who call these places home.

Harris County flood rescue. Image by Lt. Zachary West, 100th MPAD/Texas Military Department.
Geographies

Floodplains and Hurricanes: Mapping Natural Disasters to Uncover Vulnerable Communities

Using GIS mapping, I can identify at-risk communities most impacted by water-related natural disasters in the Houston Metropolitan Area (HMA), which is highly susceptible to hurricanes, tropical storms, and excessive flooding. Geospatial analysis reveals that at-risk communities are not randomly distributed throughout the HMA; populations like women and children are at higher risk of disproportionate outcomes during flooding events.

Fig. 1, The Kākā Reserve reflected in the Awataha Stream. Video still from ‘Re-Generation’ 2019. Image courtesy of Laura Donkers.
Feature

(Re)connecting Community to the Awataha Stream

Our modern ways of living have created an environmental crisis that threatens the very survival of humans and many other species. Yet awareness of this situation, though it may create an urgent sense of responsibility and even guilt, does not necessarily translate into action to change our ways. A narrative of “ecological disaster” can alert the public to the need for action, but the scale of the crisis and lack of wisdom to act can be overwhelming.[2] So how can communities become motivated to respond?…

Geographies

Community-managed Traditional Means of Irrigation in the Semi-arid Aravali Landscape

Earthen channels winding like serpents across a hilly landscape are not a common sight everywhere. They appear quite misplaced in a terrain that is highly undulating and rugged, covered with dry deciduous forests and dotted with rocky outcrops. Such a terrain is hardly conducive for agriculture, and irrigation seems unfeasible in villages located in the back of beyond. Yet the sheer will and determination of humans to challenge the impossible and put forth remarkable and ingenious works should never be underestimated.